Kartik 21.07 just released on the stable branch, which means all users will get its features!

For this version of Kartik, which is the first major update since the game released, we decided to separate the code in two (which is called "branching" in development), which means we have the 21.07 codebase on one end, and the 21.08 codebase on another end. That way, we can work on both versions at the same time. An example of this co-working was a bug fix from 21.08 we backported to 21.07 (that bug enabled users to count a lap when they die)

So here is a tiny peak at what's new in Kartik 21.07:

• We added a system that checks if a game file was changed (by a virus or to install cheats for example), and added a progress bar to the loading screen (because checking every file takes very long)
• If your GPU supports it, nice blur effects will show in the background of some UI elements
• Info about GPU supported features, that were already present in EAP versions, have now been redesigned and are present in all versions. They also try to show your GPU model and the amount of VRAM you have
  • It only shows the percentage of "supportness". On EAP versions, you can still press Shift to show more details
  • It will disable some of the game's visual effects if your GPU is not supported enough, to prevent the game from being slow due to the CPU doing all the rendering
• Some bugs (not just the one we backported from 21.08) has been fixed, including some crashes
• You can now press F3 to get many details about what is going on while you're playing (things such as cars speed, position, performance, ...)
• Some of the new messages in Kartik 21.07 are not yet translated, we expect these to be fully translated in all supported languages in Kartik 21.08

A beta version of what will eventually become Kartik 21.08 will be branched (it will be available to EAP users) in early August; this version is expected to release by the end of August.

Have fun with this new release!