Driving aid question

[Raine Riihimäki]

I can't provide the exact guide, but I would assume (I never got deeply into rF1 due to lack of built-in rain) that process is similar to rFactor. Some files extensions are different, but you can do a lot by editing track, championship .gdb and per car .car files. I think the best way to learn is by looking at how mods do it. IIRC F1 1994 mod tries to do something like that, where some cars appear only on some stages of the championship. Basically what you did in rF1 should work with small differences in GTR2. I remember there was a guide for .gdb file but I could not locate it today.

Ok thanks once again, and one thing =D! Is PnG3 harder to computer than GTR2?
Because I drove Sebring 70s version on my GTR2 HQ version and it ran from the pits to track stable 120fps,
but when I drove that exact same track on my PnG3 mod, it dipped in pits to 30-50fps and on the track where it was more plain/fields etc. it was about 70-120fps...lots of changing. Tried race with 10-15 AI there and it was impossible. Fps was 9-20fps...In GTR2 I can drive 40 ai cars and frames dip never below 100.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Unfortunately it is complicated. PnG cars themselves are low polygon, but there are bugs in content and GTR2 that can slow game to a crawl, and my current understanding it mostly has to do with collisions (car to car and car to track). I have no solution for you on this - sometimes different car/track combinations just run very slow. Solving collision problem is my biggest dream for GTR2 that I still have not solved.

That said - before you judge the performance, you should try installing my plugin as it fixes many issues in the game and if you enable all the optimizations you might get higher framerate in some situations (especially, if you have modern PC) and not run out of memory. But as I said before, enabling all the features requires time investment and since plugin is a hack, it does not work for some. Good luck!

 

[Raine Riihimäki]

Unfortunately it is complicated. PnG cars themselves are low polygon, but there are bugs in content and GTR2 that can slow game to a crawl, and my current understanding it mostly has to do with collisions (car to car and car to track). I have no solution for you on this - sometimes different car/track combinations just run very slow. Solving collision problem is my biggest dream for GTR2 that I still have not solved.

That said - before you judge the performance, you should try installing my plugin as it fixes many issues in the game and if you enable all the optimizations you might get higher framerate in some situations (especially, if you have modern PC) and not run out of memory. But as I said before, enabling all the features requires time investment and since plugin is a hack, it does not work for some. Good luck!

Thank you! I will attack now in to realms of this sim. One thing I noticed straight away is base content just works. I mean the tracks that are in GTR2 default. No matter what track and car combination it is, if it's just base game track, it's always 100-120fps. But right when you throw there some mod tracks/cars, suffering begins.

It's got to be some sort of physics issue (your thinking must be very near the truth) because resolution tweakings, detail tweakings did not have effect at all to framerates in my computer(i7 8700k, rtx 2080ti, 16gb of ram and ssd..my specs ain't monstrous at all). This game's old motor must be "calculating" something too much with mods etc. (like it has no "boundaries") compared to base game content where it clearly performs
much better.
You've done incredible job with GTR2 and crewchief and I just wanted to thank you! I'll figure these framedrops on my own using your plugins.

 

[Raine Riihimäki]

Unfortunately it is complicated. PnG cars themselves are low polygon, but there are bugs in content and GTR2 that can slow game to a crawl, and my current understanding it mostly has to do with collisions (car to car and car to track). I have no solution for you on this - sometimes different car/track combinations just run very slow. Solving collision problem is my biggest dream for GTR2 that I still have not solved.

That said - before you judge the performance, you should try installing my plugin as it fixes many issues in the game and if you enable all the optimizations you might get higher framerate in some situations (especially, if you have modern PC) and not run out of memory. But as I said before, enabling all the features requires time investment and since plugin is a hack, it does not work for some. Good luck!

Nailed my problem. Now both GTR2 HQ and PnG3mod are running stable 100fps on every track I tested.
With or without traffic. Before in PnG3mod, especially in mod tracks and in this example sebring70s track I
had in pits about 30-50fps..in track far away from finish area, I had about 50-80fps..and this BY MYSELF.
Now using Iron Wolf's plugins in CC and instructions from Shovas I made it 100fps all the time.
Thanks again..marvellous things made possible in GTR2!

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Nailed my problem. No both GTR2 HQ and PnG3mod are running stable 100fps on every track I tested.
With or without traffic. Before in PnG3mod, especially in mod tracks and in this example sebring70s track I
had in pits about 30-50fps..in track far away from finish area, I had about 50-80fps..and this BY MYSELF.
Now using Iron Wolf's plugins in CC and instructions from Shovas I made it 100fps all the time.
Thanks again..marvellous things made possible in GTR2!

did you enable DXVK? If not I encourage you to do so, especially since you are on Nvidia card. It may not add more frames, but it improves memory usage and image quality, and I don't even test DX9 anymore - all the new features assume DXVK is in use. Instructions are in both plugin manual and on Shovas' wiki.

 

[Raine Riihimäki]

did you enable DXVK? If not I encourage you to do so, especially since you are on Nvidia card. It may not add more frames, but it improves memory usage and image quality, and I don't even test DX9 anymore - all features assume DXVK is in use. Instructions are in both plugin manual and on Shovas' wiki.

Yes I did enable it and I think personally that it made the strongest difference to performance.
This is like paradise now to drive these old cars in PNG3. And there is so much to tweak and test.
Unbelievable work from you and everyone involved!

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Yes I did enable it and I think personally that it made the strongest difference to performance.
This is like paradise now to drive these old cars in PNG3. And there is so much to tweak and test.
Unbelievable work from you and everyone involved!

Enjoy! Did you enable h-shifting/flat spots/dirt pickup stuff? Also, little known fact HQ includes button controllable wipers for PnG cars and my plugin wires wipers into the game (binding is at the bottom of Extra's) page. I also created 80FPS version of GTR233 wipers, available at trackaholics.

FWIW the perf difference you see is most likely from the affinity settings in the plugin but who cares - yes, game runs better I heard that many times, and that's my nr1 priority - performance (+simulation accuracy). Only those damn collisions.... I once spent two months trying to multithread them but failed then one day maybe.

 

[Raine Riihimäki]

I'm pretty much at the point where every setting is stock or very near stock. I'm going to enable h-shifting/flat spots and dirt pickup. I remember that in HQ setup when answering those questions what is going to be added,
there was dirt pickup option. Are these related with cc plugin?
Oh, or is it so that the other is just for graphics enhancement and the other also affects physics/behaviour of the car?
And yes that affinity setting from the plugin most definitely did biggest impact. It's like night and day difference now compared to what I struggled with couple of days ago.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

I'm pretty much at the point where every setting is stock or very near stock. I'm going to enable h-shifting/flat spots and dirt pickup. I remember that in HQ setup when answering those questions what is going to be added,
there was dirt pickup option. Are these related with cc plugin?
Oh, or is it so that the other is just for graphics enhancement and the other also affects physics/behaviour of the car?
And yes that affinity setting from the plugin most definitely did biggest impact. It's like night and day difference now compared to what I struggled with couple of days ago.

yeah - HQ option is content change. Plugin setting actually affects driving.

 

[Raine Riihimäki]

yeah - HQ option is content change. Plugin setting actually affects driving.

Now I've tested dirt pickup/ flat spots and done some further testing with the plugin. It really is a great tool and makes this game so much better. H-shifter settings is underway, I test things slowly. I want it to be as realistic as it can be and I want to make it feel "realistic" with paddles also. When time is hard to get/ too busy, It's sometimes just fun to drive with fast setup. Just making sure downshifts/upshifts are made "realistically".
H-shifter driving is heaven still. I've added some shaders also, but not activated them yet. So much to do!! Thanks again for this!

 

[The Iron Wolf]

I want it to be as realistic as it can be and I want to make it feel "realistic" with paddles also.`

Yes, plugin tries to add "realism" features that GTR2 is missing or simply did not exist in 2006 (spin/lock indicators for example). There are also changes for sequential shifting and more planned as I got more insights from becoming an owner of sporty high powered paddle shifted car. The lowlight is that some features need modding support, and the only guy who really utilized them moved to AMS2 since. Hopefully some other modders will utilize them, but so far interest in simulation accuracy is (to me) surprisingly low. The most "popular" features are visual things, actual driving things not so much.

 

[Raine Riihimäki]

Yes, plugin tries to add "realism" features that GTR2 is missing or simply did not exist in 2006 (spin/lock indicators for example). There are also changes for sequential shifting and more planned as I got more insights from becoming an owner of sporty high powered paddle shifted car. The lowlight is that some features need modding support, and the only guy who really utilized them moved to AMS2 since. Hopefully some other modders will utilize them, but so far interest in simulation accuracy is (to me) surprisingly low. The most "popular" features are visual things, actual driving things not so much.

It's surprising really. Realism adds so much more to driving games. Btw, how to make rules like they were in like
1967 sportscars series? Just drove PnG3 mod in Sebring 67 track and immersion stopped when I was ordered to do stop and go =D. Still tons of fun had! Ford GT driven with h-shifter and flatspot was like in 2nd lap on my right front tire. Dirt pickup also..hah! I usually drive like 1hr to 1hr30min races with 30-44 cars in and I start from last position and grind from there. It's fun to see where I end up. Last race I was DQed. I did pitlane speed adjustment from your plugin.ini

 

[The Iron Wolf]

It's surprising really. Realism adds so much more to driving games. Btw, how to make rules like they were in like
1967 sportscars series? Just drove PnG3 mod in Sebring 67 track and immersion stopped when I was ordered to do stop and go =D. Still tons of fun had! Ford GT driven with h-shifter and flatspot was like in 2nd lap on my right front tire. Dirt pickup also..hah! I usually drive like 1hr to 1hr30min races with 30-44 cars in and I start from last position and grind from there. It's fun to see where I end up. Last race I was DQed. I did pitlane speed adjustment from your plugin.ini

Hehe, did you ever lose a gear?

What did you get stop and go for (the message on top should say)? It is possible it is not for speeding, but for cutting the track? I don't remember if base game has setting to disable penalties completely, it sounds like this is something you seek. If game does not have that, I might add those options at some point, with all the progress I made it is easy to do but no idea when. This year is dedicated to making pit stops configurable (I am F1 and modern DTM fan so overall that's where the most work is planned) and I really need to stay focused - first half year was all spent on visuals, took much longer than expected.

Do you know the exact sportscar 1967 rules? I care about rules a lot - that's what differentiates joyride from motorsport.

 

[Raine Riihimäki]

Hehe, did you ever lose a gear?

What did you get stop and go for (the message on top should say)? It is possible it is not for speeding, but for cutting the track? I don't remember if base game has setting to disable penalties completely, it sounds like this is something you seek. If game does not have that, I might add those options at some point, with all the progress I made it is easy to do but no idea when. This year is dedicated to making pit stops configurable (I am F1 and modern DTM fan so overall that's where the most work is planned) and I really need to stay focused - first half year was all spent on visuals, took much longer than expected.

Do you know the exact sportscar 1967 rules? I care about rules a lot - that's what differentiates joyride from motorsport.

I don't know exact rules from that year. But I assume there wasn't too much of them. I got my penalty from cutting the track and I cut it twice so I had to drive pits 2 times to serve it, hahaa. I tried to search those rules but nothing found immediately. There is a setting to disable penalties and leave only yellow flags.
I'll be trying that next time. I have DTM-classics mod for GTR2 but I haven't installed it yet.
I like DTM too and modern racing also. DTM experiences for raceroom racing experience were really fun. Simbin does AI well in my opinion.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

I don't know exact rules from that year. But I assume there wasn't too much of them. I got my penalty from cutting the track and I cut it twice so I had to drive pits 2 times to serve it, hahaa. I tried to search those rules but nothing found immediately. There is a setting to disable penalties and leave only yellow flags.
I'll be trying that next time. I have DTM-classics mod for GTR2 but I haven't installed it yet.
I like DTM too and modern racing also. DTM experiences for raceroom racing experience were really fun. Simbin does AI well in my opinion.

Yes I agree, R3E has one of the best AI, but no rain nor Safety Car and no night sadly.

EDIT: quick google search - simply turn off flag rules in game options to disable rules, sounds like that's what you want.

 

[Raine Riihimäki]

Yes I agree, R3E has one of the best AI, but no rain nor Safety Car and no night sadly.

EDIT: quick google search - simply turn off flag rules in game options to disable rules, sounds like that's what you want.

Yes, that is the next type of rule I'll race with. THX!

 

[roby13]

Yes, plugin tries to add "realism" features that GTR2 is missing or simply did not exist in 2006 (spin/lock indicators for example). There are also changes for sequential shifting and more planned as I got more insights from becoming an owner of sporty high powered paddle shifted car. The lowlight is that some features need modding support, and the only guy who really utilized them moved to AMS2 since. Hopefully some other modders will utilize them, but so far interest in simulation accuracy is (to me) surprisingly low. The most "popular" features are visual things, actual driving things not so much.

You mean @GTR233 is modding for ams2? ??

 

[The Iron Wolf]

You mean @GTR233 is modding for ams2? ??

No, I did not mean GTR233. HQ pack does not really utilize CCGEP other than button controllable wipers and additional LCD data pages, which both are very simple car modifications that are easy to add (I do it all the time). Most enhancmenents that need actual more complicated car changes were developed with another modder who actually converted many of his cars to use spin/lock indicators and Enhanced Motec. He also added DRS LEDs to DTM 2018 cars, DRS, antistall indicator and different visual compounds, including soft/medium/hard to F1 2011 cars. He is humble and does not like his nick mentioned I race pretty much only his cars as racing cars with static text in the motec or cars that have spin lock indicators IRL but are not updated to use them makes no sense.

 

[roby13]

Are you talking about private mods or SID?

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Are you talking about private mods or SID?

Not SID although Sid has WIP mod that utilizes DRS, Enhanced Motec and extra gears.

Most of it is private due to everyone requiring permission, which is a shame because enhanced DTM 2018 is like the best mod for GTR2. However, if you search Trackaholics "for Crew Chief" you'll find some public cars. They are a bit outdated, but most work is good on them still.

BTW before GTR233 went quiet we worked on car body rain drops and got them working on DTM 2018 cars. Let's hope rain drops for base HQ cars will get released one day.