I have a very very big problem

Hi everyone

i'm so glad that you guys are here to help whenever someone has a problem. kudos guys, i really appreciate it

i know i've not been active here for a long time and that's because i've been busy with studies etc etc.

now, on to the problem. i had a PC which was capable of running gp3 flawlessly, but sadly, the motherboard of that pc died. i still have all my gp3 stuff, mods, belini tracks, etc. i'vve got it all. the problem is that i decided to build myself a new pc. and the other problem is that microsoft discontinued support for windows xp in 2014.

let me explain. i upgraded from the following

motherboard: ECS GeForce6100pm-m2
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5000
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 onboard graphics
RAM: 4GB DDR2

to the following:

motherboard: Asus MA597 R2.0
CPU: AMD FX 6350 (6 core)
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6770
RAM: 8GB DDR3 (consair)

now, the problem is, i can't install windows xp anymore because all my product keys are 'apparently' invalid, according to microsoft, eventhough prior to 2014, i installed that xp at least twice with no problems (reformatted it a couple of times) and gp3 ran perfectly both times (those were the days)

now, i can't install xp, so i have to install windows 7. windows 7 hates gp3, and i can't get it to run smoothly at all, ive fiddled round with sound drivers, graphics settings (literally everything i could find in these forums). i got it to run decently in xp sp2 compatibility mode, but with the graphics settings turned way way down, to '6' on the slider thing. and even then PO was around 80%, and with a field of cars it went up to like 700% or something. very fluctuant though.

if i run the belini tracks, it's even worse. i can only get it to run decently at around 7 in the graphics settings, and i can't admire the beauty of the track and the time and effort which has been spent on those tracks. (i just get a bunch of grey buildings and very little detail).

i'm really stuck. i don't want to leave gp3. i mean, it's not like my pc is old, and it's not like my pc can't run the game. it's more than capable of running assetto corsa if i want it to. (google it if you don't know what it is. probably the next best thing after gp3 imo)

so, what should i do?

buying a second hand xp pc is out of the question, i can't do that i'm afraid

thanks in advance

i know what you're feeling...since a few days, i'm also struggling with my xp.
the game freezes, xp crashes for now reason, it only starts with install disc....
I already installed 3-4 times my backup image, and after a few days it starts again

fingers crossed

..MS conspiracy

@ OldIsGold
2 partitions will help:
1 with win7/8, connected to web
1 with XP, unconnected (cracked & with disabled networkadapter -never online)

Thanks for the sympathy and suggestions. However I refuse to illegally own a copy of anything. It's just not me.

However I do have some good news. I was scrutinising my graphics settings earlier today and in the AMD catalyst control centre, I found an option under gaming, about anti aliasing which related to Direct3D (which is used by gp3). So I decided to turn it on and give it a go on windows 7. And hey guess what? The original gp3 worked like a charm, no problem, wet races, 22 cars, and PO went no more than 60% :D

However, the sad news is that the belini stuff and modded stuff in general runs super slow, as before. But at least I have core gp3 back in hardware mode!

However windows 8.1 is a slightly different story. (well its not really windows 8.1, it's windows 10 technical preview, but I'm guessing its still mostly windows 8.1 under the hood. But I do still have windows 8.1 gpu drivers installed on windows 10)

Now, I enabled the same direct 3d option in AMD catalyst control centre on windows 10, and gp3 in hardware mode is super slow still. But it works like a charm in software mode (unlike before). The trouble is, in windows 10, the game doesn't recognise my graphics card. It comes up with loads of question marks in the graphics menu. I think this is the problem. Knowing this is only a technical preview, this issue could also be related to the actual OS itself.

What I'm gonna try tomorrow is to install the Windows 7 gpu drivers on windows 10 and see if there is any difference. I'll report back soon.

You see, windows 10 is going to be a free upgrade from windows 7 and 8.1, so my priority is to at least get the core gp3 working in hardware mode on windows 10. It only works in software mode at the moment. It's still super slow in hardware mode.

In the meantime, your suggestions are welcome

Thanks again in advance

I think you can use a program to emulate XP on 7 and run GP3 from there. I don't know exactly what programs emulate XP, but personally I use DOSBox in order to run GP2 (when the nostalgia kicks in) and it does nicely. Emulators consume resources, but your PC seems pretty powerful and I don't think you should have major problems. As always, Google is your friend here.



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

Quote
OldisGold
I refuse to illegally own a copy of anything.

Are you kidding ? XP is such old that MS have stopped all kind of support on it. As such it is abandonware and, if I understand it correctly you already own a copy/licence with your old PC, so go for it. My vote is for Pirx idea, the easiest one IMO.

---

First of all, thanks again for your help. I will try all the suggestions you said.

But first, later today, I will try my windows 7 graphics drivers on windows 10, and then ill try windows XP graphics drivers as well. I really really think its a graphics problem because I copied an original gp3 track onto one of my mods yesterday, and even the original track was slow. So either its a graphics issue or its a gpx patch issue which is bogging the game down.

Thanks again and I'll post back with more updates soon

..forget every OS-emulation for gp3!
-it only worx with SW-mode
-no HW-mode -> no mods/very less tracks

..gp3 runs flawless on win7/64 here:
disable all(!) features of your gcard (antialiasing, anisotropic filtering,etc..-just all) with AMD-catalyst and it should work

pirx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ..forget every OS-emulation for gp3!
> -it only worx with SW-mode
> -no HW-mode -> no mods/very less tracks
>
> ..gp3 runs flawless on win7/64 here:
> disable all(!) features of your gcard
> (antialiasing, anisotropic filtering,etc..-just
> all) with AMD-catalyst and it should work


Also no problems here on Acer Aspire Win7, 64bit... with Nvidia GeForce GT320 graphics... I just installed the original game and perhaps I didn't made a graphic calibration, but did the adjustments manually (can't remember it) - try it out

So here's an update on the situation. No matter what I tried, which drivers I tried, I could not get gp3 to run quickly in hw mode in windows10. Gp3 would still not detect my graphics card. However, in windows 7, the situation is a lot different. I did a test. I copied one of belinis tracks from 2014 into my original gp3, installed gpx patch, and ran with the same settings I used to in xp. Worked flawlessly! Then I tried out 11marco's (?) 2012 mod. Was very very slow. I also tried an original gp3 track in 11marco's mod, and even that was slow. So I came to the conclusion that I'm gonna have to re-mod the whole thing from scratch (shouldn't take too long). And theoretically it should work like a charm with all the belini tracks!

Now how am I gonna get round the Windows 10 update?

Simple

I have 2 copies of windows 7. Windows 7 ultimate and windows 7 home premium. I'll update one, and isolate the other. Disable WiFi adapter, and it should do the trick. I'll use windows 10 for daily use and keep windows 7 on my second hard drive for gp3 and utilities.

If I have any problems or if my original gp3 bogs down because of mods, I'll report here

Thanks for your suggestions, they all helped my make decisions and fish out solutions





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2015 12:29AM by OldIsGold.

Try it with all panels in GPxCinfo set to 'off'
This might help, it does for me.

hi, here's the story so far

so i remodded my clean version of the game, and it worked flawlessly on windows 7! (thanks dirk for the tracks, stunning job)

so i was wondering that why didn't my older mods work and why did this new modded version work?

i figured it was the rain setting. if you set 'chance of rain' to automatic, the game runs super slow.
also, if you set it manually to below 20%, the game runs super slow. if it's anything above 20%, it's flawlessly quick!

so i went into my other mods and set rain to 25%, and they all worked perfectly!

sadly, windows 10 is still a problem

when i put rain above 20%, then it gets slightly better but PO is still 600%

on windows 7, all belini stuff runs perfect on PO of around 60%

thanks again guys for all the help