GUIDE: How to run Grand Prix 3 on Windows 10

Hi,

Thanks for the initial help. I have tried everything I have thrown into it so far. Admin grants, compatibility, reinstall Windows, nothing seems to make it work again. Even a fresh, clean install will not work.

I can't believe... it was working three days ago. A simple GP3 + dgVoodoo 2 setup was rendering a perfect racing game at a perfect speed. And all that in a Windows 11 Pro ARM64 VM on Parallels Desktop v17. Now it just refuses to work.

Meanwhile other old games with the same age like CS 1.6 and Max Payne 1 just works flawlessly.

I'm about to bang my head into the wall...

if it's the same as mine, it's inexplicable. I have several grand prix 3 with mod installed on my hd, but what I play most behaves exactly as you reported. It looks like something has to do with the internet connection. when there was no wifi signal, it worked the first time, otherwise I had to open the task manager, end the gp3.exe process, this causes an error in gpxpatch, close the error window and start gpxpatch again. This causes the game to start. the why of it? I don't know!
my system is win7 64 bit. Let me know if it works!

---

se for igual o meu, é inexplicável. tenho vários grand prix 3 com mod instalados no meu hd, mas o que eu mais jogo se comporta exatamente como você relatou. parece que tem alguma coisa envolvendo conexção de internet. quando estava sem sinal de wi-fi, funcionava de primeira, caso contrário, eu tinha que abrir o gerênciador de tarefas, finalizar processo do gp3.exe, isso faz gerar um erro no gpxpatch, fechar a janela de erro e iniciar o gpxpatch novamente. Isso faz com que o jogo inicie. o porque disso? não sei!
meu sistema é win7 64 bits. Me avise se funcionar!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2022 02:31PM by rodrogo.

@rodrogo:

I have no error messages, nothing stuck in Task Manager, the game silently refuses to launch. I checked Event Viewer logs. The game crashes with error code 0xc0000409 and the information points to a BEX crash event.

I tried all the possible solutions I could find on the internet for that issue and nothing works. Game simply silently refuses to launch.

Did you check the dgVoodoo2 parameters?

Did you reinstall the dgVoodoo2 (some other game could be changed something)?

Fireman mode: coult you try to reset your windows installation?

alvaro_degas Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did you check the dgVoodoo2 parameters?
>
> Did you reinstall the dgVoodoo2 (some other game
> could be changed something)?
>
> Fireman mode: coult you try to reset your windows
> installation?


I tried all I could. I have even reinstalled Win 11. In the end, I worked around it by using DxWnd with dgVoodoo 2. Apparently, DxWnd is "helping" Windows to see it as a DX7 game and use the right directx calls, since Windows 11 comes with DX12. The only annoying thing is that I need to fire DxWnd every time I want to play GP3.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2022 04:32PM by Castello.

Is it due to gameux?
[msfn.org]
I used to have the same problem as you

I'm going to post this here as it feels relevant since I am playing GP3 on W10 with dgVoodoo but I'm getting really annoyed by these constant crashes happening in the game. It's almost always me crashing every second time I'm about to get myself on the circuit about to race, sometimes I get lucky enough to get to the track the third or fourth time before it crashes the next time, sometimes it's even crashing at the last minute changes and weather screen or the lights loading screen. I'm worried about this being a bloody nuisance for me when I would eventually be doing a championship run with myself finetuning my setup and then the game crashing every time I re-enter the track inbetween. The only thing that helps me with this is quicksaves but I still need to restart the game just to get back to the track. At least it works every first time I get to the track but afterward it becomes unreliable.

PTRACER, your tutorial works real GREAT!

I try it with Win11 and it worked at the 1st time.
Thanks a lot!

Thrashmands Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm going to post this here as it feels relevant
> since I am playing GP3 on W10 with dgVoodoo but
> I'm getting really annoyed by these constant
> crashes happening in the game. It's almost always
> me crashing every second time I'm about to get
> myself on the circuit about to race, sometimes I
> get lucky enough to get to the track the third or
> fourth time before it crashes the next time,
> sometimes it's even crashing at the last minute
> changes and weather screen or the lights loading
> screen. I'm worried about this being a bloody
> nuisance for me when I would eventually be doing a
> championship run with myself finetuning my setup
> and then the game crashing every time I re-enter
> the track inbetween. The only thing that helps me
> with this is quicksaves but I still need to
> restart the game just to get back to the track. At
> least it works every first time I get to the track
> but afterward it becomes unreliable.

Did you found a soluction?

I've saw this in a specific track: Austin.

Until now, all others works fine to me.

Ok, I followed the guide for using dgVoodoo2. I still use windows 7 and with the latest version of dgVoodoo I had a big graphical problem (the screen was all green except the cars), but I solved it by downloading a version from last year. Finally it seems to work, the graphics are no longer corrupted but .... I realized that something is wrong about the video resolution. The menu says that I am using the maximum resolution (1280) but visually it is evident that in reality the images are grainier than usual. I am convinced that the game is running at a lower resolution than indicated. But I don't know how to solve. I tried to delete the cards and gconfig file but ... nothing, not solved.
Some idea?

After the death of the HDMI port of my old laptop, I can't run GP3 on it, and trying to make it work on another computer raised several questions. Initially, I settled with DxWnd to be able to run the game in a window and record my races. (dgvoodoo didn't have any glitch, but it was slower)

That laptop is a Dell 7720SE, and it has a Core I7 3630QM, with a dual HD4000/GT650M (Optimus) as graphic cards. The game runs smoothly (with a few transparency glitches), I never reach 100% occupancy, even in rain when starting a race, so I figured I shouldn't have issues running the game on newer hardware.
Boy was I wrong !

We have another "old" laptop, an HP Envy, equipped with a Core I7-4702MQ and a HD4000/GT750M duo in it (Optimus again). On the paper, it's equivalent. In real life, definitely not. The PO is twice as high, and I can't figure out why ? The CPU should run faster overall (and is clocked higher so should also be faster on a single thread), the graphic card is supposed to be faster also. But I reach 170% PO in the first bend when starting a race.

So I tried to find another solution, and used an old desktop computer (core i5-6600 + Intel G650), with the same install / dxwnd config). Like the second laptop, PO is too high to be usable. The visual glitches are the same as with my laptops, so I'm starting to think that I'm not using the GeForce, always the intel integrated GPU. (despite asking the opposite in the drivers)
Is there a way to check which GPU GP3 is using ? When I look at the resource monitor, both GPUs are working, but load is low (around 30%).

I borrowed a GTX1050 to make some tests and plugged it on that desktop computer. I get more glitches (wheels half drawn, many parts of the cars not displayed, holes in the cockpit). But PO drops and there are no more slowdowns.
I ran the game with dgvoodoo instead. No graphic glitch, but higher PO.
Weirdly, i'm unable to run the game in a window with dgvoodoo, which has two consequences:
- when switching from menu to race and back, sometimes the game resolution is wrong (far too small, and not centered on my screen)
- i can't record the game anymore, it's not visible by OBS, even in "full screen" mode.

I tried to run dgvoodoo and dxwnd at the same time, by launching the game with dxwnd with the dgvoodoo dlls installed. The game won't start.
I saw that dxwnd has a folder to put alternate dlls, typically to use dgvoodoo as a renderer, but I can't make it work. The files don't seem to be taken into accound. Anyone could help me on this ? Is there an option to enable ?

I use the last nvidia drivers, should i try older ones ? Has anyone seen differences between driver versions ?



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2022 10:46AM by zifox.

firstly, laptop is unusual equivalent to the desktop one, by energy/battery policy reasons (by windows decision).
Make sure your laptops are running at maximum performances ( also video drivers). Make also sure,
when they have dual video card, maybe windows default one is not the better one ( if you launch with dxwnd and going in the gp3 menu graphics options, make sure you have selected vidia one instead intel in all cases). Otherwise you need to set the default videocard o use for that app or make the windows one default the nvidia. the defects you mentioned (no black zone rendered and seeing as transparence) is a "recent" (since 2015 about) drivers videocards by intel, due a problem to manage keycolour params in directdraw (old direct7 drivers).
Maybe they did intentionally, since this defect appeared in intel videocard drivers of windows when it was aside xbox consoles by microsoft itself, and that brought a worsly performances in pc windows gaming , on the same hardware. However nvidia in my experience has not that defect with dxwnd, that's why I supposed to check the correct videocard GP3 is using. Maybe check if in Bios you can disable at all intel card , using just the nvida.
dgvoodoo has advantage to emulate an own videocard and so make it no defect with old directx games. dxWnd instead do, cause it use old directX called on the real hardware (better performances).
What I could suggest, use dgvoodoo full screen with forced resolution to 1280x960 and set gp3 in option graphics to 640x480 , that should be improve performances. To record I suggest Fraps, or atubecatcher. that seemed working with gp3.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2022 07:35PM by pippozzo.

pippozzo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> firstly, laptop is unusual equivalent to the
> desktop one, by energy/battery policy reasons (by
> windows decision).
> Make sure your laptops are running at maximum
> performances ( also video drivers). Make also
> sure,
> when they have dual video card, maybe windows
> default one is not the better one ( if you launch
> with dxwnd and going in the gp3 menu graphics
> options, make sure you have selected vidia one
> instead intel in all cases). Otherwise you need to
> set the default videocard o use for that app or
> make the windows one default the nvidia. the
> defects you mentioned (no black zone rendered and
> seeing as transparence) is a "recent" (since 2015
> about) drivers videocards by intel, due a problem
> to manage keycolour params in directdraw (old
> direct7 drivers).
> Maybe they did intentionally, since this defect
> appeared in intel videocard drivers of windows
> when it was aside xbox consoles by microsoft
> itself, and that brought a worsly performances in
> pc windows gaming , on the same hardware. However
> nvidia in my experience has not that defect with
> dxwnd, that's why I supposed to check the correct
> videocard GP3 is using. Maybe check if in Bios you
> can disable at all intel card , using just the
> nvida.

Thanks for your answer. I did some more tests and indeed, the Nvidia GPU is never used. I ran GP3 on both laptops, after setting the performance option both in nvidia drivers and in windows Display settings. (I can't disable the Intel GPU in the bios.)
To make sure I had no interference with other apps, I launched GP3 alone, without Wheeler (displays the steering wheel controls) or OBS.

The values in the resouce monitor were clear: the NVidia GPU is never used. The Intel one is, with a load around 30% on both laptops. So I guess last time, it was OBS and Wheeler which put some load on the NVidia GPU.
One weird thing with GPU Load. I set the performance (NVidia) by default, and while I could see Nvidia GPU load peaks when starting dwnd and gpxpatch, as soon as GP3 starts, if falls to 0. Meaning the game forces the intel card when it starts. The Nvidia GPU can 't be selected in GP3, I see the Intel one twice, even after making a performance test.
One other games, the NVidia GPU get a very high load immediately.

It's interesting what you say about nvidia, because I have a lot more bugs with the desktop GTX1050 than with the intel integrated. I'm wondering if Nvidia has the same drivers issue you mentionned, I should maybe try to get older drivers ?

> dgvoodoo has advantage to emulate an own videocard
> and so make it no defect with old directx games.
> dxWnd instead do, cause it use old directX called
> on the real hardware (better performances).
> What I could suggest, use dgvoodoo full screen
> with forced resolution to 1280x960 and set gp3 in
> option graphics to 640x480 , that should be
> improve performances. To record I suggest Fraps,
> or atubecatcher. that seemed working with gp3.

I'd like to keep OBS, i'm recording the game and integrating Wheeler in the video to show pedals and wheel position. I'm digging through dgvoodoo and dxwnd forums to find some info, but so far not a lead on how to make both app work together... and with GP3.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2022 10:25PM by zifox.

I tried to revert to older driver for the 1050 card, but it didn't change anything. Same visual bugs.
I ran GP4 (modded from head to toes), it runs smoothly in 1440p @ 60fps on the same computer for a 20-30% PO.

I'm a bit confused by the performances of each platform, because the slower on paper is actually the one running the best.

I think the visual bugs in GP3 are due cause GP3 isn't using the 1050 card but just the intel one. is the intel card with visual bugs. in dgvoodoo (use the 2.52 version) seems all right. But dxWnd didin't still sorted the problem. find out here to this post.

[sourceforge.net]


But you said there is nomode to use the nvida in GP3 with dual card pc.
Using the GT610 nvida (in desktop pc, in my experience) visual bugs are sorted.

The 1050 card is definitely used:
the only visual bug I have with Intel integrated gpus (laptops or desktop) are black textures in the cockpit becoming transparent. When I use the 1050, half the tyres disappear, as well as part of opponents' cars.

I'll take screenshots to show the issues.

Just try a last thing in the pc is using the intel HD card for GP3 game. When you start with dxWnd, instead select Automatic option in the tab DirectX , please try with Direct X 1-6 .
see if something changes.

Tried it but it didn't change anything on the intel cards: same PO and same visual bugs.
I tried on the GTX1050, and as soon as I select something else than auto, the display breaks when launching a race: the screen only show the top left corner of the image. (I think a fourth of the requested resolution)

Speaking of the GTX 1050, here are the visual bugs I get:

I managed to make dgvoodoo work with dxwnd. It does fix the visual bugs mentionned above on the GTX1050, but it had two drawbacks:

- PO is almost twice as high, so I get way over 100% in the first bend.
- some parts are not drawn on the wheel at the very beginning, plus text on the LCD display of the wheel is very ugly, really, pixellated.

I also tried the same setup on my ATI card (RX5700) which has transparency issues. (see [www.grandprixgames.org])
The result with dxwnd + dgvoodoo is even worse than dgvoodoo only: even the sky is white. But at least, performance is ok, though there is an effect on PO. (doubled from 40 to 80%)




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2023 03:13PM by zifox.

you may have some test with settings on dgvoodoo and dxwnd.
Download GP3++ ( from the link in the post "HAPPY NEW YEAR".

[www.grandprixgames.org]

So, unzip the folder "gp3" in c:\ (mind just this path needed to be c:\ ).

then go in the created folder c:\gp3 and find out the subfolder "GP3++" and drag on desktop.
then follow these steps (we will try 1988, cause tyrrel black/transparency more evidence):
In the subfolder you have brought in desktop...

1. doubleclick on 00a BASE DGVOODOO ONLY and answer in the terminal with "88" and then "Enter" key.
2. doubleclick 01 Fisica and open in C:\GP3\Carsets\fisica the file " fisica_1988.g3p ". the click on "Update gp3" to export the physyc.
3. doubleclick on 02 Carset (that is gp3Edit) then open from C:\GP3\Carsets the file "GP3 1988Carset.GP3" and export into game.

So, Now, just click on "03 GP3++" (it's gpxPatch icon), and so click on "Avvia GpX" button...

After the intro, go directly into a quick race , and set by internal/external cameras the tyrrell 017 of Palmer. see if all ok (should be with dgvoodoo). Then, increase the resolution in game to 1024x768 and check again (and PO).

So, after, do the same steps above, but :
1. replace with double click on "00a BASE" instead dgvoodoo only. and then... step 2,3.
but last step double click on "03b GP3++ DxWnd" and start the launcher from dxWnd.

That should be already in 1024x768. so, just check the tyrrell again.

Do the test in both pc with nvida and ATI and Intel card.
Let us know.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2023 07:33PM by pippozzo.