Creation of Magic data files

Dear sir,

Would you mind to tell me how to create a magic data from GP3 please?


Thanks for your help in advance.

Regards,

Peter L. M. Kwan

With the Cmagic utility (available in the downloads section of this website) and a text editor (such as Notepad).

With Cmagic, you can extract magic data from either the GP3.exe file or a track file that contains magic data. With a text editor, you can edit it.

However, no information could be obtainted with an error message "Track doesn't contain GP3info data" displays when I tried to open the standard circuits (i.e. Circuits that coming with the GP3 CD) by using CMagic, but no such problems for the circuits that downloaded from www.grandprixgames.org


Thanks


Regards,

Peter L. M. Kwan

That is because the original GP3 tracks do not contain any magic data.
The magic data for the origianl GP3 tracks is in the GP3.exe file, which you can extract with Cmagic.

Would I be correct in saying that GP3 looks to find magic data in a track.dat file in preference to using the data stored in the .exe file? I believe that is why adding magicdata to a .dat file will work at all and it has to be done on many tracks as they are longer than the original supplied tracks.

The more I ponder on this (and the more tracks I can't get working properly) the more I think some of us would really appreciate a tutorial on magicdata and using cmagic. If anyone can spare the time to help us keep GP3 as our favourite game. I say this as, in some desparation, I have been experimenting with GP4. There I found the tools a bit messy after GP3edit and the like. But the real downer for me is the massive track and car file downloads that my poor rural dial-up is bound to struggle with. It will be another year or two before any worthwhile broadband connection is available here.

It's actually GPxPatch that looks into the dat file, not GP3, but essentially you are right.

Have a search through these forums as there is a huge amount of information on magic data. Also, most tracks that are readily available to download already have the MD included, either already inserted into the dat or else as a separete file within the zip/rar archive. Furthermore, there is a collection of magics by Major Tom in the downloads on this site. Perhaps they are a little out of date but it's likely there will be a few MD's that you can use.

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The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. -- F.Scott Fitzgerald

Essentially as St.Hubbins says.

Without GPxPatch, GP3 uses the original magic data in the GP3.exe file for each track slot, no matter what tracks may be in any track slot, and ignores any magic data that may be in any track dat files.

With GPxPatch, the game uses the magic data in the individual track dat files listed in GPxTrack rather than the magic data in the GP3.exe file.

Roberto Scandura wrote a fairly detailed explanation of magic data files that he made available for download somewhere (most likely on his website).

The important thing to know to keep tracks from crashing when using them with GPxPatch, is that the track dat files must contain magic data, and that the "Bump Table" (found at the very bottom of the magic data file) must contain at least as many track sections as the track that it is being used for does.