I have recently converted from Gp3 to GP4. I had spent a good number of hours trying to get a setup for the A-1 Ring. At one point I downloaded a replay, from a hot lap site. I watched the replay and used Hofxlap to extract the setup info and give it a try. I don't think the guy really knew what he ws doing, even IF he was lots faster than I was.
It did have a weird side effect though. It changed my names file so all the stock drivers were replaced with this guys friends, neighbors, and other duffus names. I couldn't get rid of this, so I just ignored it.
Then I began running full games with other cars. I saved the race at the starting line and got ready to run a half distance race, for a league I'm in. When I got back to the first corner at the A-1 Ring, after completing the first lap, the game crashed to the desktop. I tried again. It crashed on the second lap, at the same corner. What the ...!!
I uninstalled GP4 and reinstalled wit hall the patches and updates. Same thing. I again uninstalled and reinstalled only the offical stuff. With the CD in my drive, the game would NOT load. After much spinning up and down, the CD finally sounded like it found what it wanted and cleared the screen to black. And that was it. No new screen. No sound. I had never run with out the "no CD" patch before. It may have always done this, had I tried. The no-CD patch fixed this.
Moral #1: If the game won't load, it could be your old 32X speed CD drive doesn't like the copy protection code.
The story continues....
After loading the no CD patch I loaded up the game and ran laps in the non championship race mode and it seemed OK. I saved a game as before, and it was STILL OK. I copied my setup from before and ran the saved game. Still OK. I copied the previous saved game and ran a lap. CRASH ! I noticed that the names on the grid were back to the goofy names from the lap I had downloaded ! When I had saved that game, I still had the messed up names file. My guess is that when the game wanted to display a sky message or something that needed the drivers names, it blew up. Tossing the saved game got me back to running just fine.
Moral #2: Be REAL carefull what you download.
I reloaded and downloaded the patches a few times and the game a few times, but I always was using my saved game as a test. The GAME was the problem and I didn't know it. When troubleshooting work slowly and methodically. Change only one thing at a time. By doing it wrong, I blew a couple of hours and missed my deadline for submitting my race results.
I'd sure like to get a hold of the idiot that made that replay, right about now !!!
JohnW
