A few questions to horizons, flashlights and textures

Hi everybody,

15 years ago I bought this wonderful game "GP 4". After years I installed it new with GPxPatch an CSM and of course a few mods (1988, 1993 and 1994) - excuse me, I´m a little bit older and to play these seasons are wonderful memories of my childhood and youth. But now I have a few questions around this "new stuff".

1. In some mods I have this very wonderful hi res horizon in Monaco but not in the original game. Where can I get it for the 2001 season?

2. Can the flash lights be set manually? In some modifications, I have flash lights where there are no people.

3. In some mods I have some texture problems. The textures flash and flicker from afar. When you get closer, the textures are displayed correctly. What is the reason for that?

Thank you so far.

Hi to a first day game player so

1. Some tracks use Skydomes with hi-res sky texture. As these sky domes are geometry, they render "over" the original game sky. The good point : hi-res sky with realistic clouds. The bad point : even if weather is set to dynamic, sky will stay the same.

2. Flashlight are linked to CROWD_ class objects. If you see some where there is no people, it might mean that in the .gp4 file, some objects are set to not be visible or non crowd object have CROWD_ class when they should not.

3. Most probably due to the 2 planes Z_fighting issue. If an object has two very close faces (front and back of a very thin advertisement panel for example, the further you are and the more it is difficult for the game to know which of the plane is in front and the other in the back. Confused, it will draw either one or the other in front and it gives this flickering effect. Coming closer solve the issue. Spacing planes is the solution if you edit the .gp4 file.

Lo2k schrieb:
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> 3. Most probably due to the 2 planes Z_fighting
> issue. If an object has two very close faces
> (front and back of a very thin advertisement panel
> for example, the further you are and the more it
> is difficult for the game to know which of the
> plane is in front and the other in the back.
> Confused, it will draw either one or the other in
> front and it gives this flickering effect. Coming
> closer solve the issue. Spacing planes is the
> solution if you edit the .gp4 file.

Is it possible that this effect also depends on the graphics card/graphics driver? I tested it on two PCs (both with nvidia cards but different model/driver) and only the newer one had this issue

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

Hmm, possible. Sounds quite weird though.

Thank you guys for your answers.

Lo2k - wich .gp4 file did you mean?

I´ve found this program called "3danalyzer". There you can force the Z-Buffer to 24bit with stencil and the flickering is gone. Unfortunately the program takes the GP4.exe-file so you can´t use the GpxPatch. I found out that former ATI Catalyst control centers had these option where you can force the Z-Buffer. I have my "old" x5850 and in my control center (the latest) I don´t have this option. Is there another possibility?

Thanks.

The track .gp4 file (inside the track .wad). It's where the object is defined. As I said, the other option is to widen, if possible, the space between the 2 geometry faces of this object, using GP4 Builder.
If it's not enough, there are other tricks (like put faces in separated object...) but we go into too much details here.