GP4: is it still a game or a window to our jobs?

Hi mates,
why this topic? i want to see if other people have the same mine point of view about GP4.
It's about two years that i don't play a championship or a single race. I've created some tracks, some stuff to be use with gpxpatch or other minor things. But there is somenthing which stop me to play "this" gp4.
I feel the "necessity" to play, but once start a championship i stop immediatelly in free pratice. Why?
I think i found my problem.
With the last 2/3 year quality update the time to load the game increase about in 1 or 2 minute depending to the cars.wad weight.
If in a first time my reaction was to "minimize" the times i need to reload a track (i.e. using the ingame setup of gpxpatch or not racing the freepratice sessions). But in this way i'm not plaing a game... And this is the reason which stop me. This is very sad for me. I want play GP4 but having this 2 minutes of loading time is killing this great game for me.
maybe we are using this game as a box for our single update. For example helmets with 2 texture of 1024*1024, or cars with so many poligons or lower lods identical to lod 0 and 3 texture of 2048*2048 texture or also tracks with so heavy texture and 3d structure.

i tried some days ago to decrease some texture with texresizer, but it is to much work to do...
So the question is: HOW to reduce loading times? Do you have my same impressure?

Gp4 must be played, not used only to "inglobe" great but "heavy" updates.
feedbacks appreciated also to find a solution
Gr88ts

Samuele
32BOBO32

my loading time for with max details is about 15-30 seconds..about the same as gtr2 on a full grid..

Loading of the champcar mod with 2048*2048 car textures was more than 60 sec..quite annoying
For other mods I get about 40-45 sec. And hi-res cars cause longer loading times than hi-res tracks...I fear that you have to decrease texture size to speed it up...or have a better system

I still play full races and championships once in a while.

What I do is to resize down all car textures (1x1024 or 3x512), helmet textures (512x256), make lower lods with 3dsMax, in order to keep overall cars.wad size under (or not too much above) 100 MB. Also I use low-res tracks and sometimes also resize tex size of some more detailed tracks.

I reckon it may sound like an insult for makers that like the highest resolution, but my PC simply can't handle GP4 updates in full. Same goes for Mods.

This is my way to reduce loading time and improve overall performance. I have a P4 2.4GHz and a 64MB video card.


My unfinished tracks: [www.grandprixgames.org]
Send bug reports and track editing questions to f1virtualblog@gmail.com

hm... takes me 20-25 secs for an uncleaned cars.wad which has the size of 374MB.

All is set to the limit

But even if it doens't take that long, I'm not playing it since ages. I'm only updating, take some screens and that's all.

Dunno why

--> 2 times Worldchampion 2oo5 & 2oo6' <--

Because everything looks so beautiful today

32BOBO32 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I think i found my problem.
> With the last 2/3 year quality update the time to
> load the game increase about in 1 or 2 minute
> depending to the cars.wad weight.
> If in a first time my reaction was to "minimize"
> the times i need to reload a track (i.e. using the
> ingame setup of gpxpatch or not racing the
> freepratice sessions). But in this way i'm not
> plaing a game... And this is the reason which stop
> me. This is very sad for me. I want play GP4 but
> having this 2 minutes of loading time is killing
> this great game for me.
> maybe we are using this game as a box for our
> single update. For example helmets with 2 texture
> of 1024*1024, or cars with so many poligons or
> lower lods identical to lod 0 and 3 texture of
> 2048*2048 texture or also tracks with so heavy
> texture and 3d structure.
>
> i tried some days ago to decrease some texture
> with texresizer, but it is to much work to do...
> So the question is: HOW to reduce loading times?
> Do you have my same impressure?

Hi Samuel.
I know its hard but how i create cars.wads and mods for GP4 !!!!.
Sorry to say that but yes it takes a long time.
In my forum i have 2007 Medium res cars.wad published and along with
with tracks and many other things.
Link: Here

If you need personal setups for specific tracks im the guy

Cheers



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2008 07:54PM by jcaranti.

Sorry, this is a bit offtopic, but anyways, don't ban my account because of this.

Well.. Honestly, I have had this game for about 1½ years.
I have finished (If I'm correct..) two 11 lap races, and a few 3 lap races.. (Even though I have driven and watched hundreds of laps..)

I don't enjoy this game anymore, not sure if I ever did.. Maybe cause I'm perfectionist, that kinda means it's hard for me to enjoy anything if everything isn't perfect.
And we know, nothing's perfect, no mod or car. When I play, I just concentrate how the game looks like, and is there something that could be better.. And yes, there's a lot of stuff that could be better, but there's no way to get that "better" stuff. Then I quit the game and try it again after a while just to realize it's still not perfect..

It's a bit ridiculous.. But fun sometimes. Encourages me to always try to be better in everything.
No matter how great are your mods or cars I cannot enjoy racing this game.

And a bit ontopic of course.
With my old computer it took easily over 3-4 minutes to load the game, and 10 if you add the time while CSM updated the game. Novadays it tooks just around 30-50 seconds.
Yeah it's bit hard to live with long loading times..

Cheers, and happy valentine's day.

---

HD SUZUKA - MENU ADDONS - ONBOARD CAMERAS - VIDS

crazy topic sameule....

slow loading times discouraging you from playing gp4 ?

tbh...i don't bother with championships...
i did when i first bought gp4...but just like rest of sims..
after completing you have bugger all to show for it..
i hoped one day a games manufacture would have sence & make it
when a championship has been run..next time out..the postioned you finsihed would be reflected by number on car......
just single race....qualify as best as..then race..

i'd much rather wait a few extra seconds for a decent looking car or track
than have a ***** arrive in moments.........

btw....thanks again for permission

oh yeh..get yourself a better pc.....

mines mid range & i struggle on with changes..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2008 09:01PM by jimbob1.

yeah, i agree with you Samuele. Even I have the same idea of GP4, I mostly update it to the latest thing and then take a few screens and then don't play it until something new comes out. Even then, all i'm doing is painting helmets or something or a rather. I have never played a championship game on GP4 and don't think I will be unless i get a wheel. I have the same effect of rFactor too. Loading times are nothing for me now since i got this new PC. Before it used to be a nightmare and took about 5 mins+ just to load it up to the middle.

Well i enjoy the game a lot, i try to league race when i can
and yes with an updated GP4.
In my case i can never get boored of this game.
Yes i own wheel too but also i used to race with keyboard and had
a lot of fun too.

Conclusion: Maybe its easier if you race or compete with a friend.

Cheers



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2008 09:36PM by jcaranti.

Well, you can't say anything against non-championchip mode...simulating a GP weekend is good fun. Racing a whole championchip might be hard indeed, but no racing game is perfect yet.

When you put GP4 next to other sims the loading is indeed a problem. The developer made it the wrong way round. I don't mind waiting one or two minutes for the loading of a session. I do mind making changes in car setup, display settings, track settings and then having to load it all again. I still have a lot of fun playing GP4 as it is the best F1 sim to date in my opinion and most of the times the updates are stunning.



[1991] [2003] [2004] [gp2 world series]

jimbob1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> crazy topic sameule....
>
> slow loading times discouraging you from playing
> gp4 ?

eh eh, i know that it is crazy :P
I have a medium/good machine, i play in 1280*768 with 35fps without problem.
But i cannot understand why is so slow in loading times. I tried to reduce all texture in cars/helemts etc and now loading takes about 40 second instead 1 minute. But you understand thet it is so much...
I play one hours ago with gp3 upgraded at 2003 season.... try to suppose the loading time for a race.

Less than 1 [one] second :\

Incredible.... This is maybe the main reason i don't play gp4 (sigh... but i really want to play...) it is so annoyng get a free pratice session, to try t discover the right setup with the annoing problem to wait every time you modified something on the car 1 minute...
GP4 is my game, i want to play it, for next ages too, but there is something who is going not well betwen me and it.... Strange... in St. Valentine Day :D

Gp4 is very strange in terms of loading for me.
I play the wonderful 95 mod. Sometimes i start the game through CSM and every time it will take 4 minutes to load a track ( a nightmare for car setup), yet if I turn off my pc and play later it may only take 10 seconds!

@32bobo32

if loading times are a big issue, you may want to invest in a little bit more ram, or a better graphics card, you don't need to break the bank, just a small upgrade will do wonders for your gp4

my cars wad, is set to maximum, everything lod_0, highest res everything 366mb, and it takes about 20-30 seconds to load, ok i have a new pc, but i've noticed that some tracks take longer to load.

ttm melbourne for example can take up to a minute, and i've extracted the wad to see whats inside, and nothing really is out of the ordinary, so i guess it might have something to do with all the changes made to the tracks, pit muppets, plus garages, might increase load times.

as a rule of thumb i have for any track i have po problems with, i always have a maximum of 1028x512, no 1028x1028, you just don't need it, if you can resize everything by 50%, and do some cleaning up in photoshop, the textures will look just as good as the super hi res.

i've also notice that the plus garages have 2048x512 or 1024, that for me is a little excessive, just resize them.

you've also said that it is alot of work, just convert to tga, arrange in size order then decrease size in photoshop anything over 1024x1024, all other sizes don't really matter, its those larger ones that kill systems

also play with the lod of your cars, keep lod_0 and 1, but use lod_3 as 2, and lod_4 as 3 and 4, might help po

Using CSM you can lessen loading times by enabling wadcache (probably what salvasirignano experiences), choosing 'load only one track' if possible, and with many mods you can choose the texture resolution.
To downsize textures you can extract the wad, open Slimtex, go to the tex tab, drag all the files, or the folder, onto the window. select all, choose to resize by 1/2 and hit go.

____
Tony

Every one of you tries not to realize the problem: GP4 is an old game and it is not an optimized game for today's computers. If the program does not know how to allocate certain memory slots for optimize, is not creator's fault, but GP4's (for example... there are many reasons).

I never played it (well, maybe 2 laps in my whole life) because many reasons, one was that one our 32BOBO32 friend explained, and I can not afford buying new computer each time a new game requires it.

---

raulgullon.com -
Wedding and Motorsports Photography.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2008 11:33PM by raulongo.

b-tone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
choosing 'load only one track' if
> possible,

That's probably the problem most people have Good that you added the 'only 1 track' option to your mods because this really saves much time
Btw, nobody will race a season with all 17 tracks of a track profile at once It already takes some time to finish just one GP

Samu brought the sporting newspaper as I do , among a loading and the other I read that ......

Samu portati il giornale sportivo come faccio io , tra un caricamento e l'altro mi leggo quello.........