GP4 2010 Season Update Troubleshouting & Help Guide

Hi All,
I have been updating GP4 to the 2010 season and thanks to great forums like these I have put together a guide to help those who need help (like I did). It is a culmination of responses from many forums (mainly this one). It shows a process, some of the problems I had and how I chose to overcome and sometimes ignore them by doing. I havent specifically referenced sites or users as there are far too many. I have no links to files, all it is is a help guide.

Any problems with me posting this, please let me know.

It is my way of contributing to sites that have helped me along the way.

I may do some updates now and then as I havent finished updating my game completely yet.

Cheers & Goodluck!

Michael Azar



Guide to Updating Grand Prix 4

Program Installation:

1. Start off with a fresh installation of GP4
2. Download and install the official patch v9.6
3. Download and install decrypted gp4.exe
4. Download and install Zaztools, GPI browser, Team Editor, GPxpatch and GP4Tweaker (use this one gp4tweak_1045_u2_update.zip)

File Installation:

1. Download all the car files you would like to update.

2. To get the team order right, you need to rename the *.gp4 to the appropriate team order. Leave any *.tex file as is.

3. Use Zaztools easywad to expand the cars.wad file to a separate folder. Then rename and place the car files in this folder as per point 4 below. Then right click the folder and make the cars.wad again. This is very important. Add one car at a time and backup your car.wad. Test each car as you go. I found this very efficient. Sometimes you will get a download which causes you GP4 to crash. This way you can isolate which car is not compatible with your system and go to the most recent backup and you don’t have to redo everything again. I went as far as saving the carshapes and textures that worked for me in separate zips already renamed just incase I had a major malfunction. Remember, if you use windows 7 you will need to run the program as an administrator.

4. For 2010 Team orders all *.gp4 files will need to be renamed as follows:

a. McLaren 2010 Car becomes car_ferrari_carx_lod_x.gp4
b. Mercedes 2010 Car becomes car_mclaren_carx_lod_x.gp4
c. Redbull 2010 Car becomes car_williams_carx_lod_x.gp4
d. Ferrari 2010 Car becomes car_benetton_carx_lod_x.gp4
e. Williams 2010 Car becomes car_bar_carx_lod_x.gp4
f. Renault 2010 Car becomes car_jordan_carx_lod_x.gp4
g. Force 2010 Car becomes car_arrows_carx_lod_x.gp4
h. Torro Rosso 2010 Car becomes car_sauber_carx_lod_x.gp4
i. Sauber 2010 Car becomes car_jaguar_carx_lod_x.gp4
j. Lotus 2010 Car becomes car_minardi_carx_lod_x.gp4
k. HRT 2010 Car becomes car_prost_carx_lod_x.gp4

5. This is where the first decision needs to be made. There are only 11 spots available with 12 teams currently in F1. I chose to drop Virgin out of personal preference. You can choose whoever you like but either Lotus, HRT or Sauber will missout. This will also effect setting to performance files in GPXpatch. If you download a performance file make sure teams are in the same order as above.


6. I had the following problems and through a lot of research overcame them, see below:
a. Only 2 *.gp4 files came with the car. I have read there are 2 solutions. I have tried the first only:
1. Solution 1 is to open Team Editor, under the carshapes tab right down the bottom tick the 4 checkboxes under “High quality settings”
2. Solution 2 is to copy each lod file 4 more times so there are 5 each in total number 0 through to 4 for eg:
car_ferrari_car1_lod_0.gp4
car_ferrari_car1_lod_1.gp4
car_ferrari_car1_lod_2.gp4
car_ferrari_car1_lod_3.gp4
car_ferrari_car1_lod_4.gp4
Do this for car 1 and car 2.
b. The second problem I had was the complete car appearing white. I found this to be a resolution problem. GP$ has a max resolution of 1280 x 1024, if you are running a lower resolution than this some of the high quality cars textures and shapes produced by great modders will not appear as the resolution is too low. Up the resolution to the above. It worked for me.
c. The third problem I had was white parts appearing on the car. Eg the suspension or undercarriage has no texture to it. I found this to be very computer specific believe it or not. What I decided to do in the end is sacrifice having a complete 2010 set by downloading 2009 cars of the same team and using them. When you are racing, you don’t really notice. I could not find any other solution. I will just update the car when I find one that works.

7. Next is the helmet shape and textures. It is important you download textures compatible with the helmet shape, or you will get problems. There are great helmet packs around. The cars.wad is updated in the same way as the cars. Expand the cars.wad and add the files to the main cars directory the remake the wad. The first thing you will notice when testing if it all works out is that when watching from an external camera id helmets are too high, low, too far forward etc. This may be the same issue for your steering wheel. This is where Team Editor became really usefull for me. Under positions tab you can play with the Y and Z values to position these things correctly. On the right side of the window check all the different camera angles to get the setup as close as possible to your preferences. I also like to update all the teams in the correct order so it is right here as per the GPXpatch performance file.

An important note on team editor. Under carshapes tab ensure that 2009 season is selected and that the right most column (available carshapes) reflects the same order as file names in item 4 i.e Ferrari through to Prost from top to bottom. Also run as admistrator in windows 7.



8. Before you go any further, it is time to load your performance file in GPXpatch. You have your cars in order but the drivers name are still all over the place. Make sure you edit the performance file which is a TXT file to have the same order as you cars. You load it in GPXpatch by clicking on GpXset tab and ticking the performance file. Browse to its location and that’s it. Now when you start GP4 (through gpxpatch) all the cars and team names in the menu should be correct.

9. Updating the race driver pictures in the main menu are done via GPI browser. Always run as administrator under windows 7. Open GPI browser, it should automatically import pictures from gp4.exe, if not just use change path to direct it to the right place. Have you race driver pics on hand as a*.tga file. In the GPI browser window right click on the pic you want to replace and import the replacement picture. This is where I also use Team Editor as a reference. Under images tab it will show you the current picture for your driver. Remember to load your performance file in gpxpatch first or you wont have the correct teams and names in team editor when you import the data. Just look for it under GPI and replace it. Please note, for some reason GP4.exe has 2 pictures of the same driver on hand you may need to replace both. You can use this same method to change the grid cars which appear prior to a championship or non championship race.

This is not as easy as it seems. Some pictures are blank etc so it takes some trial and error. Generally what I do is update 1 team and grid car, apply the changes in GPI then reimport the image through Team editor. If the driver image for example stays the same, look for a duplicate in GPI and change that image too. If the image changes or you get a blank pick which some times has “img size unknown” then the change has occurred. You will see it in the menus next time you open GP4.

10. Loading screens are next. This is easy. There are a bunch around and you just throw them into Grand Prix 4/Maps/Resources/Loading and you are done. Just place them in the same order as your track files so the right one appears.

11. Cockpit updates for me have been quite difficult. This could really be done further up the list but I have had so much trouble with it I have left it till now. Basically you need the cockpit files and shapes on which the textures were based. Generally speaking place the files in the following order:

a. car_cockpit_00.gp4 you place in the main cars file of your cars.wad

b. cockpit_dash.gp4 you place it in the cockpit map in the cars.wad

c. shape textures you put it all together in the main cars.wad but the visor.tex file you need to place it in the same map as the cockpit_dash.gp4

d. Cockpits for each car go int the main cars.wad directory

12. Track Installation all you need to do is put the wad file for the track in the GP4 directory and the DAT file in the circuits folder.


13. For the steering wheel installation open the cars.wad and you get 3 folders. In the folder Cars you put the file stwheel.tex. In the folder Cars you have a subfolder called cockpit, there you put the other 3 files.

14. For tyre textures throw the *.gp4 files in the main cars.wad directory with all the TEX files in the tyres folder in the cars.wad.

15. Download Rewards1.6 from realgpx to amend the points awarded to suit the 2010 season. Dont forget to run as administrator or it wont make the changes. 2010 points system is 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1.

As there are 11 teams only possible in GP4 you will need to play with some of the file names. EG,for cockpit textures, if you download files from a modder who preferred to put Sauber in and left lotus out, you will need to play with the last 3 team names generally to:
1. ensure you have the right texture go to the right team
2. the last 3 teams may be placed in different order from on modder to another.

Just be weary and don’t get frustrated. The end results are awesome.

Finally:
Thanks to all the guys who answered my questions and other forum members. Thanks to everyone who puts in great time and effort to make these files available for everyone to use. There is so much in referenced material above from many websites, I think we all know who they are. I hope this makes it easier for everyone to mod the game.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2010 05:27AM by buballo.

This thread has been pinned to the GP4FAQ.

---

[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central