20 replies to this topic

[Splaywheeler]

Over at UKGPL we are planning this years 50th anniversary season of the the 1967 cars, which I guess other leagues are also contemplating. As you might know we run on at least 2 evenings a week, with Sundays being our traditional 67 night. So, the plan is to run the original Pappy tracks as per the 1967 GP season, what else would be right?? But what would be appropriate to run on other evenings??

The original game had just the 67 cars and 11 tracks, we now have almost 400 tracks and 8 carsets ( with the 1955 mod coming sometime soon ( ish)? ). Just like other leagues we have to make a choice about which cars/tracks to run on the other ( Tuesday for UKGPL) available evening slots.

I have been around GPL online for approx 10 years and have heard fables about running tracks in the reverse direction. It occured to me that as a novel and fun series we might run the same 11 Pappy tracks in reverse direction with the various carsets, which would sort of keep things in line with the 50th anniversary of 1967.

I have not had much luck in finding any info about how to find/set up this reverse direction patch, so can anyone offer any advice/experience of sorting this. As with all things related to online league racing, any experience of black screens/discos or other problems would be appreciated.

Thanks guys in advance and have a great 2017.
Evilclive

[GrandPrixYannick]

This perhaps?
http://srmz.net/inde...topic=5130&st=0

Unfortunately the program does not work anymore on Windows 10 for me.

[gliebzeit]

Yes, John Black's track reverser program must be run on a PC with Win 2000, Win XP or DOSbox.

Edited by gliebzeit, Jan 05 2017 - 07:20 AM.

[Splaywheeler]

gliebzeit, on Jan 05 2017 - 07:17 AM, said:

Yes, John Black's track reverser program must be run on a PC with Win 2000, Win XP or DOSbox.

Rats!!!  Well that kind of limits it's appeal doesn't it!!  LOL........unless anyone knows differently?

[fajanko]

The Linux/Wine option maybe? (I can't try at the moment.)

[gliebzeit]

Well, you have to understand that the track reverser program was written back in the year 2000.  Programmers can only create programs on the platforms and OS that are available at the time.

[Cookie]

evilclive, on Jan 05 2017 - 08:31 AM, said:

gliebzeit, on Jan 05 2017 - 07:17 AM, said:

Yes, John Black's track reverser program must be run on a PC with Win 2000, Win XP or DOSbox.

Rats!!!  Well that kind of limits it's appeal doesn't it!!  LOL........unless anyone knows differently?

Clive
it's only the reversing that must run under XP,
the racing can be done with any OS
so I can revert all tracks you want...

[John Woods]

Commenting only as someone who once in awhile has driven tracks in reverse in training mode, sometimes things aren't displayed as well as in normal direction.
No idea about Papy 11.

Track elevations often appear very different.
Might want to use FB Adjust?
No idea about that either.

But it is fun to do.

Maybe check this out for sure before locking in?

Or run other tracks that were in use in 67?

Edited by John Woods, Jan 05 2017 - 12:39 PM.

[Alan Davies]

I have reversed several tracks in the distant past, some work better than others, clipping etc.  These ones I remember: Dundrod 65, IoM, Bathurst, Rouen, Silverstone, Monaco, Spa and Nurburgring,
I may still have some, I'll have a look when I get home.
Reversed Watkins Glen was available as a download at one time that worked very well and as an added bonus you could use the spring or summer graphics as an alternative to the normal direction to give it a different look.  Albi reversed is available.

When I raced motorbikes the club (British Motorcycle Racing Club)  had an annual meet at Brands run in the reversed direction.

[Splaywheeler]

Thanks to all for the feedback about this idea guys. Although initially it looked like a doomed concept, maybe there are ways that it can work. My good friend Axel  (Cookie) is working on the issues and feels confident that it can be done.

Please continue to post any info here, especially if there are complete tracks like Alan has suggested above.

If this is going to work for on-line racing, it has to be simple and idiot proof for the user requiring no computer tech ability, and there is no one better qualified to test the application than myself. Anyone who knows my history will testify that I provoke an allergic reaction in silicone technology that causes an immediate breakdown in all digital processes.

Hopefully we will get this working and we can post back with the final results for all to try.

In the meantime........ if there are any clever boffins out there with time on their hands who could create an up to date "patch" to make this more user friendly??  It would effectively double the number of circuits available for GPL .

[webfoot]

As per my comment in post #25 of the other thread (see the link in post #2 above) gplrev12 will work in Windows 10.  I have just tried it and it works fine.

1.  You need to run it using DOSBOX (available from www.dosbox.com)
2. You need a DPMI manager.  Here is the one I downloaded.  Just drop the contents of the zipped \bin folder into the same one as the gplrev executable.

 csdpmi5b.zip   53.27K   10 downloads

Edited by webfoot, Jan 06 2017 - 05:35 AM.

[Alan Davies]

Just got home and tried:

Nurburgring runs fine with some strange floating trees and other issues I have disguised using some fog settings.  Pits and practice is ok.

Dundrod runs fine in the race but for practice the cars in the pits are in the ditch on the opposite side of the road so ShiftR is required. Just a bit of trees clipping but not much.

Watkins glen runs like a dream but I think this was done by someone else and issues sorted.

IoM will not load and if I recall it never did; perhaps someone could sort it out.

Spa has no issues at all (some pop-ups) and is great.

Monaco has no issues at all (some pop-ups) and is great.

In all cases the groove needs sorting as does some AI behaviour.

I'm pretty sure I have more.

[gliebzeit]

The first race that was run at the British Aintree circuit in 1954 was done so in an anti-clockwise direction.  I have been preparing this reverse-Aintree for inclusion with the '55 Mod.

Attached Files

•  page1.jpg   66.07K   18 downloads
•  page055.jpg   126.62K   19 downloads
•  page2.jpg   47.84K   23 downloads
•  event.jpg   66.58K   28 downloads
•  bwpic55.JPG   57.09K   36 downloads
•  1954 Aintree 200 per Graham Turner Aintree gt0092.jpg   124K   49 downloads
•  1954_aintreeR_0001.jpg   109.28K   27 downloads
•  1954_aintreeR_0002.jpg   113.69K   28 downloads
•  1954_Aintree_0003.jpg   76.26K   34 downloads

Edited by gliebzeit, Jan 06 2017 - 01:13 PM.

[ROOKIE4EVER]

Alan Davies, on Jan 06 2017 - 08:16 AM, said:

IoM will not load and if I recall it never did; perhaps someone could sort it out.

For Isle of Man Mountain Course (Namfoi) you have to extract "bump2.3do" from the dat, then do the reverse and put "bump2.3do" again when the reverse is done.

In 2008 the great Belgian champion Frederic Gubbels gave us (the french community) all the papys reversed.   The belgium league should drive in march on the Zandvoort reversed, by example.

I could put the links if i'm authorised to by an admin.

[Splaywheeler]

Thanks guys for all of the feedback, what a great GPL community we have.
The possibility of getting some "ready to run" reverse track files is good news. If Rookie4ever can get check with his admin about the Pappy tracks that would be just fantastic.  Maybe later this year we might organise an Interleague series like we did a few years ago if we can fit in the dates??

I understand that there might just be a copyright issue with public availability of complete reversed track files, and i certainly do not want to stir up any problems for anyone. But, is there a way that we can create a semi private database of these tracks that are accessible by recognised league moderators?  

One half of me wonders if after almost 20 yrs since publishing these originals, would anyone care , provided no money changes hands??
My good friend Axel is working on getting our server set up for a trial race at Aznom, and checking what client PC's have to do for this all to work seamlessly.

[Pete Gaimari]

If you're celebrating the 67 cars. You can also run the other 67 mods. F2 and Sportscars.

[Splaywheeler]

Thanks to all for the help and advice, plus pointing us at the "conversion files" etc.

With the help of Axel Cookie a fellow UKGPL'er ( also known to appear in other leagues ), it looks like we have a reversed 67 season of racing ready to go.

A few volunteers are crash testing the installation procedure via GEM and the stability of the track files. I am assuming that as they are the original Papyrus tracks there should be no issues. In principle we now have the means to reverse any add-on track and include it in a Reverse.ini season folder in GEM.

Within a few days we should have proved the initial 11 track season, and will release it to the UKGPL members and I will add a link here for anyone interested.

The proposed racing season for this series starts in about 2 weeks time and will involve the 67 F2's, 69x and 66 CAn Ams on various reversed circuits. Registration and full details are open over at UKGPL on SROU   http://www.simracing...1&topic=14247.0 for anyone who wishes to join in the fun.

[Splaywheeler]

As promised here are the reversed Papyrus track files and the Season.ini file to make it all work through GEM.

Huge thanks to those who helped with the rapid testing of the finished article, and to Axel for nailing it all together into a single folder. It might have been my crazy idea initially, but it would not have happened without a lot of help from a lot of people.

There are one or two graphic glitches where trees etc are seen from the "wrong side". But as these are mostly around Gnirgrubrun ( Nurburgring) where concentration on the track is somewhat essential when racing, they do not detract from the fun.
UKGPL are running a Special Season of reversed races starting in approx 2 weeks. If you want to give these tracks a try please register over at SROU and UKGPL.


Download  the folder here     https://www.sendspace.com/file/p4hs1z

Navigate to wherever you have your GPL installed
and
Place the tracks in your \GPL\tracks folder ( the new reversed names will not affect the current standard tracks)

Place the  RVSEASON.ini file into the GPL\SEASONS folder.
then
Start GEM,  
select the RVSEASON in the "SEASONS" drop down
select the required Carset
select whichever reversed track you want to try.

Have some fun.

[Millennium]

Download link is dead, any chance for a re-upload? I'd love to try this.

[Cookie]

UKGPL did a whole race series on the reversed original tracks in the S31 special series,
we used a little program revTrack that did the job:
https://www.sendspace.com/file/3jtm9m