[Mod] Gran Turismo 2 plus (bug fixes, restored content and new content) - beta 7 released

  • Thread starter pez2k
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madmike121212
Sorry bruh im sorry.

Anakin skywalker in french
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Alright for future reference, don't bother asking if it's done yet, because if there's no update about said mod; that means it's probably not done yet.
As pez2k says above me, just wait for him to post an update. I know it's exciting to hear about GT2 mods, but you gotta control yourself. okay?
 
Just recently discovered this mod and you've done a cracking job guys, I cannot praise the work you're putting in enough.

This has reignighted my interest in GT2 for a while, :).
 
I remember seeing this sort of behaviour back in the day (EU disk):
Ford GT90 and RM-d Ford Taurus started see-sawing randomly during driving, causing complete loss of grip and control. Pretty sure I was running the GT90 in un-tinkered form and the Taurus in tinkered form. Only parallel I can draw from memory is that I drove those cars on the Seattle Circuit.
Can anyone still confirm this?
 
The see-saw behavior is because you ran too-stiff suspension settings. The GT90 is borderline in its stock settings. GT2 doesn't handle stiffness too well
 
In what point of development would this mod be considered as "in Beta", "Fully released" or anything else between those lines, considering there's still elements uncracked within the mechanics of the game, not to mention the lack of simplicity in changing what's already present?
 
Masgel
In what point of development would this mod be considered as "in Beta", "Fully released" or anything else between those lines, considering there's still elements uncracked within the mechanics of the game, not to mention the lack of simplicity in changing what's already present?
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It'll be finished once I've fixed all of the bugs I've heard about or found, and there's still over a hundred items on the list.

The first beta release will probably be once I've figured out how to edit everything I'd like to be able to edit, and fixed at least one item on each list (e.g. fixing menu typos, Arcade car stats, and some other things that are currently unknown). At that point all of the research will be done sufficiently that it's just a case of making the remaining fixes. I had considered making the first version that works on all GT2 discs 'beta 1', but it's probably not going to be as I don't want to give the impression that the project is nearing a close yet.
 
Memory management; From what I've heard, the game already ran quite close to the PS operating system's and hardware's limitations, both mechanics- and aesthetics-wise. So, even with what has been added and tinkered with, there's only so much you can add to and change with the game's internals, right? So weeding out any sort of unused and excess "code" isn't really a way to help yet...?

I apologize (in advance) for any mistakes in my text(s) which might cause mis-understanding, mis-reading etc. :indiff: English is not my native language and I'm not really the speechman of the Universe, if you catch my drift.
 
Masgel
Memory management; From what I've heard, the game already ran quite close to the PS operating system's and hardware's limitations, both mechanics- and aesthetics-wise. So, even with what has been added and tinkered with, there's only so much you can add to and change with the game's internals, right? So weeding out any sort of unused and excess "code" isn't really a way to help yet...?
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So far I've found that the game crashes with too many car models, so I've had to strip out all of the unused models, and the duplicate cars used to replace the Esso liveries with Exxon in the US version, in order to make space for everything that I want to restore. When working on his own mod, Submaniac has also come across a limit to the amount of text that can be used for car names, and a limit to the size of each car model too. Neither of those should be a problem for GT2+ though.

Also, don't worry, your English is perfect - you have better grammar than most native speakers!
 
Now that you've added Acura and Opel to be avaliable in your mod to be as inclusive as can be, are you planning to completely ditch the minor rebranded stuff like liveries (Exxon, maybe some others) and models (180SX, 200SX, Silvia; SVX, Alcyone etc.) or will they come into play from as close as upon the disk file conversion (EU disk -> modded EU disk, US disk -> modded US disk)? Then again, that would cause different conversion files...which equals more work.
 
1: they're not duplicates, this stigma has to stop. The Duplicate cars were those in GT5 and later that had a different regional name for the exact same car. like the Miata MX-5 J-limited '93/MX-5 J-limited '93/Eunos Roadster J-limited '93 and others like this.
2: Pez won't remove any existing car except useless variants like the fictional Exxon variants of cars. Like he's said before, the aim of GT2+ is to restore cut content and add some bonus if possible for the hell of it.
 
Masgel
Now that you've added Acura and Opel to be avaliable in your mod to be as inclusive as can be, are you planning to completely ditch the minor rebranded stuff like liveries (Exxon, maybe some others) and models (180SX, 200SX, Silvia; SVX, Alcyone etc.)
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The Exxon stuff is already gone as of alpha 4.1, as it takes up a lot of space.

The 180SX / 200SX and SVX / Alcyone aren't duplicates, it's simply that the names and logos for the same cars are different in each region. I do plan to revert everything back to the correct Japanese names eventually, however the names in the New Car dealerships are painted onto the menu background and so menu graphics editing needs to be figured out first.

The 200SX and Silvia K's actually are two independent cars in the game however, and even have different models and textures to correctly depict the differences between the EU and Japanese models. I'll be keeping both, and adding the Silvia K's to the PAL used car list and the 200SX to the US and Japanese lists when I get time.

CaravanSS76
TIP: If you need more space, you can replace the duplicate R32/R33 Skylines. (ie: 89 and 90 R32 models/95 and 96 R33 models)
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Unfortunately, even if the models were identical, GT2 ties the replay names of cars to the body model they're using, not the car itself. That means that you'd end up with two cars using the same name, which is a new bug in itself.
 
CaravanSS76
So all the duplicate Japanese cars are all the same car?
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Yes, they're the same model with a different name. For instance, the Nissan 240SX K's Aero '96 in the US version of GT2 is basically the Silvia K's Aero in the Japanese version renamed.
 
Here's a little bit of progress of sorts - I've been working on getting the mod running on more GT2 discs. These are all using alpha 4.1's content as I know it works, so don't expect any new teasers:

PAL Arcade:
arcade.png


The loading screen renders even work correctly:
arcade2.png


JP GT mode:
jpn.png


The JP Arcade disc will be the hardest to modify, but I can probably hack the executable a little bit to make it easier.
 
Yet-unchangable mechanics; What sort of knowledge is still missing in order to work on the elements of the game that are still yet to be "un-cracked"? Different coding language, file system assembly, specialized programs, anything else like that?
So far I know that for some aesthetical stuff there's hex code editing.
 
Not gonna lie but i i still have that ps1 keep in my shelve...i remember that i burn two discs with pez 4.1 patch and its weird that it crashed after the language menu....
 
CaravanSS76
@pez2k Are the patch being constantly tested in a real PSX console?
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As mentioned above, no. Things are going to continue changing constantly with every version, so I'm not intending to chase down compatibility bugs until everything is more complete. The bug that was causing crashes on more accurate platforms and hardware was fixed in my tooling a while ago, but I have no idea whether the mod currently works on hardware or not as I have no practical way to test it frequently nor any inclination to.

Masgel
Yet-unchangable mechanics; What sort of knowledge is still missing in order to work on the elements of the game that are still yet to be "un-cracked"?
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Menu backgrounds are made up of dozens or even hundreds of tiny tiles, which each use either a 16-colour palette or a single solid colour, with a limit of only 16 discrete palettes per menu. The format is known well enough to dump menu images in a non-editable way, but the difficult part is finding a practical way to both make them easily editable and avoid making it extremely easy to break them so that they're no longer importable.

I managed to hex edit the Vauxhall dealership onto the North City menu, however the tiles and palettes for that area of the menu already existed and I was mainly copying them over (and merging palettes to make space for it). That edit still took a full week of work however, making menus impractical to edit until I figure out a good format to convert them into for editing.

Car models aren't fully understood - the reflection data is a mystery, and without knowing how that works it's impossible to create new faces / polygons on a model unless they're matte and non-reflective. Again, the model format is known enough to hex edit minor things to fix texture mapping or move vertices, but any major work is again impractical without a tool to convert to and from a common format that can be opened with tools like Blender or 3DS Max.

The race music is editable, but the length of each track appears to be hardcoded into the game, so unless you want to use music that's identical in length to the originals, you end up with gaps or tracks starting and ending halfway through. Fortunately there are no music bugs to fix, so I'm not looking into this at all.

Track models are also more or less an unknown - there are very few track bugs so I've not investigated this at all either.

The Arcade mode car stats are also a mystery, I don't even know where they're stored never mind how to edit them. The same applies for the manufacturer data that blocks BMW cars from having aftermarket wheels fitted in GT mode, which may be hardcoded.

The savegame format is only very vaguely known - this wouldn't normally be an issue, however the 'attract mode' replays that play when the game is left idle at the main menu are actually a replay savegame, and broken in the same way as any other save.

madmike121212
i burn two discs with pez 4.1 patch and its weird that it crashed after the language menu....
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That particular bug is likely fixed for the next version, but that's not a guarantee that there are no other incompatibilities.
 

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