SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Preview: Behind the Scenes: The GPL 1969 Mod

Having enjoyed Papyrus' Grand Prix Legends since early 2000, I have marveled at the talent and resourcefulness of modders like the GPLEA, track-creators, and expert utility builders in the GPL community.

I wished for talents like that, but after several failed attempts that thank goodness never left my harddisk, , I had to conclude that I should look elsewhere, if I were to try to "do my bit". Nevertheless, my own failed attempts led me to gain a huge appreciation and respect for just how spectacular the modders' contributions are.

One day I was offered the chance to gain insight in the beta testing of the upcoming 1969 mod, as well as contribute to the testing, and I thought that it would be cool to a) drive something that only a few others were driving b) put some of my time and meager talent into helping bringing the best possible mod for GPL to the community.

I hasten to apologize to the fantastic crew working on and and beta testing this mod, because as it turned out, my small contribution was to be even smaller than I had intended. This was due to becoming involved with other projects like SimHQ, and the fact that 2005 was the year that saw a lot of new releases in the area of sim-racing.

This article is my attempt to do a preview of the GPL 69 mod, while hopefully interjecting some small insight into what it is like to beta-test a mod.

Before becoming involved with this mod, I held the naïve view that beta testing is all fun and games. You fly out to drive glamorous and exotic cars at locations like Monaco, Italy etc., do a few laps and then tell the engineers; "I want this and that changed". How naïve I was! Testing a mod is of course good fun, but it is also time-consuming, and hard work. And the beta testers on this mod are incredibly knowledgeable as well as extremely bright.

The real heroes here are the guys working on the physics, the graphics, the utilities and the packaging of the mods. The guys who stick with working on a mod for years and who drive the mod forward. The historians who provide and ensure a very high degree of historical and technical fidelity, as well as completeness, in the sense that the 1969 mod brings you a lot of changes:

The physics have been changed and aero is modeled; lift and downforce
The car graphics have been extensively modded, they even include those gorgeous wide rear tires and they leave wide skidmarks when you spin them.
The correct drivers for the 1969 season are included (as far as the basic structure of GPL allows)
The layout menus have been updated to reflect the correct season
The sounds have been modded
At the time of writing; a high wing carset is included in the initial release, low wing and no wing configurations will follow in 2006.
A very nice surprise which is going to make you drop your jaw!

Adding on top of that, one of the most comprehensive general purpose utility programs available for GPL, GEM + has been updated to truly integrate your GPL mods, and let you manage them in a seamless manner.

GEM

This means that when the mod is released and installed, the end-user can just click a few buttons and everything is sorted and ready to go, without having to worry about how and why it works.

The guys do all this because they love GPL and, I suspect, because they want to find out if this or that can be done, or added, to the original code. It really takes a lot of time and dedication. Sometimes a new development update introduces unexpected results, and on occasions beta-testers have had to reinstall, or repair their install of GPL after introducing such updates.

If you have no trouble running the GPLEA cars or the 65 mod, you should find that the 69 mod should also work well on your system. The cars have had a few more polys added to them, but in normal circumstances you should not expect a hit in fps.

I'm sure you'll understand that the version of the mod that I have at the time of writing is still subject to changes. These guys are constantly at work improving and refining, so features and graphics in the final mod will almost certainly be different from what you see and read here.

Before going too much into the GPL 1969, first I'd like to highlight some background info that I find interesting.

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