User:Shovas

Shovas

“For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
– John 3:16, Holy Bible. Visit selah.ca/free-gift to learn more.

Buy me a coffee

Donate to paypal@shovas.ca or send BTC Bitcoin to bc1q8nwwnwp9zljndlcaw4jcmj0yfyqe69fa5k54dm, LTC Litecoin to ltc1qljlmg5673q6j0s5cmxk4ggyn0x5d4npaw25vah, DOGE Dogecoin to DSMwwdHqJ3LMxPe1HiGgNKsWBY2jPi2RwW, or XRP Ripple to rGUoiGSjhsM14sPyePao1eqvjD6sXa1uLL. Thank you!

Mods

Misc Sims:

• SHO XD Style SimHub Overlays - SimHub Overlays work with all SimHub-supported sims (which is basically all of them including GTR2, etc.)
• SHO Weather Generator - PHP script that produces quasi-realistic weather scenarios from real weather data

GTR2:

• SHO Specialfx - Custom Specialfx.tec tweaks for bumps, bounces, grip levels, etc.
• Real Weather for GTR2 UI Tools by Pixiv - Weather files to support Pixiv's GTR2 UI Tools
• Real Weather for the Crew Chief GTR2 Enhancements Plugin - Weather files to support CCGEP's Custom Weather Feature
• SHO PnG Retrofit - Power & Glory Historical Immersion Enhancements Mod including Era-appropriate Tracks
• SHO Competition AI - Extensive attempts to improve AI competitiveness
• SHO Competition FFB for GTR2 - Crowdsourced FFB profiles for many popular wheels

GT Legends:

• SHO Competition FFB for GTL

Race 07:

• SHO Competition FFB for Race 07

Old:

• SHO Weather - Proof of concept command-line launcher for custom weather. Superceded by Real Weather for the Crew Chief GTR2 Enhancements Plugin

Simwiki Pages

• Watching Le Mans 24h Live - How to make your own free, live broadcast out of live timing screens, live radio commentary, and live onboard videos

GTR2:

• GTR2 Graphics Optimization

Contact

• Discord:
  • @shovas on Discord
  • Simwiki Discord
  • Crew Chief GTR2 Enhancements Plugin Discord
• Forums:
  • Simwiki Forums
  • Trackaholics Forums
  • European Endurance Center (GTR2 Endurance) Forums
  • Evolution Modding Forums
  • F1Classic Forums

To-Dos

N/A

Ideas

• File Downloads Hosting
  • If you already pay for a cloud drive, like Google Drive, Office 365, Proton Drive, Dropbox, Mediafire, or Mega, just use that if you're an individual modder. They're unlikely to completely cancel a paying customer even if they realize you're using it for download sharing.
  • We all use free Mediafire or Mega cloud drives to distribute our mods
    • That tends to work fine because each person has their own account and for each modder there's a limited audience so not too much of a risk of going over the transfer limit (but I've seen it happen)
    • You can pay $6-12/month to Mediafire or Mega and get more space and more transfer limit
    • But it still leaves the problem that Mediafire and Mega aren't really intended to be used for downloads the way we use them
  • Shared Web Hosting is one cheap option, if you're willing to pay, as you can use the webspace for downloads instead of a website
    • Often very cheap pricing and generous storage and traffic limits
    • Pay hosting often says "unlimited" storage and traffic but it's usually always limited in some way in the terms
    • But it's still often quite a bit of space and transfer, ready to go for HTTPS downloads, and cheap
    • IONOS Web Hosting Offers "unlimited" storage and traffic. Not very intuitive but once you get ftp setup and understand your web address it's easy.
    • Inmotion Hosting Offers "unlimited" storage and traffic, too. I've used Inmotion before for dedicated servers and they were fine.
    • DreamHost Shared Unlimited plan is cheap and has "unlimited" storage and traffic
    • Popular but not unlimited:
      • GoDaddy has cheap hosting which isn't unlimited but for a single modder it's an option.
      • SiteGround - Cheap, limited storage, unlimited traffic
      • Hostinger Web Hosting - Cheap prices, generous but not unlimited storage
      • BlueHost Web Hosting - Cheap-ish prices, fair but not unlimited storage
    • Tom's Guide - The best unlimited web hosting in 2024 - Find articles like this for the latest best deals
    • Gotchas
      • Limits in Terms
        • Search Terms for "limits", "transfer", "traffic", "visits", "inodes" to find our what their limits really are
      • Web hosts often limit storage by limiting "inodes"
        • You can still host a tonne of files, like tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand, maybe 600,000 (as limited on Hostinger's Business Plan), but it's something to be aware of.
        • Beware web hosting "apps" you can install. I installed MediaWiki at IONOS and it took up a huge portion of my inodes limit

Scratched:

• Ambient and track temperatures do not go down overnight: Can I modify the weather file to make that work?
  • Weather files are simply a progression of minutes without regard to time of day. It would require a higher-level change that would be able to look at what time-of-day the user chose in-game and then selecting from a file that starts-at-that-hour. It's possible but pretty involved.

Notepad

Best Looking GTR2 Tracks
- VLM Sebring
- VLM Mid-Ohio
- Imola 2021
- Paul Ricard https://trackaholics.forumotion.com/t7660-release-circuit-paul-ricard-1-0#147217

World Movement
- No TrackIR and 0% G-Force Simulation: 100% Camera locked to car, car steady, world moves. 50% Camera still locked to car, car steady, world moves but less I guess. 0% same as sefore, world steady, car moves, but camera must be fixed to something (I previously said 0% = lock to horizon so maybe it's that).
- Adding in G-force Simulation unlocks camera pitch but not yaw or roll it seems but I do have a heady physics mod active
  - but I think disabling g-force simulation disables the head physics mod since I didn't see any head physics movement
- I just asked ChatGPT if it had to guess how much your brain is stabilizing the visual from eyes in a race car situation with a driver bouncing around inside a bouncing car and it said 70-90%. I could bet it's north of 50% anyway.
- So < 50% World Movement, tune as desired

OneDrive
- Manually Sync One Specific Folder
  - Use Windows "junctions" (ie. symbolic/hard links to Linux/Unix users) inside a normal folder inside your '''C:\Users\<USER>\OneDrive\''' folder
    - Ex. '''C:\Users\User\OneDrive\GTR2\Junction -> C:\Other\Path\GTR2\Packages'''
  - How To:
    - Open a command prompt as Administrator (search "cmd" from Start menu, right-click and select Run As Administrator)
    - Change into your OneDrive folder (ex. '''cd C:\Users\<USER>\OneDrive\GTR2''')
    - Create the link (ex. '''mklink /j Tracks C:\Other\Path\GTR2\Tracks''')
- OneDrive's sync is surprisingly intelligent. It seems to understand the minimal thing to do even when you move or rename a large folder.
  - Even WinSCP folder sync, `rsync`, or apps like FreeFileSync (PortableApps) don't support this natively
- I've been loooking for a full folder/file synchronization tool to some kind of online web storage for a while and this method is what I need

Scratchpad

==
241216

Weather:
- Confirm I'm calculating different starting onpathwetness vs offpathwetness so that one line is preferable off the start
  - Confirm whether GTR2 is overriding starting pathwetness when entering track from garage

Weather Locations:
- lago maggiore
==
241215

CCGEP Eyepoint Adjustment vs Mirrors:
- CCGEP eyepoint adjustment also pan/zoom/raise/lower what the mirror displays, quite drastically even for small adjustments, resulting in harming mirror usefulness
- Could User PLR Moving Rearview improve this:
    Moving Rearview="3" // Whether mirrors respond to head movement in cockpit (0=none, 1=position-only, 2=FOV-only, 3=both
  - 3: Bad, pan/zoom/raise/lower behaviour still present
  - 2: Bad, pan/zoom/raise/lower behaviour still present
  - 1: Good, mirrors just change position instead of zooming BUT driver body is seen if you pull back far enough even at reasonable distances
  - 0: Good, mirrors never change now and driver body is not present when pulling back
    - Might be nice if the mirrors responded to position but not if they respond drastically, harming mirror usefulness
  - Mirrors never move according to TrackIR or Head Physics (I think), they only seem to move with eyepoint adjustment
  - Rearview Front/Rear Clip params might be relevant to driver body appearing in mirror but I haven't tested
  - Tested with Self In Cockpit Rearview=0 for all tests
      Self In Cockpit Rearview="0" // 0=none, 1=rear wing & wheels, 2=body & susp, 3=1+2, 4=cockpit, 5=1+4, 6=2+4, 7=all

==
241213

Sendai HiLand
- Dramatic frametime jitter improvement moving from Full shadows to High
  - From a very unpleasant experience to a smooth, enjoyable experience
  - Most tracks do not have this problem with these cars (DTM 2013)
  - So, can only assume it's unoptimized track shadows
  - And should be able to run Full shadows if optimized

==
241209

Vanilla Steam GTR2 Anti-Aliasing:
- Windows 10
- Using NVIDIA Profile Inspector to edit NVIDIA profiles
- Vanilla Steam
- GTR2Config.exe, Run As Admin, No Compat
- Steam, GTR2.exe, No Admin, WinXPSP2 Compat, GTR2Config.exe, No AA, Fullscreen
  - Anti-aliasing Mode: Override
  - Antialiasing Compatibility:
    - 0x004412C1 (Diablo III): AA Working
	- 0x00000000 (Default): AA Not Working
- Steam, GTR2.exe, No Admin, WinXPSP2 Compat, GTR2Config.exe, No AA, Windowed
  - Anti-aliasing Mode: Override
  - Antialiasing Compatibility:
    - 0x004412C1 (Diablo III): AA Working
	- 0x00000000 (Default): AA Not Working
- Steam, GTR2.exe, No Admin, WinXPSP2 Compat, GTR2Config.exe, 4x AA, Fullscreen
  - Anti-aliasing Mode: Enhance
  - Antialiasing Compatibility:
    - 0x004412C1 (Diablo III): AA Working
	- 0x00000000 (Default): AA Working
- Steam, GTR2.exe, No Admin, WinXPSP2 Compat, GTR2Config.exe, 4x AA, Windowed
  - Anti-aliasing Mode: Enhance
  - Antialiasing Compatibility:
    - 0x004412C1 (Diablo III): AA Working
	- 0x00000000 (Default): AA Working
- Conclusions:
  - Diablo III AA Compat needed when Fullscreen Anti-Aliasing is disabled in GTR2Config.exe
  - No special AA Compat needed when Fullscreen Anti-Aliasing is enabled in GTR2Config.exe
  - Fullscreen vs Windowed doesn't seem to matter
  - So, might as well leave Diable III AA Compat enabled at all times.

==
241208

Steam Vanilla GTR2 Anti-Aliasing Settings:
- Using NVIDIA Profile Inspector to edit NVIDIA profiles
- Vanilla Steam
- GTR2Config.exe, Run As Admin, No Compat
  - Some weirdness going with setting options, starting gtr2, exiting gtr2, and then some GTR2Config options are reset
- Steam, GTR2.exe, No Admin, WinXPSP2 Compat, GTR2Config.exe, No AA, Fullscreen
  - NVIDIA Profile:
    - AA Mode Override: AA Working
	- AA Mode Enhance: AA Not Working
- Steam, GTR2.exe, No Admin, WinXPSP2 Compat, GTR2Config.exe, 4x AA, Fullscreen
  - NVIDIA Profile:
    - AA Mode Override: AA Working
	- AA Mode Enhance: AA Working
- Steam, GTR2.exe, No Admin, WinXPSP2 Compat, GTR2Config.exe, No AA, Windowed
  - NVIDIA Profile:
    - AA Mode Override: AA Working
	- AA Mode Enhance: AA Not Working
- Steam, GTR2.exe, No Admin, WinXPSP2 Compat, GTR2Config.exe, 4x AA, Windowed
  - NVIDIA Profile:
    - AA Mode Override: AA Working
	- AA Mode Enhance: AA Working
- Conclusions:
  - AA Mode Override always works
  - AA Mode Enhance only works when AA is at leasty enabled in GTR2Config.exe
  - AA Mode does not seem to be related to Fullscreen vs Windowed mode

==
241204

How AI Should Work In Sims:
* Premise:
** You are playing the role of a professional race driver.
** You are racing at such and such a level which means you have the experience, skill, and driving license to compete at the level the sim presents
** That means that instead of you matching AI, the AI should match you
* Goals:
** Automatic AI difficulty based on current event qualifying, and practice if run, with graceful automatic fallback to past performance by class or track, with graceful final fallback to manual AI difficulty level
* How It Works:
** You start lapping in qualifying and the game adjusts AI difficulty in realtime based on your clean laptimes
*** This could start in practice so that qualifying is "pre-seeded" with performance data to pick the AI closer to the player's performance sooner
** You run qualifying until the end or until you are at race pace
** AI difficulty is based on a bell curve, using average and standard deviation performance metrics, with some limited randomness, to place the AI "around" you in terms of performance
** If your performance falls outside a certain range then past performance based on class and track is used and, if past performance data is not available, then fallback to manual AI difficulty level
* Benefits:
** You never have to set an AI difficulty level again if you run qualifying
** No magic needed:
*** Both Player and AI performance are based on actual laptimes driven by the player and AI in real-time.
*** There's no guessing. You adjust whatever parameters influence AI behind the scenes and watch for laptimes in real-time to increase. In this way, it works automatically and dynamically for any car class or track.
* Options:
* AI Strategies should be provided:
** Simulation: As described above
** Dynamic: AI also adjust in a Race session in the same way as Simulation so that you're always competitive
*** Could adjust lap by lap so that it's not too obvious. One or more AI might have a great few laps and fallback to normal laptimes so that it feels less fake.
*** Bell curve method means player exists within a bubble or window of AI performance levels, perhaps near the lead, perhaps near the back, perhaps in the middle. It doesn't need to feel like rubberbanding AI.
** Arcade: Simplistic rubberbanding AI as seen in many arcade games

==
241107

- Document and share my ReShade profiles, link reshades used

- AI will change tires with 1 or 2 laps to go just because it's drying out instead of trying to push to the end
==
240713

Quartiles
Ex. 20 AI Grid
- Blind:		Unfamiliar Track + No Practice:				4th Qrtl (Ex. 20th) at AI 100
- Cold:			Familiar Track + No Practice:				3rd Qrtl (Ex. 15th) at AI 105
- Competent:	Familiar Track + Moderate:					2nd Qrtl (Ex. 10th) at AI 110
- Ready:		Familiar Track + High Practice:				1st Qrtl (Ex. 5th) at AI 115

Quintiles
Ex. 20 AI Grid
- Blind:		Unfamiliar Track + No Practice:				5th Qntl (Ex. 20th) at AI 104
- Cold:			Familiar Track + No Practice:				4rd Qntl (Ex. 16th) at AI 108
- Warm:			Familiar Track + Low Practice:				3nd Qntl (Ex. 12th) at AI 112
- Competent:	Familiar Track + Moderate:					2nd Qntl (Ex. 8th) at AI 116
- Ready: 		Familiar Track + High Practice:				1st Qntl (Ex. 4th) at AI 120

Notes:
- Qrtl = Quartile
- Qntl = Quintile
- Assumes Familiar Car
- Every grid can be split up into quartiles/quintiles to fit this
  - Eg. 30 Grid: 1st Qrtl = 30/4 = 7.5 = P8
  - Eg. 20 Grid: 1st Qntl = 20/5 = 4 = P4

Tweaking Rules:
- Goal:
  - Gain 4-8 spots OK but any more and should grid -5 (closer to front for more challenge)
  - Lose 4-8 spots then grid +5 (closer to rear for less challenge)

Guidelines:
- Take it easy on the first corner and first lap, don't pass too many by abusing the bunched up AI

Tests:
- 240713 GT's 2004, Imola GP 2004 (Cold), Chrysler Viper GTS-R (Unfamiliar): Ahead raced away, behind stayed close
- 240713 GT's 2004, Valencia GP 2004 (Cold), Chrysler Viper GTS-R (Unfamiliar): Ahead raced away, behind stayed close
- 240713 GT's 2004, Donington GP 2004 (Competent), Chrysler Viper GTS-R (Unfamiliar): Ahead raced away, behind stayed close
- 240713 GT's 2004, Donington GP 2004 (Race Ready), Lam Mur R-GT 2004 (Familiar), Grid 30, AI 115: 8th to 6th, ahead stayed within reach, behind stayed close
- 240713 GT's 2004, Zuhai GP 2004 (Cold), Lam Mur R-GT 2004 (Familiar), Grid 42, AI 105: 32nd to 21st +11, ahead stayed within reach, behind stayed within reach
- 240713 GT's 2004, Zuhai GP 2004 (Competent), Lam Mur R-GT 2004 (Familiar), Grid 42, AI 110: 21st to 13th +8, ahead stayed within reach, behind stayed close
- 240713 GT's 2004, Oschersleben GP 2004 (Cold), Lam Mur R-GT 2004 (Familiar), Grid 32, AI 110: 26th to 19th +7, ahead stayed within reach, behind stayed within reach

==

Arcade Mode
- Changes mirrors to virtual rearview mirror only
- ...???
- Is this for controllers and gamepads?
- "Arcade mode- with individual physics to suit every game fan."
  - "In addition to the most accurate racing simulation on the planet, GTR has a completely separate Arcade mode for those gamers who love to throw the car around with wild abandon. The arcade mode is all about fun with thumping music and forgiving handling - a perfect introduction to real racing for the average gamer."
  - https://worthplaying.com/article/2004/9/11/news/19162-gtr-the-ultimate-racing-game-xboxpc-screens/