GPxPatch

Screenshots

Screenshots can be made with the F11 key. They are saved into the gpxpdata\screenshots directory and named gpx_####.bmp, where #### is a sequence number. Only works in hardware accelerated graphics mode.

Press Ctrl+Alt+F11 to automatically make screenshots continuously. To stop it hit F11 again.

Hold shift to exclude graphics painted by GPxPatch.

Configuration options

The following options are available on this tab:

Enabled extensions. Each extension can be turned on or off globally here. Main use will be for troubleshooting. Leave these on normally, else you'll miss some features.
Edit key binds. Opens gpxpdata\keys.ini in Notepad where you can edit the key bindings. For a list of possible keys, see the main page.
Edit fonts. Edits the global font settings (gpxpdata\fonts.ini).
GPx executable. The executable to run. Default this is detected by GPxPatch, but if you are using GP3Video for example, you can specify gp3v.exe.
Skip intro. When this option is checked, GPx will skip the intro. GP3 has a nointro commandline parameter, but since commandline parameters in GP3 are broken, I've added this option to GPxPatch.
Skip startup menu. When this option is checked, GPx will skip the startup menu and go right to the main menu.
Enable debug mode. This option can be used for troubleshooting any problems you may have with GPxPatch. Only works with decrypted version of GPx. The overhead of using debug mode is negligible, so you can have it always turned on. Debug mode can also suppress certain bugs, most notably related to custom tracks.
Log assertions. Option implemented mainly for track makers. Assertions normally result in the game exiting to the desktop, unless GPxPatch is used in debug mode, in which case they are ignored. This option makes sure the assertions are not ignored, but interpreted to create a diagnostic message. These messages are logged to gpxpdata\log\assert.txt. Not implemented for GP3 1.00 and GP4 1.00.
Log file verbosity. This is mainly for debug mode. The level only concerns the logfile gpxpdata\log\gpxpload.txt.
Host IP address. To play a multiplayer game over internet instead of on a LAN, you can enter the IP address (or host name) of the host that you want to connect to. The host is someone who is going to create a 2-player multiplayer session (unfortunately, this was removed from GP4). He can look up his IP address using the "My IP..." button (see below). Once you're in the multiplayer menu, simply select to join and press connect. It will then try to connect to the host specified by the IP address. If you leave it blank, it will search the LAN for multiplayer sessions as normal. If you're behind a firewall or router you might have to open some ports, as these are used by DirectPlay, which is what GPx uses (see the table below). Mind that some ISP's already block these ports for you, in which case you can't use this feature. Note that you need a good connection (like ADSL or cable) with low latency for the multiplayer game to run smooth. GPx was not designed to run over an unreliable internet connection, hence it was disabled in the final release. This patch is intended for people who do have a good connection. If you don't have one, bad luck, you're stuck to LAN or to other games that are better designed for internet multiplayer.
My IP.... When pressing this button GPxPatch will show you your IP address. There can be multiple ones, but you can ignore any addresses starting with 10.x.x.x, 172.16.x.x through 172.31.x.x, or 192.168.x.x, as they are local. If there are no others listed you're probably on a LAN behind a router. It is advised to use this website instead.
CPU. Specifies on which processor to run GPx. This option is available because problems were reported when running GP4 on a HT enabled CPU unless the process affinity mask was set to run it on one CPU.
Extended pause mode. When checked the extended pause mode is enabled once the pause key is released. When indeterminate the Enter key must first be pressing during pause mode to switch to the extended pause mode. Extended pause mode means that when the game is paused you are able to use the camera keys (including switching to other cars) and GPxPatch keys, so you can switch ATL screens, GPxSAT screens, make screenshots, etc. During this mode, the Paused sky message is not drawn. Note that this mode may not work anymore when exiting to the menu's and re-entering the cockpit.

Fonts

The fonts dialog presents a list of fonts to edit. The following settings are available for each font:

Add. Adds a new font entry to the list.
Delete. Deletes a font entry from the list.
Select. Press this button to select a font installed in your system. The other fields will be filled with the selected font attributes.
Face name. The font face name, e.g. Courier New. This is the name that is shown when you open the Fonts directory in the Windows directory.
Font file. Optional font file name. Needs to be specified if the font is not installed in Windows.
Height. The height of the font in points for 1024x768 resolution. This value is scaled automatically for other resolutions.
Weight. The weight of the font. Use 0 for default, and 1 for bold. For more specific weights, use a number between 1 and 1000 (400 is regular, 700 is bold).
Line spacing. This is a value that is added to the actual font height (not the requested height). For example, if the space between lines is too big, use a negative number to remove some space and have a more compact block of text. The default is 0.
Italic.
Underlined.
Strikeout.

The default fonts used in GPxPatch are not installed into the Windows Fonts folder, but are added to the system temporarily from the gpxpdata\gfx\fonts directory while running GPxPatch. Any new fonts should not be put here, but rather be installed in Windows (by copying the file to the Windows Fonts directory).

Advanced options

The following options are only available by editing gpxpatch.ini directly:

Section

Option

Values

Default

Description

[Misc]

SkipWeatherMenu

0	no
1	yes

Skip the weather menu, e.g. for quickrace mode.

[Misc]

UseFrontBufferForScreenshot

0	no
1	yes

Use the front buffer instead of the back buffer for screenshots. The advantage is that this will make it possible to create screenshots of anti-aliased displays. The disadvantages are: it will use more CPU time, screenshots will always include the GPxPatch overlays even when holding the Shift key, and when running GP4 in a window it will create a screenshot of the whole desktop.

[Misc]

CommandLine

string

GPx commandline parameters. Since GPxPatch launches the GPx game it's not possible to pass any commandline parameters for GPx itself directly. Instead you can specify them here.

[Sup]

ColoredFonts

0	disable
1	enable

Set to 0 to disable colored GPxPatch fonts if they are glitched on your (apparently very!) old video card.

[Game]

FixRefuelTimingBug

0	disable
1	enable

Set to 0 to disable the refuel timing bug fix. This bug caused a pitstop to be much faster once in a while.

Table of ports used by DirectPlay

(taken from the DirectX SDK)

The following chart shows which ports an administrator needs to open for a given desired style of play for applications using the dynamic range of DirectPlay.

Connection	Client configuration	Host configuration
Initial TCP Connection	47624 Outbound	47624 Inbound
Subsequent Inbound TCP Connections	2300-2400	2300-2400
Subsequent Outbound TCP Connections	2300-2400	2300-2400
Subsequent Inbound UDP Connections	2300-2400	2300-2400
Subsequent Outbound UDP Connections	2300-2400	2300-2400