Last update - July 2008:

What is GPL?; Optimising for GPL; GPL Driving Tips & Tweaks; GPL Downloads; GPL Links;

LATEST GPL NEWS:

Fancya nice 1960's V12 Ferrari MP3 soundfile? This one is great and is only 175kb in size. Go get it from

There seems to be no let up regarding GPL add on's. Various utilities, and add on tracks just keep coming and coming (which is great news for us!) Yet more tracks, add ons, updates, car cockpits, etc are continually being introduced for GPL, Go get them from .

Or, how about the Buggati - Le Mans circuit, yes really! Go get it from

Or, how about Crystal Palace! Get it from . Great work guys, keep em coming...

Yet more new GPL tracks can be found . They include Goodwood and the excellent Solitude track. Read the readme files included in the zip files for details on how to install the tracks in GPL.

Dave Noonan does it again! He has released yet another new GPL track, this time its Imola. Thanks Dave. You can go and get this excellent track from Or try getting it from Its the version of Imola *without* all the chicanes, have fun....

WHAT IS GPL?

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Arguably the most realistic driving simulator yet developed? GPL is a computer racing simulation program for the PC, based on the 1967 Formula One season. Why this season? Well, after 1967 various technological advancements were made in F1, which included inproved aerodynamics by including wings on the cars, improved engines, brakes and tyres. The cars used in 1967 had no downforce to speak of, Huge engines with awesome power, Dated brakes with limited stopping ability, Tiny (by todays standards?) grooved skinny tyres, and Virtually no aerodymic design to the chassis. The cars were almost impossible to drive consistently on or near the edge, and the drivers were huge heroes to anyone who remembers the era? All this lead to one thing....Very exciting, and very dangerous (often fatal!) racing.

GPL tries (very successfully in my opinion) to recreate the racing conditions from this era. The cars in the program are replica's of the originals, (Such as the V8 Lotus 49, the Ferrari 312 V12, or the Eagle Westlake T1G) and the driving model is also accurately based on the cars from this period. Using GPL you can race against the legends who dominated this period in F1 history, such as Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Dan Gurney and Jack Brabham. Some of the original circuits (in their original layouts) are also included in GPL, such as Silverstone, Spa, Rouen and the awesome Ring (all 14 miles and 175 corners of it!)

GPL can be raced off-line or on-line. Off-line provided up to 19 AI opponents controlled by the PC. Or you can practice on your own, you can have a single race (of varying lengths) or race over a full season. On-line you can race with up to 19 other people, but the normal on-line races are usually made up of around 10 or 12 other racers?

OPTIMISING YOUR PC FOR GPL:

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To get the best performance from your PC when racing GPL (on-line or off-line), ideally, it should be the only program running. Turn off all you other programs before starting GPL. To check what programs are running in the background on your PC, (especially if using Win95/98) press Ctrl and Alt and Delete together to get the "Close program" box on your screen. This will tell you what programs are still running. Ideally you only need systray and explorer to be running (but this will depend on how you pc has been set-up?) Turning off virus checkers, and programs such as MS FastFind or ICQ will help to improve GPL's performance on your pc, as these programs use up valueable cpu resources if left running in the background.

GPL runs better with faster PC systems. FACT! If you have an older or slower PC system, do not expect GPL to run perfectly at its maximum (36fps) frame rate, with all the graphics and sound options turned on. Ideally, for on-line racing you want to try and run GPL at a constant 36fps. Unless you have a brand new Ninja PC, this means turning down or off some of GPL's options, Including some or all of the following:

If your PC is set-up optimised for games, this will also improve GPL's performance. 64Mb of system RAM is an absolute minimum, 128Mb is far better. The latest drivers for all your sound cards, graphics cards, and modem will also help speed things up. PCI based cards are also prefered to older ISA cards, as PCI cards appear to have a lower CPU load than ISA cards, which frees up more CPU cycles to concentrate on the actual game itself.

Also see: Computer Driving Games: For more details on optimising your PC for Games: And also see setting up your DUN connection for GPL:

GPL DOWNLOADS:

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A Direct3D Rasterizer has been made available for GPL. Whats a Direct3D Rasterizer? Well it will improve performance of all those non 3DFx/Voodoo (NVidea, GeForce, Matrox G400, etc) graphics cards that support Direct3D, thats what it is! So all those peeps that have been using the OpenGL patch, should get better performance if they switch to this utility.

Get the Direct3D rasterizer from There is a readme file included in the download which gives more details, Please make sure you read it. NB: Users will apparently need the 5.22 reference Detonator2 drivers and DirectX7, and will also need to make a change to the GPL core.ini file.

The existing GPL utility, the GPL Replay Analyser, has just had a new version released (v3.1) this latest version includes a GPL Rank Calculator. Get it from

How about finding out how good you really are at GPL? Go to the new GPL Rank website. It ranks all the GPL racers, all you do is log on and upload a copy of your player.ini file, and it figures out how good (or bad!) you are at GPL, by comparing your best laptimes. You need to have completed at least one timed lap at every track. Get it from

George Smiley has released a new rear view mirror feature for GPL. It places a small rear view mirror at the top, and in the centre of the GPL screen when using the in-car driving view. The mirror refresh rate, and the mirror size can both be adjusted. The feature turns off the wing/side mirrors and seems to improve frame rates too! You can get the small program from

A new GPL patch I hear you cry? Yep, get it from (Its about 32kb in size) Its called the disco patch. So what does the patch do? well, it should help to reduce the number of disconnections people suffer when racing GPL on-line. (Hence the name!) How does it work? I don't know, I didn't program it! Just go and get it....

Dave Noonan's track converter. Get it from The track converter should convert most circuits from Papyrus racing games/sims, including CART Racing and Indycar Racing 2 (ICR2), into GPL tracks so they can be raced using GPL. Thanks, many big, huge thanks Dave!!!

There is also the enhanced 3D kits for converted tracks. These are programs that enhance the look and atmosphere for the older tracks that can be converted for use with GPL. For more info about the 3D kits, go Click on "help", then "add-ons", and then look at the "tracks" and "3D kits" sections.

How about the GPL Race Engineer. Get it from Click on "help", then select "add-ons", then select "GPL race engineer". With lots of GPL tracks now available (via the track converter and add on tracks) there are way too many set-ups to figure out. The GPL Race Engineer, is a program designed to help you find a good set-up for your car, at any track. Produced by Nate Hine, with a help file written by Alison (Eagle Woman) Hine, it should help lots of people find better car set-ups!

Want the GPL version of Snetterton? get it from This is an excellent conversion of a great UK circuit. Go get it now. (I can't beat 1:30 yet!)

Then there is the neat GPL website (called Today's Legends) Where you can register as a GPL driver, it has all the most famous GPL'ers already on the site. You can submit some comments about yourself, or about GPL, and also include a picture of yourself! Go to to visit the site. The site also has lots of other useful GPL stuff too. And yes, I'm already on it!

The GPL v1.2 patch is available from The Official Papy Website; You can also get a new version of Spyboy (the program that allows multiplayer on-line games of GPL) which is now called WinVROC and supports the v1.2 GPL patch. Get WinVROC from the Official WinVROC Website;

The v1.2 patch remedies most of the problems people suffered using the v1.1 patch, the new patch has a readme file which details the problems solved, read it! We should now be able to enjoy smoother, warp and clock smash free, on-line GPL racing?

Some Internet Links to GPL related websites: (See my UK GPL section for UK GPL League members websites).

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