IndyCar Racing II: The Rendition Experience

Finally working.

I forgot to add 1 to the number of vertices for Flavour 2 (and Flavour 1) nodes.

Many thanks to checkpoint20 for his awesome 3DO script.

Videos:
Cars2020

Modded carset:
MD5: e2a29cfea8360052138cc1c9578abad5

1982Cart:

Modded carset:
MD5: 8bc0862c2f22d234fd1b16626643bb63

The track converter (TREdit x64):
MD5: 63848dcb4a6c4f7f3ee3131764e581e3

Currently only supports carset conversion.

Usage:

To convert an unpacked carset:
TREdit <unpacked DAT folder> -convert <target folder>

You may have to copy in files outside the dat file like drivers.txt.

To unpack a DAT:
TREdit <path to DAT file> -unpack <output folder>

Files outside the dat file are not currently copied to the output folder.

To extract or explode MIPs from an unpacked track DAT:
TREDit <Unpacked DAT folder> -explode <output folder>

To extract or explode MIPs from an unpacked carset:
TREdit <Unpacked DAT folder> -palette <path to sunny.pcx> -explode <output folder>

The sunny.pcx can be found by unpacking one of the built in track DATs.
 
Shrinking carsets even further to 16 colour Mi4s from 256 colour Mip files allows the custom track Detroit Downtown to run. There's no dithering at the moment, so that's the next step:

Cars2020+ Detroit Downtown

1982 Cart

Download link and instructions in video details.

The second pass uses:
[EDIT2]
TREdit <ShrunkMIPFolder> -palette <pathToSunny.pcx> -track -convert <Mi4Folder>
[/EDIT2]

[EDIT]
MD5: b024a30ccdf7e18ee640cd3c141b9d68

MD5: 4090048745bcd2cc41e5908cf9d2a0aa
 
Last edited:
*************************************************
RReady Alpha, December 28, 2024 (Untested Alpha Release)
*************************************************
MD5: 4ac88593b03b798f10f2a4a08ef6d6d4

- Corrects OpenGL glsl shader "error C7011: implicit cast from "uint" to "int'" error
- 60 fps Frame Generation/interpolation supported for Gr*nd Pr*x L*egends and "Die by the Sword." Note GPL will have to be run at default resolution/4:3 (fill screen aspect) aspect as the game has a mouse lock. Higher resolutions can be selected from within the game, Your GPu's internal aspect ratio controls from its control panel should be used for aspect ratio selection. "Die by the Sword" can be upscaled without issue.
- Fixes Eur*figher 2000+ texture corrutpion when switching between menu and active mission. This was caused by the game writing to 8 MB of VRAM and choosing textures within the 4 MB range. Rounding write addresses modulo 4 MB, effectively restricting writes to the first 4 MB for this game, corrects the issue.
- Whiplash minor fixes.

This release probably won't go into testing for a few more weeks and has undergone rather severe and sudden shader changes as well as enhanced logging, so pretty much nothing is guaranteed to work. I really have to finish off the TREdit tool over the next two-three weeks before getting around to do a release. If you do spot any bugs, please let me know and I will fix them.
 
Riverside 81 ICR2 Track working, download link to track in video:

Custom carsets don't currently work with it and the maximum texture width is 64 and not 128.

I'm not quite ready to release the converter yet, it's a bit buggy. Now to see if I can get Indianpolis working.
 
https://nirvtek.com/downloads/TREdit.20250101.001.7z
MD5: 924c346f0e48251caea27935c5c4a3d8

************************************************************************************************************
TREdit V1.0
Built on: Jan 1 2025, 16:46:50
Designed to convert incompatible carsets and tracks for the Rendition Edition of Indy Car Racing II
************************************************************************************************************
Usage TREdit <DATfile if unpacking|source folder> [-width <width>][-height <height>][-info]|[-report]
[-unpack | -convert | -explode <output path>]
-Unpack, -convert or -explode must be specified at the end of the line
-unpack <ExtractionPath>
To convert a carset:
-convert <Extraction Path>
To convert a track or Mi4 (paletted):
-track -convert <Extraction Path>
To extract the contents of MIP and MI4 files
for a track:
The -width and -height parameters have no effect on carsets
-explode <Output path>
for a carset
-palette <full path to sunny.pcx> -explode <Output path>
************************************************************************************************************
To convert tracks two passes will have to be carried without and with -track. When carrying out the second pass (with -track) -palette <path to sunny.pcx from carset> will have to be passed.

Some tracks currently will have to be shrunk down to 8x4 textures, in extreme cases . Riverside only required -width 64 with height omitted.
If width or height is omitted width will be 128 and height will be left alone ( left at some insanely large level).

TREdit <unpacked dat folder> -width <target width> [-height <target height>, this is optional] - convert <MIP output folder>
TREdit <MIP output folder> -palette <unpacked dat folder\sunny.pcx> -track -convert <Mi4 output folder>
Copy contents of <MIP output folder>, <Mi4 output folder> and files other than the .dat file into the track subfolder under <Indycar>\TRACKS
At the moment custom carsets will not work with high res carsets. This is being looked at at the moment. Shrinking track textures down to 8x4 (in extreme cases) isn't very pretty and work is being done to hack ICR2 to support 16 MB of VRAM, Speedy3D's limit.

To convert a carset:

TREdit <unpacked dat folder/source folder> - convert <MIP output folder>
TREdit <MIP output folder> -palette <some default track dat folder\sunny.pcx> -track -convert <Mi4 output folder>
Copy contents of <MIP output folder>, <Mi4 output folder> and files other than the .dat file into the carset subfolder under <Indycar>\CARS

Carsets generally will work after the first pass for the built in tracks. Custom carsets, such as the Detroit Downtown (Rendition specific version) will require the second pass for the carset as well.

To unpack a .DAT fild
TREdit <Path to dat> -unpack <dat folder>.

To extract the contents of MIP and Mi4 files:
TREdit <folder with unpacked/shrunk MIP or MI4 files> -palette <path to sunny.pcx (for track track specific, for carset use one from built in track> -explode <output folder>
Images will be extracted as PNGs.
 
vQuake with Dosbox-Renditoin/RReady 16 MB of VRAM:


Skip to 03:55 for a little bit of mipscale_0 action.
d_mipscale 0 is fully playable. It's not in the vid, but I've been able to playthrough the first 2 levels at a solid 60 fps (with a few dips).
 
**********************************************
RReady Alpha January 03, 2025 (Untested Alpha Release)
**********************************************
[Wrong]MD5: 863a01108132a9ceaf5a03a7f85067c4[/Wrong]
MD5: MD5: 5e5e8967fcf5a7e3681f1cd08b6b2d47

- Ups Speedy3D VRAM limit to 16 MB from 4 MB (Speedy3D hardware limit. Note RRedline has access to a full 128 MB thanks to higher level abstraction). The MiroV1k.VBI BIOS needs to be used.
- Includes previous fixes:
- Corrects OpenGL glsl shader "error C7011: implicit cast from "uint" to "int'" error
- 60 fps Frame Generation/interpolation supported for Gr*nd Pr*x L*egends and "Die by the Sword." Note GPL will have to be run at default resolution/4:3 (fill screen aspect) aspect as the game has a mouse lock. Higher resolutions can be selected from within the game, Your GPU's internal aspect ratio controls from its control panel should be used for aspect ratio selection. "Die by the Sword" can be upscaled without issue.
- Fixes Eur*figher 2000+ texture corruption when switching between menu and active mission. This was caused by the game writing to 8 MB of VRAM and choosing textures within the 4 MB range. Rounding write addresses modulo 4 MB, effectively restricting writes to the first 4 MB for this game, corrects the issue.[Update] This issue is fixed with 16 MB of VRAM as well. The previous fix is unnecessary,
- Whiplash minor fixes.

This release won't go into testing (and then on to to a store release) for at least another week.
 
Last edited:
Managed to increase the heap size for ICR2 to 49 MB and full fat carsets work just fine natively. The tracks are another matter though and will probably need DOSBox to support 128 MB of RAM or something.
These should work on original hardware provided the machine has at least 64 MB of RAM.
MD5:44a72b1efc15fbc2171b906a63f5133e

For best results you'll need the upcoming build of RReady with 16 MB of VRAM. I'll try and release that as soon as possible.

Videos:
 
************************************************************
RReady Alpha, January 5, 2025 (Untested release, undergoing testing)
************************************************************
MD5: 95a9426d295887198bfc6f442f7d9ee7
- Support for a full 16 MB of VRAM for Speedy3D apps. This is the upper limit for Speedy3D (24 bit).
For Speedy3D apps, VRAM is configured in dosbox-rendition.conf (or ...-staging.conf) with
[rendition]
MaxVRAM =nn (nn is in MB, range 4-16, default 16)
For RRedline MaxVRAM=nn can be set in rendition.cfg and it defaults to 128 MB
- vQuake beta 1.06 is once again playable and joins betas 1.07 and 1.08 (recommended beta)
- Higher resolutions may be selectable in vQuake but currently have issues. This will be resolved in a future release.
- Bilinear filtering can be disabled by adding nofilter=1 to rendition.cfg. Some games might not render correctly with this setting.
- vHexen II additional resolutions can be unlocked by selecting the game in the WinApps tab of RLauncher and clicking "App Settings."->Unlock resolutions. There may be rendering bugs with higher resolutions. This will be fixed in a future update.

ICR2 with bilinear filtering disabled:

Filtering can be disabled by adding nofilter=1 to rendition.cfg (Requires January 5, 2025, build 001 release of RReady).
 
**************************************************************
RReady Alpha, January 7, 2025 (Full tested stable build)
**************************************************************
MD5: 6ef91529aa5bf287b88fd5179f36c489
- Support for a full 16 MB of VRAM for Speedy3D apps. This is the upper limit for Speedy3D (24 bit).
For Speedy3D apps, VRAM is configured in dosbox-rendition.conf (or ...-staging.conf) with
[rendition]
MaxVRAM =nn (nn is in MB, range 4-16, default 16 if setting missing)
For RRedline MaxVRAM=nn can be set in rendition.cfg and it defaults to 128 MB
- vQuake beta 1.06 is once again playable and joins betas 1.07 and 1.08* (*recommended beta)
- Higher resolutions may be selectable in vQuake 1, but currently have issues. This will be resolved in a future release.
- Bilinear filtering can be disabled by adding nofilter=1 to rendition.cfg. [This should work correctly now]. Some games might not render correctly with this setting.
- vHexen II additional resolutions can be unlocked by selecting the game in the WinApps tab of RLauncher and clicking "App Settings."->Unlock resolutions. There may be rendering bugs with higher resolutions. This will be fixed in a future update.
- Regression ucube.exe (SDK demo) fails to render correctly in full screen mode.
- Corrects OpenGL GLSL shader "error C7011: implicit cast from "uint" to "int'" error on some hardware.
- 60 fps Frame Generation/interpolation supported for Grand Prix Legends and "Die by the Sword." Note GPL will have to be run at default resolution/4:3 (fill screen aspect) aspect as the game has a mouse lock. Higher resolutions can be selected from within the game, Your GPU's internal aspect ratio controls from its control panel should be used for aspect ratio selection. "Die by the Sword" can be upscaled without issue.
- Fixes Eurofigher 2000+ texture corruption when switching between menu and active mission. This was caused by the game writing to 8 MB of VRAM and choosing textures within the 4 MB range. Rounding write addresses modulo 4 MB, effectively restricting writes to the first 4 MB for this game, corrects the issue.
- Whiplash minor fixes.
This update should be available in the Microsoft Store within the next 3 days.
**************************************************************
 
RReady Alpha, January 7, 2025 (Untested build for ICR2)
Updated build:

MD5: d975cfc9f583d10b1de9a121e514a194

- Fixes all issues raise by @gplaps for ICR2 (two of them I'm not sure, but they seem fixed)
- Massive performance improvement in ICR2 for mobile/integrated GPUs. Achieved by disabling Edge AA. I disabled only Line AA and not edge AA.
- nofog=1 and nofilter=1 does what they say.
- This won't be on the store for at least a week.
 
Nofilter and nofog finally working correctly with ICR2:



Components of RReady are being flagged as malware by Windows Defender (and nothing else): Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.B!ml or Win32/Formbook!m. These are really dangerous forms of malware . Over the past year I've had every single component of RReady being randomly flagged as malware including at one point a text file.

MS ignore reports unless there're a significant number of users complaining. if you would like to help, the link to mark an incorrect detection is over here:

Submit a file for malware analysis - Microsoft Security Intelligence

Submit suspected malware or incorrectly detected files for analysis. Submitted files will be added to or removed from antimalware definitions based on the analysis results.
www.microsoft.com
 
*****************************************
RReady Alpha, January 10, 2025 (Untested Store Release candidate)
This will be undergoing testing shortly
*****************************************
MD5: 7a07f529eade3ed5aae43a6a5c0c8724

- Tomb Raider 1 video cutscenes should now render on Win11 24H2 with Nvidia hardware and possibly on most Intel integrated GPUs.
- ICR2 by default disables Rendition anti-aliasing which makes the game runnable on GPUs with less VRAM, such as Intel HD graphics. It also provides a significant performance boost on such systems.
- ICR2 – RLauncher now offers control over fogging, bilinear filtering and low res mirrors (original game resolution). Additionally options to disable line drawing and Rendition Anti-Aliasing are available. The latter two are turned off by default as custom carsets have issues with this, even on original hardware. They can be turned back on for purists.
- Whiplash original low res mirrors can be enabled.
- SDK Demo Ucube.exe should now once again render correctly in full screen mode.
 
*********************************************************************
RReady Alpha, January 12, 2025 (Untested Alpha Release,)
*********************************************************************
MD5: 18983b8a716eab970f813b74327bc754

- Window positioning/centering controls in RLauncher with support from the wrapper.
(Note: Position (0,0) is the top left of the primary monitor. Anything to the left/top of the primary will have a negative x/y coordinate or possibly both.
********************************************************************
 
*************************************************************
RReady Alpha, January 13, 2025 (Fully tested stable build)
**************************************************************
MD5: 2bdc27f53bbc7ad5b7a0eb3a484ee706

Fixes:
- Tomb Raider 1 video cutscenes should now render on Win11 24H2 with Nvidia hardware and possibly on most Intel integrated GPUs.
- ICR2 by default disables Rendition anti-aliasing which makes the game runnable on GPUs with less VRAM, such as Intel HD graphics. It also provides a significant performance boost on such systems.
- ICR2 – RLauncher now offers control over fogging, bilinear filtering and low res mirrors (original game resolution). Additionally options to disable line drawing and Rendition Anti-Aliasing are available. The latter two are turned off by default as custom carsets have issues with this, even on original hardware. They can be turned back on for purists. Rendition if enabled from RLauncher, can be disabled in game by pressing [ALT+A].
- Whiplash original low res mirrors can be enabled.
- SDK Demo Ucube.exe should now once again render correctly in full screen mode.
- Dosbox-Staging-Rendition now uses dosbox-staging-rendition.conf as its setting file. If an older version was installed, run dosbox-staging-rendition, close it and then copy the old dosbox-staging.conf settings into the newly created dosbox-staging-rendition.conf.
- Should allow for enabling frame interpolation/generation on more GPUs such as the AMD RX7900 series and GT 330 M.
- Window positioning/centering controls in RLauncher with support from the wrapper.
(Note: Position (0,0) is the top left of the primary monitor. Anything to the left/top of the primary will have a negative x/y coordinate or possibly both.
- Better support [ALT+TAB], [ALT+ENTER] commands when switching between Dosclient.exe and the desktop. It should no longer maximise the Dosbox console and leave Dosclient locked out of keyboard and mouse input.

**************************************************************
 
***************************************************
RReady Alpha, January 14, 2025 Build #002 (untested alpha build)
*****************************************************
MD5: 48d1e0041a6c803bdffab34cea656d07
- Corrects lockup when resuming a race/season in ICR2.
- All OEM keys on keyboards are now handled correctly depending on locale, should work correctly for all keyboard language settings.

Ignore the stuff below:

*************************************************
RReady Alpha 20250114
*************************************************
MD5: c9e475f9f2a3b8296f4f14dea1131895

- Corrects lockup when resuming a race/season in ICR2.
- Brake balance adjustment for ICR2 should work on UK keyboards. They `/~ functionality might not work properly on US keyboard. In the dosbox-rendition.conf (or dosbox-staging-rendition.confg) adding

[rendition]
keyboard = US


The default setting (when missing) is
keyboard=generic

will restore that key, but might break it for everyone else. They keyboard mapping might have to be rehandled at some point using the locale.

I will aim to roll out those two fixes by the end of the week and any other reported bugs.
 
Last edited:
***************************************************
RReady Alpha, January 14, 2025 Build #002 (Fully tested build)
*****************************************************
MD5: 48d1e0041a6c803bdffab34cea656d07
- Corrects lockup when resuming a race/season in ICR2.
- All OEM keys on keyboards are now handled correctly depending on locale, should work correctly for all keyboard language settings.
Identical to previous untested alpha.
(This should be live on the store.)
******************************************************
 
***************************************************
RReady Alpha, January 14, 2025 Build #002 (Fully tested build)
*****************************************************
MD5: 48d1e0041a6c803bdffab34cea656d07
- Corrects lockup when resuming a race/season in ICR2.
- All OEM keys on keyboards are now handled correctly depending on locale, should work correctly for all keyboard language settings.
Identical to previous untested alpha.
(This should be live on the store.)
******************************************************
 
*******************************************************
RReady Alpha, January 23, 2025
*******************************************************
MD5: caaf34fc942b6848427112024a747e9a

- Both versions of dosbox allow selection of joystick devices. This is done with:
[joystick]
usejoystickids=true
joystickids= id1|[,id2]

id1 and id2 are numbers from 0 to the number of joysticks -1. The id2 and the preceding , can be omitted to use just a single joystick. This defaults to 0,1 when usejoystickids=false. The logfile %localappdata%\dosbox-staging-rendition lists all available devices along with joystick numbers.

On Windows 11 for some reason SDL2 (32 bit) seems to go bonkers and with dosbox-staging-rendition (which is currently a 32 bit app) returns garbage axis and button readings on Win11. The 64 bit version, which isn't part of RReady doesn't seem to be affected.

Dosbox-staging-Rendition has all the joystick changes from Dosbox-staging 0.82 incorporated, but my Logitech gamepad doesn't work in Dosbox-staging-Rendition. It would be nice if someone with a wheel could test this out and see if nothing's broken.
 
******************************************
RReady Alpha,January 24, 2024 (untested alpha build)
******************************************
MD5: 242a8a5a255d864026ae25a64bcd9ce3

- Joysticks should be fully functional in dosbox-staging-rendition. Dosclient being in focus causes Dosbox's SDL2 libraries to ignore joystick input.
- Screensaver and monitor idle is disabled while DOS/Speedy3D apps are running.
 
******************************************
RReady Alpha,January 24, 2024 (Fully tested alpha build)
******************************************
MD5: 242a8a5a255d864026ae25a64bcd9ce3

- Joysticks should be fully functional in dosbox-staging-rendition. Dosclient being in focus causes Dosbox's SDL2 libraries to ignore joystick input.
- Screensaver and monitor idle is disabled while DOS/Speedy3D apps are running.
- Both versions of dosbox allow selection of joystick devices. This is done with:
[joystick]
usejoystickids=true
joystickids= id1|[,id2]
id1 and id2 are numbers from 0 to the number of joysticks -1. The id2 and the preceding ',' can be omitted to use just a single joystick. This defaults to 0,1 when usejoystickids=false. The logfile %localappdata%\temp\dosbox-staging-rendition.txt (or dosbox-rendition.txt) lists all available devices along with joystick number after launching dosbox.
- Pressing [ENTER] on Speedy3D (DOS) application exit will no longer maximise the Dosbox console.
- Regression: T*am Apache intro video locks up rendering the game unplayable (Win1124H2, January updates).
- Regression: M*ch Warrior 2 Titanium locks up on mission exist (Win1124H2, January updates).
- vQ*ake may have stability issues with both builds of Dosbox when a joystick is connected.
- Descent II videos should render better on older machines (Dosbox-Rendition, changes not ported across yet to staging).

This should be live on the Microsoft Store in a couple of hours.
 
ICR2 runningon HD2000 (with a test build of RReady):

The work is incomplete and the build isn't entirely stable, but hopefully I can fix that over next few weeks.
 
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