The Pits

THE TRACK CONVERTER FAQ

What are the converters? - The track converters are a set of utilities that allow tracks from Nascar Racing to be used in Indycar 2 and vice versa. This means that those of you fed up with going left in a Nascar can convert the road courses and use them instead.

Who wrote the track converters? - They were written by Gerhard Lingengberg from Germany. He's a member of Compuserve and has been known to compete in Internet racing leagues. He's a fairly quiet chap who likes to stay out of the limelight.

How do they work? - There is no real difference between the DAT files in Nascar and ICR2 apart from some naming conventions as colour pallettes. The converters work by breaking a DAT file down into it elements, making pallette changes and renaming certain files, and then recompiles them. It also creates new TXT files and AI driving files for the various tracks.

How do I use the Nascar to Indycar2 and Indycar2 to Nascar track converters - Simple. Download the required program and make a new directory to put it into. Place the file into this directory and expand it (files from The Pits are self extracting EXE's). Simply run the program, give it the paths to your various games and select the track you want to convert. Once it's done, run the game and try it out.

How do I stop Indycars from driving like Nascars? - You need to download the AI patch file from The Pits with updated AI files in it. Install it as per the converters and it will change the AI for that track.

What is the Indy500 converter? - The Indy500 converter converts the Indianapolis 500 track from the Indycar 1 Indy500 track pack for use in Nascar or ICR2. It does not convert the track from the original Indy500 game made by Papyrus around 1988.
There are two utilities, one to convert it to Nascar and one to convert it to Indycar 2

Where can I get the Indy500 track pack? - Not from us for a start! If you download a copy off of the Internet it is illegal. If you can't get it from your local software store, in the US try Papyrus Direct at:

1 800 836 1829.

Outside America all distribution is handled through Virgin; in the UK you should contact

Virgin Interactive Ent., Inc.
2 Kensington Square
London W8 5RB

telephone: (44) 171 368 2255
fax: (44) 171 468 2001

How do I use the Indy500 converters? - In the same way as the other converters. Just tell it your Indycar 1 directory.

I've got the track pack but not Indycar 1. How do I convert it? - Simple. Make a directory (folder Win'95) on your hard disk called INDYCAR and create a subdirectory called TRACKS and a subdirectory of that called INDY. You should end up with:

INDYCAR
  |_TRACKS
     |_INDY

On one of the disks you will find a file called INDY.EXE. Copy this to the INDY directory and expand it by running the EXE file.
Once you've done this, run the converter and point it to your INDYCAR directory.

Why do my tyres overheat when I go off line? - This was a bug in version 1 of the converters. It is fixed in version 2, now available for download. The AI cars have also been improved.

Why are the colours wrong? - Two reasons. Either you got my very early, crude, converter which was a swine to install, or you've not installed version 2 properly. Either get the latest version of the converter (v2.0) or - and I'm told this by visitors to The Pits - run it again, it should short it out.

Is there a Daytona track available? - Yes, but at the moment it runs on a special version of Nascar at the Daytona theme park. Talks are underway to get Papyrus the license to use the track in Nascar 2 or Hawaii. We did have our own version available but we're not releasing it into the Public Domain as its causing friction in official circles and could prevent Papyrus getting the license.

Can I convert my Indycar 1 tracks? - Not at the moment. We haven't looked too hard at converting them and anyway, the ICR2 tracks are better and more accurate. You can't, at the moment convert Nascar tracks to ICR 1 either. We're not saying its impossible, but the work and effort involved don't warrant it.

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