GPL - Replay file size

Has anyone else experienced any difficulties with the replay file size in GPL? I seem to be limited to a replay lenfth of 2 Mbytes or thereabouts. This is regardless of game settings, graphics adapter, motherboard, CPU, all of which I have swapped for something different with no effect. I have also tried removing 32 Mbytes of my 64 Mbytes of RAM also with no effect. ie, when I save an entire replay, the file size is always close to 2 Mbytes. Since this translates to less than one lap of Spa with twenty cars, this is very annoying. What am I doing wrong? I am running Windows 95, Abit BH6, Pentium II 300 o/c to 450 MHz, 64 Mbytes RAM, Voodoo2 8 Mbytes, Creative Labs Rendition 4 Mbyte (Yuk), permanent 100 Mbyte swap file. Everything else runs fine Can anyone help? Mark Croasdale

Your replay size / length is dependant on the amount of RAM you have. I dont know the exact calculation. edk >Has anyone else experienced any difficulties with the replay file size in GPL? >I seem to be limited to a replay lenfth of 2 Mbytes or thereabouts. This is >regardless of game settings, graphics adapter, motherboard, CPU, all of which I >have swapped for something different with no effect. I have also tried >removing 32 Mbytes of my 64 Mbytes of RAM also with no effect. ie, when I save

Quoted text (12 lines)

>an entire replay, the file size is always close to 2 Mbytes. >Since this translates to less than one lap of Spa with twenty cars, this is >very annoying. What am I doing wrong? >I am running Windows 95, Abit BH6, Pentium II 300 o/c to 450 MHz, 64 Mbytes >RAM, Voodoo2 8 Mbytes, Creative Labs Rendition 4 Mbyte (Yuk), permanent 100 >Mbyte swap file. Everything else runs fine >Can anyone help? >Mark Croasdale

It's most likely the result of the fixed swap file, as I've had no trouble getting replays MUCH larger than 2MB. - Eric

Thanks for the response to my message. I hadn't noticed that stuff from Alison 's site. But there's still a bit of a mystery. Note that I said that I have 64 Mbytes RAM normally and experimented by reducing it temporarily to 32 Mbyte. This made no difference to the replay file size OR any other aspects of the sim,such as frame rate. The question is, if you need more than 64 Mbytes to get a longer replay, what does GPL do with the second 32 Mbytes? And do you need 128 Mbytes to improve things or will 96 Mbytes do the trick? Incidentally I have tried it with and without permanent swap files, but there is no difference. Am I the only person running GPL with 64 Mbytes? Do others with the same RAM get bigger replays? Anyone from Papyrus like to explain how it works? Thanks to anyone who can help.

We use a conservative heuristic to determine how large a replay buffer to allocate to reduce the likelihood of paging during gameplay. GPL will always allocate a replay buffer of at least 2M, however, even if the heuristic says that's too much. On a 64M machine, you'll pretty much always be in this 2M zone. You're welcome to experiment with larger replay buffers, but I found that even doubling the buffer to 4M on a 64M machine lead to significant paging. Play with this at your own risk. In the same directory as the gpl.exe program, use Notepad (or another plain text editor) to create a text file named core.ini In this file, add the following two lines: [ Replay ] replayMemoryOverride = X where X is the number of Kbytes of memory you want to dedicate to the replay buffer. Randy

Thanks for the info. Are you the horses mouth?

Errrmm.... yup. Better that end than the other :-) Randy

>>Am I the only person running GPL with 64 Mbytes? Do others with the same RAM >>get bigger replays? Anyone from Papyrus like to explain how it works? >In a world with millions of PCs you're wondering if you are the only >one running GPL with 64 MBs? LOL. I am; and I get the same size >limitation. I sure hope they fix this. I'd like to record an entire >race if possible. I'd even up to 128 if that would do it. JB, my friend and I just ran a 9 lap race at Watkins Glen. He was 128mb of RAM and was able to save ALL of practice and ALL of the race. It was an 8mb file. I have 64mb and I got laps 6-9. It was a 2mb file. Looks like a RAM upgrade is in your future. Make absolutely sure that your Mobo can cache more than 64mb. Mine can't, as Randy Cassidy pointed out, and it was causing GPL to run at about 2 frames per second because of it. Good luck, J.

In a world with millions of PCs you're wondering if you are the only one running GPL with 64 MBs? LOL. I am; and I get the same size limitation. I sure hope they fix this. I'd like to record an entire race if possible. I'd even up to 128 if that would do it. JB Edmonton, AB,