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My return to racing continues...well, not racing per se: these days I drive more like a mechanic who stole the keys. I just did a quick bit of math and realized that is has been almost five years (!!) since I last dusted off the wheel, and nearly as long since I did any simulation coding. Kids will do that to you, I guess.

It is too close to the gift-giving season to pick up any (relatively) new sims for myself, and honestly I'm so out of the scene that I don't even know which ones are any good. So for now the retro racing revolution continues, this time with the-sim-that-will-not-die Grand Prix Legends.

I really expected to find this sim—initially released in 1998—pretty much where I left it. I knew about the GPL Preservation Society, the massive track database, and the active modding community, but really how much can you do with a decade old, closed source sim? Quite a bit, as it turns out! Case in point: the jaw-dropping Targa Florio, 72 km of pure road racing joy. Grand Prix Legends is like Steve McQueen's Le Mans: a classic!

Because of all the mods and patches, there is some hoop jumping involved to get up and running. The hardest part was figuring out which bits I needed and where to get them; I'll save you that trouble with a full play-by-play below. Installation was straightforward from there, and it runs great on my MacBook Pro under both Boot Camp and VMware Fusion 3.0 (be sure to switch to full screen before starting the game; it doesn't like Unity).

Okay, enough chit-chat. Here's my installation guide.

Basic Setup

You need these:

• The installation CD. $20 from Amazon.
• The GPL Preservation Society installer, "maximum" version
• The GEM+ frontend
• The '67 patch
• The high-resolution version of Monaco from Monaco Rocks!

Put the CD in the drive—but don't run the installer! Run the GPLPS installer instead, accepting all of the default values. This will install the game from the CD and, in the process, apply a decade's worth of patches, upgrades, and improvements.

Launch the game and create a new driver. If you have a wheel and pedals (you should, this isn't the kind of game you drive with the keyboard), plug them in first. After creating the driver, you can take a couple of laps, or just quit and continue getting set up.

Next up is GEM+, a game launcher that makes it just a little bit easier to manage all those settings and customizations. Again, run the installer and use the provided defaults. Then, launch GEM+. Under Options, make sure the first dropdown is set to Direct 3D. You can also change the screen resolution under Graphics, but only the first three options (up to 1024x768) worked for me at this point. Could be something to do with my setup though; I'll show you how to use your monitor's native resolution below.

Now unzip the '67 patch. Copy GEMP2.exe from the patch into your GEM+ installation directory (ought to be something like GPLSecrets\GEM+). The run the setup program for the patch. This patch makes a number of improvements, most notably lifting the track length limit and making monsters like Targa Florio possible.

Setting the screen resolution

I run on a LCD screen, which means everything looks a lot better if I can use the monitor's native resolution. It's a widescreen monitor, which means that my native resolution isn't supported out of the box, which means I can only get up to 1024x768 using the built-in settings. The good news is that there is a utility to edit the list of resolutions. The bad news is that it is a bit hokey.

Before you start, make a backup copy of rastd3d7.dll...just in case.

Now launch GPLResolutions, which is located in the Start menu under GPL > Guru's Resolutions. Choose File... > Open D3D7 dll... and select rastd3d7,dll. You will see a list of supported screen resolutions; choose one after 1024x768 to replace (I chose 1600x1200). Double-click this entry and a dialog will appear; enter the screen resolution of your monitor (in my case, 1920x1200) then click OK. Don't worry about the description of the resolution, you won't need it. Choose File > Export into D3D7 dll... and select rastd3d7.dll again. Close the program and start up GEM+. Your custom resolution will now appear under Graphics. Select it and hit OK

Note that the menus will still use the original, low resolution. It will switch to your selected resolution once you are in the car. Go check it out!

Get some tracks

Almost there now! Unzip the Monaco track you downloaded earlier and copy all of the files into your SIERRA\gpl\tracks\monaco folder. Then go check out the track database. I'm currently driving the hell out of Targa Florio (72km!) and Dundrod.

I haven't tried an online race yet. If I do, and find anything tricky about it, I'll come back and update this guide. It occurs to me that the first time I went online in GPL it was over a 36.6 modem. My next run will be on a 20 Mbps FiOS line. Life is good!

If you find any issues with this guide, leave a comment and I'll incorporate your feedback into the article. If you are having trouble with GPL, I'd suggest you start here. I'm only knowledgeable enough to cause trouble.

Enjoy!