A New Mod for GP4
I have an exciting new mod to share with you, the Formula 1 2023 season mod for CSM.
It's taken a lot longer than usual for a current season mod to be released to the community, and I held off for a long time to concentrate on other projects. Based off the F1 2022 mod by Carl_gpgames, I've created a slightly simplified base mod and added the 2023 cars to it.
The plan is that in the not too distant future, the 2024 mod will fit inside this same mod, and all things being well, so will all the 2025 content. That should see us through to the end of this generation of cars.
Building a mod is a lot of work, and kudos to the many hours other great mod makers have spent on exploring all the many editable areas in GP4 and CSM. The stars of the mod, in my opinion, are the cars, along with their tyres and rims and helmets. With limited time, I wanted to concentrate my time in getting those things right, rather than spending lots of time on additional extras. If I wanted to release the perfect mod, it would never see the light of day because there is always something else to work on, or a new area in GP4 to mod.
This mod is presented to you as a solid working foundation, upon which further updates and patches can be added to improve the overall quality. That's not to downplay the already excellent content already in this mod, we'll get there in a moment, but I plan on releasing fairly regular updates as content becomes available.
I hope to invite the community to add to this work, through releasing their work in to the community, or submitting files to me and I can release updates at regular intervals. However, I will hold editorial rights, so I'll try and include as much community content as possible, but not everything can make it in and somethings I may have to say that's not going to be included.
So that's the ethos behind this mod and my plans for the future, now let's see what's inside this one.
The cars
We had a good number of cars released for the 2023 season, we were somewhat spoilt for choice. I could have included every car (like in my 2011 mod), but in the end, I went with cars that were the most easily changeable to add livery changes. I want to thank Fábio Rosa from the F1C community for his permission to use some compatible parts, meaning there are car liveries that are exclusive to this mod and not previously released.
Here's a list of the cars included, along with new skins highlighted:
I spent a lot of time on the 2023 cars. Pretty much every race is different, whether its helmets, or tyre covers, or special liveries, or major sponsorship changes. Sure, not every little change is included, and one or two liveries are yet to be created, but you can enjoy spotting the changes from race to race.
Helmets
Thanks again to Jvinu for his helmet shapes and templates.
Tyres & Rims
Thanks to Excalibur for creating the 3D Tyres and Rims pack for the season. There were a couple of track specific rim liveries that have been added to this mod by Fábio Rosa and myself. In the 2022 mod, Carl_gpgames and I had resized the tyre width and I did the same again for this mod.
Special Thanks
Carl_gpgames - I wanted to thank Carl for creating 3 amazing seasons worth of mods and allowing me to carry over a lot of his dedicated hard work into this mod. His pit monitor, internal cockpit, internal and external steering wheels, pit props, collision file, GPxPatch graphics and background videos are all included in this latest mod. I've also included some nostalgic items from previous Geoff Crammond Grand Prix games, thanks to Carl for sharing these.
32BOBO32 - I also want to thank Samuele for his incredible marshalls, race directors, pit crew and engineers. Sadly, the 2023 set is not completed (even though the 2024 one is), and so this mod is mostly made up of his 2022 and 2024 work. I've also included his high resolution menu items, his no-refueling animation work, menu fonts and the HUD that is in this mod.
Gitanes - I've decided to go with Gitanes performance files, physics files and torque, rather than following the F1 2022 path. This is simply a time saving decision on my part, but Gitanes has been doing great work in this area of the game for many years.
prblanco - whilst his work on tracks as part of the F1Virtual group is legendary, he's also done a lot of background work on some of the patches, as well as the performance calculator that Gitanes used.
Mailson Teles - I have included his Aston Martin Sounds in this mod, as they are best suited to the physics that I have chosen to use.
rracunis - I have included his internal visors, and McLaren external visors on my helmets.
Augustogibim - Thanks for the inclusion of his loading screens, driver team arts and grid cars.
Petrus - Thanks for the GPH Updater which enables high resolution menu items in game.
Öggo - Thanks for the individual helmets tweak, as well as tools that have transformed how we make mods and content, with the Blender plugin, Car Collision editor and CAP converter.
Also let's not forget these credits:
- gplaps - DirectX 8 patch
- crosire - DirectX 9 patch
- gp4wonder / DOSOAL - Sound Hardware Acceleration
- btone & Ruboy - Def Panel
- Duffer - LCD font editor
- Zaz for CSM, TSM, Slimtex... and the rest of Zaz Tools
- Rene Smit for GPxPatch
- Madman271 for GP4Tweaker
- Lo2K for GP4 Builder
Features
I've stuck with the traditional load one track specification at a time, in part just to save myself some modding time and get this mod released.
I've included the Magic Data files by Gitanes as the final option. It's dependent on you having the same tracks as Gitanes made the data set for. Feel free to turn this option off or on for the best results in your game.
Installation Notes
1. Download the base CSM mod:
This forms the foundational structure that will form the core of the mod for you to add the season you want on top of it. It will not work by itself, but will be the first installation you need to do in CSM.
- Open CSM
- File | Install new carset template | select F1 2023F base mod.cuh
2. Download the three 2023 CSM mod update files.
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CSM update - 2023 mod part 1
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CSM update - 2023 mod part 2
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CSM update - 2023 mod part 3
(v1.2 released 30th August 2024)
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Install these the same way as you installed the CSM mod.
