DriveClub Recomp 0.4.2

DriveClub for PS4 (version 1.28), running natively on Windows and Linux.

The source code is in this repository.

Downloads: driveclub-recomp-0.4.2-win64.zip for Windows, and driveclub-recomp-0.4.2-x86_64.AppImage for Linux (experimental). SHA256SUMS.txt covers both.

New: the Modkit is in the download

dcmod is a modkit for the game's own files, and it now comes with the game: dcmod.exe sits next to DriveClub.exe, and the modkit folder has the documentation, ready-made examples and a Blender add-on (the same pages are in docs/modding). The Mods page of the launcher imports, orders, switches on and off, and sets up mods.

A mod is a folder with a mod.json, replacement files and small patches. Patches are applied to your own copy of the game data, so a mod contains none of the game's data, and several mods can change the same file as long as they change different things.

What it does

• Tables and text: change the vehicle and track tables, language files, camera files, settings and XML data.
• Packs: list, add, replace and remove any resource inside the game's RPK packs.
• Cars: give a car another car's model, make a car under a new name with its own model files, or add a new row with its own physics.
• Models: export to glTF and import back with any vertex and triangle count, including normals, skin weights and the materials a part already has. Works with Blender.
• Tracks: copy a track under a new name; the copy loads and races.
• Music and sound: replace a sound with your own WAV or music, choose which stream an event plays, and set loops.
• Textures and shaders: convert textures to and from DDS and PNG, dump the game's shaders, edit them and replace them in a mod.
• Lua scripts: run your own scripts in the game. They read live car data (speed, gear, tyre forces, position), the cars of the race, the camera and the sun, draw their own HUD and panels with buttons and sliders over the game, set the time of day and the weather, and keep settings between runs.
• Graphics mods: write a shader that runs on the finished picture or on the linear HDR picture before the game's own tone mapping, with the scene depth, motion vectors, the frame before and a picture of its own available, and switch it on from a script. The download ships no filter, so the game looks as it always did until you add one; example filters (a sky with clouds, volumetric fog, ambient occlusion, light shafts, a wet road, tone mapping, bloom, colour grading) are in the source repository under tools/modkit/examples. Effects that march the scene (fog, occlusion, light shafts, reflections) cost frame rate, and several together cost a lot.
• Hot reload: build into the game's mods folder on every change. Car, track and texture packs reload the next time a race loads, without restarting the game. Tables and scripts need a restart.
• Plugins and agents: native DLL plugins can hook the game's code (opt-in), and dcmod mcp lets an AI agent browse the game files and make mods.

What it does not do yet

• Add a part the car does not have (new nodes), or add materials a mesh does not already list.
• Make a track with new geometry (a copy of a track keeps its model).
• Change the volume or pitch of a sound.
• Move or accelerate a car from a script, or change the game's own sky, fog and ambient light (a graphics filter repaints them instead).
• Turn compiled Lua back into Lua source.
• Check or sign mods. Only use mods from people you trust: a mod can contain scripts and plugins.

How to use it

1. Open the Mods page of the launcher to import a mod, or use dcmod in a terminal in the game folder. Point it at your game files, update folder first: dcmod archive info --update "D:\Game\Update" --base "D:\Game\Base". It should report 8018 entries and no missing volumes.
2. Make a mod and check it without writing anything: dcmod mod new my-mod --name "My mod", then dcmod mod check my-mod.
3. Build it with dcmod mod build my-mod -o built and copy the result into the mods folder next to DriveClub.exe. Or run dcmod mod watch my-mod -o "<game folder>\mods" to rebuild on every change.

Start with modkit/docs/modding/getting-started.md. tutorial-new-car.md clones a car and reshapes it in Blender, recipes.md has worked examples and postfx.md explains the graphics filters.

Changelog

0.4.2

• New: the modkit (dcmod.exe, the modkit folder and the Mods page of the launcher), see above.
• New: Reduce texture repetition (Scene detail). It hides the repeating rows that large road, terrain, wall and interior grain textures make. On by default only for the High and Ultra presets, applied on the next start. About 6% lower frame rate at 4K with DLSS Performance on the test PC (#283 by @HeyOkay).
• New: environment timelapse (opt-in), with a toggle and a playback speed in Patches (#338, #344 by @HeyOkay).
• New: Xbox impulse triggers driven by the car's telemetry (#336 by @HELLBOY017).
• New: Linux launcher parity with the Windows launcher, including add-on content unlocking (#339 by @TheRhysWyrill).
• New: modding guide with the file paths and formats that were checked (docs/MODDING.md).
• Changed: the camera shake workaround is reworked into a native 30 FPS camera and HUD response (#337 by @HeyOkay).
• Fixed: shimmering on cars with DLSS. The cars get their own motion vectors again (#361 by @HeyOkay, from the change proposed by @sniperspy69 in #211).
• Fixed: black and white flicker on cars after switching cameras at native 4K. A stale texture state is dropped after a CPU upload (#362 by @HeyOkay).
• Fixed: missing Chinese and other text. Characters the active font does not cover are drawn from a fallback font (#360 by @Caelum-C).
• Fixed: the game froze at start with Show pedal inputs on (#333, #346). The overlay and the input thread could wait on each other.
• Fixed: picture shake and white lines with the upscalers (#355 by @igorexa225). No sub-pixel jitter is applied while no upscaler runs.
• Fixed: the exit prompt answers the controller and the keyboard again, and can be clicked from the main menu (#331, #334 by @HELLBOY017).
• Fixed: skip intro, DualSense and telemetry settings are kept between launches (#335 by @HELLBOY017).
• Fixed: adaptive triggers and haptics kept playing after a race or event ended (by @HELLBOY017).
• Diagnostics: the log now says when Windows has almost no commit left after the game's memory is reserved. In that state the graphics driver fails allocations and the game crashes soon after (#327, #345). Enlarge the Windows page file.
• Known: FSR 4.1 ghosting on some Radeon cards (#340, #348). Try fsr4_invert_jitter=1 and fsr4_auto_exposure=0 in data\user\driveclub.ini and send the log with the result.

Thanks to everyone who reported issues and tested.