This software does NOT preclude you from having the ability to reason and comprehend, nor does it relieve you of the responsibility of having a certain amount of familiarity with Nascar Racing 2003 Season and computer use in general. If you're not willing to maintain the skills necessary to communicate with more than blank stares and barely audible grunts, no amount of handy software is going to help you.

The software is absolutely free to download and use. It's not crippled. It's not shareware. It's FREE. No strings. Of course, this comes with a down-side. I'm a lazy bastard who has no compunction about not working on the code for months at a stretch, but I try to include features that are within the context of the program and many of theose features are suggested by users. I don't want to be held to the higher standard that is the by-product of charging for software, so you get what you get when I feel like handing it out. That's the best I can offer, and that's the most you should expect.

Before you run D3PlayerPicker the first time, there's a few things you need to do.

• The very first thing is to install the sim from the retail CD. This is a more critical step than you may realize. If you don't install from the retail CD, D3PlayerPicker will NOT run.
• Next, you need to create (or already have) a user ID on Sierra (if you want to race online).
• You have to have run NR2K3 at least once.
• You must install the latest OFFICIAL patch.
• You should probably install any tracks and/or series mods that you will be using, but this is not necessary. Tracks are automatically made available, but sound folders need a little personal attention to make them available.

As you might expect, different kinds of cars are expected to sound, well, different. It wouldn't be too terribly large of a stretch to assume that the different series mods would have cars that sound different. Unfortunately, the sound support in NR2K3 provides for only one set of sound files.

If you don't plan on using alternative sound folders, you can safely skip this section.

Preparing your game's sound folder(s) for for D3PP is really quite simple. The game installs a "sound" folder. Leave it alone - don't change anything in it, and don't rename it. If you have a set of alternate sounds you'd like to use, create new folders (in your sim folder) that will conatin these sound files. For sound folder names, I use "sound_XXXXXX" where "XXXXXX" is the name of the series mod that willbe using the sounds. You can name your sound folders anything you want, but the folders must meet two requirements:

• The sound folder MUST be placed in your sim folder (the same folder that contains core.ini). If you have multiple sim installs, and you want to use the sounds in more than one install, you must copy the alternate sound folder to all other installs in which it's to be used, and the sound folder must be the same same for all sim installs.

  For instance, let's assume you have two sim installs, and the TPTCC mod is installed in each of those copies of the sim. If you have want TPTCC to use "sound_tptcc" for the sound folder this sound folder MUST be copied to each sim install. The individual files inside the different copies of the "sound_tptcc" folder can be different, but the folder name must be the same within both sim installs.

• The sound folder name MUST NOT contain any space characters.

When you click the Settings button on the main window, the Settings dialog box is presented. This dialog box is comprised of several individual pages of settings. Don't let that intimidate you. Most of the stuff here is automatic, with a few things you have to turn on or off.

The Settings page allows you to toggle on and off sound and trackset support, as well as telling the program to minimize to the system tray (where the clock lives). Additionally, and probably more importantly, it allows you to set some timings necessary for the program to successfully launch the sim for online use. I think most of these items are pretty self-explanatory so no further discussion will be made at this time. However, the time delays stuff needs more explanation.

The way the sim is launched is that D3PlayerPicker simulates mouse clicks within the sim (if I find a better way to do this, I'll implement it) if you've elected to go multiplayer with a given personality. In order for this to work for everyone, D3PP has to wait for the sim to reach certain points of execution, namely the main menu, the multiplayer screen, and the login screen. I recommend that you refrain from touching the mouse while D3PP is trying to get to Sierra, because you could disrupt the automagic portion of the code. It won't actually hurt anything, but it's fairly discocerting when you realize you munged up the automatic part of this whole shooting match.

Everybody's system is different, and each system might require more or less time to launch the sim. The first time delay shown represents the time it takes from the instant you click the Launch button until the main menu is displayed in the sim. I've found that this can take anywhere from 5 to 9 seconds, depending on the class of machine you're running on.

The next delay covers the amoiunt of time it takes for the sim to progress to the multiplayer screen from the time at which you click "Multiplayer" in the menu. This is usually a fairly snappy operation, and the default setting of 1000 milliseconds should be long enough.

Finally, the last delay represents the time from clicking "Sierra" in the multiplayer screen until the login dialog is displayed (where you enter your sierra ID and password). Once again, this happens fairly quickly, so the default setting of 1/2 second should be long enough.

After you've changed these settings, click on the next tab...

This tab allows you to specify which series mods are installed, and which sound folder to use for each series mod. Use the "ADD" button to add new series mod/sound folder associations to the list.

Each mod can only exist once in the list, and one or mor mods can use a given sound folder.

This is one of the most recent additions to the program, and allows the user to customize the list displayed in the main window. From this page, you can change what data is shown in the list, what order they appear in (from left to right) and how wide the columns are.

To add new columns to the list:

• Select an item in the list box labelled Available Columns
• Click the > button. The selected item will be moved to the list box labelled Selected Columns.

To remove columns to the list:

• Select an item in the list box labelled Selected Columns.
• Click the < button. The selected item will be moved to the list box labelled Available Columns.

The mechanism described above prevents a given column from existing more than once in either the list of available columns or the list of selected columns. When you have recovered from the shock and awe my insight must have caused in the very fibre of your being, you may continue reading.

Once more than two selected columns are specified, selecting one of the new columns will cause the Move Up and Move Down buttons to be enabled. An item can be moved to a position anywhere from the 2nd to the last position in the list. The first position in the list is ALWAYS the personality name. The Personality Name column can also NOT be removed from the selected list. Why? Because it makes sense to me. The further down in the list an item isplaced, the further right in the main window's list it will be displayed. I love regimentation.

By now, the more astute users out there may have noticed that the Example List near the bottom of the dialog page changes as they add/remove, and move items in the Selected Columns list. You may also have noticed the dividers between the different columns. If you click on a divider and drag it horizontally across the list header, the column size will change (and all other columns will be re-positioned accordingly. You can come back to this page any time and re-select columns to be displayed, moved, or re-sized, and the main window list will update itself when you click the dialog box's OK button.

Another feature of D3PP is the ability to decide which tracks appear in the sim with a given personality. If you have more than 128 tracks, or are simply so curious that you're about to burst at the seams, click the tab labeled Manage Track Sets.

Before we get into the why's and wherefore's of this dialog, a bit of explanation is in order. NR2K3 can support numerous tracks, and they are arranged in a hierarchy of subfolders with the "\Papyrus\Nascar Racing 2003 Season\tracks" folder. For instance, the Atlanta Motor Speeday venue that was supplied with the sim is found in the sub-folder "atlanta".

When the sim starts up, it searches the "tracks" folder for track sub-folders. However, it only looks for tracks until it finds 128 of them, and then it just stops looking. Papyrus hard-coded this limit into NR2K3, so don't start wondering if it's a bug. The tracks that it "finds" are used for two purposes - a) to populate the list of tracks you see when you are playing as a single player (against the AI), and b) to determine which tracks you have so that the online sierra lobby server list can properly indicate the tracks you don't have (the names tracks you don't have are enclosed in pointy brackets. Because of this limit, I implemented D3PP's track set system.

The act of making tracks available/unavailable to the sim presented a daunting challenge. At first, I considered simply copying folders from one place to another, but the sheer size of the files in question would have caused overly-long delays when starting up the sim. To speed the process of making tracks available/unavailable, D3PP hides and un-hides track folders as required. Even with copious tracks, the delay in sim startup is negligible. You may now once again gaze upon the prior image.

You'll probably notice that there's already an entry called "". This is a magical trackset in that no matter what else happens, all tracks will be available to the sim's hamstrung search system. This trackset cannot be edited, deleted, or cloned. Since it should be fairly obvious to even the most dull-witted user what actions the buttons perform, we'll move right to the Edit Trackset dialog (displayed when you click Add, Edit, or Clone).

A trackset is comprised of three things: a name, an optional decsription, and a selection of tracks. The name of the trackset must be unique (another trackset cannot already exist that has the same name), and it cannot contain any characters that would be considered invalid if the name you enter is used to name a file on the disk. Beyond that, anything goes in for the name name, and there are no restrictions where the description is concerned. That leaves us with the really fun stuff to talk about.

Selecting tracks that are to be included in the track set is a simple process. On the left side of the dialog, you'll notice a list of items that each have a checkbox next to them. If a box is checked, the associated track is included in the trackset. The heading above the list of tracks shows how many tracks are selected, and how many exist. There are a couple of ways to select tracks.

The first method is manually scrolling through the list and checking/un-checking the desired tracks. While exciting at first, the novelty will soon wear off, especially if you are a track collector and have hundreds of tracks. The second method is a bit more automagic.

There is a drop-down list labeled Select Tracks of This Type. Inside this list are some pre-determined categories of tracks:

• All Tracks - just what it means - all tracks regardless of race, color, or creed.
• Papyrus Tracks - tracks that both came with the sim AND the add-on track pak (containing three fantasy tracks) that was released in the middle of 2003. In other words, tracks that were in one way or another, released by Papyrus specifically for NR2K3.
• Superspeedways - Daytona and Taladega, and any third party tracks that meet the correct criteria for being labeled as a SuperSpeedway.
• Speedways - all other non-short tracks
• Short Tracks - all tracks which indicate themselves to be short tracks
• Road Courses - all road course. One exception is Papyrus Motorsport Park. Papyrus has designated this track as a "long oval", and as such will be included with "Speedways". DO NOT CHANGE THE TRACK.INI FILE FOR THIS TRACK.

Once you've selected the type of tracks you want to include in the trackset, click the Select button. This will cause the list of tracks to update itself by checking the tracks that meet the criteria specified by the drop-down list.

To un-check groups of tracks, select the desired track type in the drop-down list, and click the De-select button. This will cause all tracks of the selected type to be un-checked. I know, you are once again awed by my apparently limitless programming talent. When your heart has slowed to a manageable rythm, you may proceed.

By now, you should be asking yourself what happens if you add a new track after having created a trackset. Well, that's where the button labeled Scan For New Tracks comes in. When you click this button, D3PP scans your tracks folder for newly added tracks. If it finds any new ones, text will appear under the button informing you of how many were found, the label above the track list will change to reflect the new tottal number of tracks, and the list box will be updated to include the new tracks which were found. If you install and scan for new tracks, you will have to manually add them to the desired tracksets.

Last but not least, we come to the Multiple Sim Installs tab.

I'm not real happy that this feature is even in the program because the program's original intent was to eliminate the need to even have multiple installs of the sim on a single system. However, a Project Wildfire beta tester made a convincing argument for having such support, so I grudgingly added it to the program.

As you might expect, there is the obligatory checkbox which allows you to turn multi-sim install support on or off. Nothing very exciting there. Underneath this checkbox is the real meat of the tab - scanning your hard drive(s) for installs. Simply select the drive you want to scan (or to make it faster, leave it set to "", and click the Scan Selected Drive button.

The selected drive(s) is scanned and if any installs are found, they are added to the list on the right side of the tab. There should already be at least one install listed called "". Additional installs will be named "Alternate Install 99999999_999999_A". The reason for this is that all install names must be unique. Once again, I am about to demonstrate an almost scary ability to tell the future.

I assumed that you might not like the names I gave the installs, so selecting an alternate install, and clicking the Rename button allows you to edit the name of the selected install. Simply enter the new name, and click the Apply button, and the name in the list will be updated.

Now that you've configured D3PlayerPicker, it's time to start creating personalities. Remember, on the main window there are four buttons that allow you to manipulate personalities.

By clicking the Add button, the Edit button, or the Clone button on the previously discussed dialog box, you can configure a personality. The Edit Personality dialog box will be displayed, and it looks like this:

On the left side of the dialog box, we have several edit fields. The only one that is absolutely required is the Personality Name (which must also be different from all of the existing personality names). In the "For Online Pesonalities" group, things start to get a bit more interesting.

If you're going to be using this personality to join an IP race, or if you know the IP address of the server that you'll be joining through Sierra, enter that IP or server domain name in this field.

The race password, boss password, and admin password are assigned by theserver admin, and if he gives you one of these passwords, enter it in the appropriate field. One thing to note is that the password fields are not obfuscated with asterisks, so anyone looking over your shoulder can see what you enter here. Be mindful of your visitors. If you're going to use this personality to race on Sierra, you need to check the "Log onto sierra" checkbox, and fill in BOTH your sierra ID and password.

On the right side of the dialog box, you'll find a bunch of drop-down lists. Each one is labeled according to what they contain. If you have multiple installs of the sim (and support for multiple installs turned on), you will be able to select the install this personality is to use. If you change installs, ALL of the other lists will change to reflect viable selections.

If you select a different series, the carfile lists and the roster list will change to reflect the viable selections that can be made.

Once you've created a personality, you can use the LAUNCH button to start the sim.

Before the sim is launched, D3PP changes some settings in the appropriate player.ini file. These settings control things like which mod you want to use, the car file, and other player-specific items.

Next, D3PP tries to change to the specified alternate sound folder (if you've elected to use the sound folder support). If this is the first time you've launched a personality from D3PP, the program will try to resolve sound folder assignments, and in the process of doing so, will realize that it doesn't know what to do with the sound folder, and a dialog will be presented, asking you what to do. If this is the first time you've run D3PP, select the 2nd option () and supply a sound folder name (remember, the space cahracter can't be used as part of the folder name), and click "OKAY".

After it has been determined that your "sound" folder is okay, it will try to find the sound folder associated with the series mod selected for the personality. Subsequent problems encountered with the sound folders will cause the launch attempt to abort, and you will be provided with an error message that should help you determine what the problem is.

Next, D3PP attempts to hide/unhide track folders according to the selected trackset (if you have elected to use this part of D3PP).

Finally, the sim is launched. If you are launching the sim to play online (and assuming D3PP didn't run into any problems during the launch preparation routines), do not tough the mouse after pressing the launch button. D3PP simulates mouse movement and button clicking in order to automatically progress through the various screens need to log into the Sierra lobby.