IndyCar Racing II

Released: 1995
Published by: Sierra On-Line
Developed by: Papyrus Design
Author(s): Rick Genter, Dave Miller, David Kaemmer, John Wheeler, Adam Levesque, Randy Cassidy, Brian C. Mahony, Matt Sentell, Joel Boucquemont, Lou Catanzaro, Mat Matera.

System Requirements

System Requirements	System: Intel 80486DX-33 CPU (Pentium recommended), 8 MB RAM (10 recommended), 2x CD-ROM drive. Graphics support: MCGA (320x200x256) and VGA (640x480x256) only. Audio support: Sound Blaster/Pro/16, Pro Audio Spectrum, Ad Lib Gold, ESS AudioDrive, Ensoniq SoundScape, Covox Sound Master II, Gravis UltraSound, Microsoft Sound System, Roland RAP-10. Other: Keyboard, Mouse, Racing wheel or analogue joystick supported.
Original Media	One CD-ROM disc.
Installed Size	12 MB

 

Introduction

After their success with IndyCar Racing in 1993, Papyrus Design introduced its sequel, IndyCar Racing II two years later.

Like its forebear, IndyCar Racing II expanded on the 1993 game by leveraging a lot of the improvements from their NASCAR Racing title from 1994. This added SVGA graphics (640 x 480 in 256 colours) and digitised sound effects. The detail in which you could set up your car was still present in all its glory, but the game retained its accessibility for new racers.

With 15 accurate circuits from the 1995 season and fully licenced drivers, liveries and advertisements, ICR2 was considered the pinnacle of the computer racing experience when it came out. You could even take your car into the paint shop for a respray and put new decals on with the new Paint Shop utility!

Sadly, only the Macintosh version got speech recognition, which allowed you to communicate with your pit crew, such as 'Repair', 'I need 7 gallons of fuel', or 'Adjust rear wing to 3 degrees'.

A special 'Rendition' version of ICR2 came with Intergraph Intense 3D 100 (a.k.a. Reactor) and Sierra's Screamin' 3D video cards. With these graphics cards, it allowed for faster 30 fps frame rates, higher-resolution and sharper graphics with anti-aliasing.

Papyrus didn't release any expansion packs for ICR2, but a pretty active modding community formed, and brought out some excellent updates.

From where can it be run?

IndyCar Racing II (ICR2) must be installed to a hard disk - it cannot be run directly from CD-ROM. Once installed, go to the game directory and type INDYCAR to run it, or INSTALL to reconfigure your sound and modem settings.

If you want to run ICR2 in high-resolution mode (640 x 480 in 256 colours), run INDYCAR -H.

The game requires only Extended Memory (XMS), so be sure you are not loading an expanded memory driver on startup such as EMM386, QEMM or 386Max. If you to run EMM386, check it has the flag NOEMS in it so your memory above 1 MB is counted as XMS not EMS.

 

Game Audio/Video

 

Copy Protection

IndyCar Racing II does not have any copy protection.

 

How to Setup

1. Insert the IndyCar Racing II CD into your CD-ROM drive. Change to your CD-ROM drive by typing the letter of your CD-ROM drive followed by a colon, and then press <Enter>. For example, if 'D' is your CD-ROM drive, type D: and press <Enter>.
3. Type INSTALL and press <Enter>.
4. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation. By default the installation program will install to a subdirectory on your hard disk called 'ICR2'.
5. When you see 'Installation Successful Press Any Key to View README.TXT', press <Enter>.

 

Problems

Symptom: I'm trying to run the game in high-resolution mode with the -h command-line argument, but all I see is a black screen or a bar at the very top of the screen.
Cause: You have installed the UniVBE driver, and one is not required for your graphics card.
Resolution: Run INSTALL and choose the option to uninstall the UniVBE driver. Then try running the game again.

Symptom:
Cause:
Resolution:

Question: Does ICR2 supports 3D video acceleration?
Answer: No, it does not (apart from the special Rendition version when accompanied by a supported Rendition or Sierra card)

 

To Quit the Game

Keep hitting <ESC> until you are back at the main menu with Exit Game highlighted, and hit <Enter> to return to the DOS prompt or Windows desktop.

 

Supporting Documents

Original Game Manual

LP Editor v4.0 - Allows you to edit .LP files which contain AI information for the computer cars as they go around the track.

 

Save Games

** This section is still being worked on **

 

Mods and 3rd-Party Utilities

IndyCar Racing II (ICR2), later re-released as CART Racing got a large modding community following, and still does to this day, via the www.icr2.net website. A mod[ification] tends to be one of the following:

• Carsets (a collection of cars) based on the original ICR2 car shape from Papyrus.
• Carsets based on new car shapes - these tend to have a lot more polygons, so more detailed.
• AI packs that fix several issues such as cars not passing each other, or pitting behaviours
• Tracks
• Setup packs - different car setups
• Other ICR2 game mods and utilities
• Sounds - updated sounds

 

Versions of the game known to exist

Version	Date	Comments
(Demo)	Mid-1996	IndyCar Racing II Demo (DOS)
(Demo)	Mid-1996	IndyCar Racing II Demo (Windows)
1.00	1996	Initial public release for DOS. The original game came with 15 tracks - 5 speedways and 10 road courses.
1.0.1	1996	Re-release for DOS and Windows 95.
1.0.0 - 1.0.2	Patch	Upgrades a hard-disk-installed version from 1.0.0 to 1.0.2. Instructions are in the readme.txt file. Fixes include: 1) Yellow flag problem where race order would become corrupted. 2) Weight transference bug causing more understeer the longer the car is driven.
1.0.1 - 1.0.2	Patch	Upgrades a hard-disk-installed version from 1.0.1 to 1.0.2. Instructions are in the readme.txt file. Fixes include: 1) 'Set Controls' automatically detects your mouse and you are unable to use keyboard or joystick controls. 2) Yellow flag problem where race order would become corrupted. 3) Weight transference bug causing more understeer the longer the car is driven.
1.0.2 DOS - 1.0.1 Win95	Patch	Upgrades a hard-disk-installed version 1.0.2 for DOS to a 1.0.1 for Windows 95. The earlier version no. does not mean an earlier version overall - version numbers were different for DOS and Windows versions. Instructions are in the readme.1st file. Use on a DOS version 1.0.2 of the game only!
1.0.2	Patch release	Patch for v1.0.2 of ICR2 for DOS or Windows 95. Fixes include: The yellow stripe that will appear on a car that has been painted using the ICR2 Paint Kit will not be there anymore.
	1996	Re-released under the title CART Racing.

 

Original CD-ROM Contents

The original CD-ROM contained the following files:

Original Sierra-published Release (version ?):