July 29, 1999 Demo Builds

This is a sub-page of Proto:Gran Turismo 2.

The July 29 builds of Gran Turismo 2 are the game's earliest known demos released to the public, dated nearly four months before the initial Japanese retail build. They were bundled on various demo discs, with prominent examples being Euro Demo 87 (SCED-03790) and PlayStation Demo Disc - Shock Your System! (SCUS-94482).

The European version of the demo predates the North American one by just 12 minutes. They're mostly the same content-wise, with the sole difference being the presence of a new car model (n2p1n) and another model (n2pvn) with imperceptible changes to its data in the North American build.

Sub-Pages#

Cars Courses Arcade Mode Gran Turismo Mode

General Menu Differences#

July 29 Demo	November 28 Retail

This build uses a different, wider typeface for title bars, with marginally discrepant characters also available for other UI elements.

July 29 Demo	November 28 Retail

Menu screens that feature spinning car widgets use a different reflection map that makes the models look much shinier than in the final product.

Menu Audio Differences#

Menu sound effects used in this build are taken from the original Gran Turismo, albeit with minor issues such as crackles.

Top Menu Differences#

July 29 Demo	November 28 Retail

Upon boot, the player is greeted by the usual SCEA or SCEE presentation card, then this early "NOTICE" slide featuring different artwork and text taken straight from the original Gran Turismo, with no copyright text or disclaimer about in-game cars and real life traffic safety.

Following the aforementioned notice, the player is taken to the title screen, which resembles that of the original Gran Turismo in terms of layout and options available. The artwork is a composite of promotional renders, with the top half of the screen being similar to the E3 demo. Like the final product, the North American version uses an alternate GT2 logo, with a rough gradient overlay on the "2" at this point.

In terms of functionality, only "Arcade Mode" and "Gran Turismo" (the latter meant to be renamed "Simulation Mode" for North America) can be highlighted and, unlike later demos, "Replay Theater" and "Option" just redirect the user to Arcade Mode. No sound effect plays when scrolling through and selecting either available option. Both game modes were meant to be accessible from the same disc at this point, but this eventually would change, presumably for technical reasons: FMVs (intro, credits and course previews) do not fit on the same CD as GT Mode's menu assets.

In-Game Differences#

July 29 Demo	November 28 Retail

The game's race HUD resembles that of the final product more than previous builds, but still contains minor differences:

• Placement of elements such as the "START" text, tachometer and timers differs to varying extent;
• "Total Time" and "Lap Time" labels lack a background bar;
• Placeholders for future lap timers are shown during the first two laps of a race;
• The tachometer uses earlier, slightly different textures. The background of the current gear indicator is solid and the boost gauge is missing, as that feature is mostly unimplemented at this point;
• "Record" and "Best Lap" are absent from the HUD, and so are the minimap and rear-view mirror.

No indication of sector times or difference from the race leader is shown when a checkpoint is crossed or a lap is complete.

July 29 Demo	November 28 Retail

A few aspects of the race results screen differ at this point:

• The race HUD disappears as soon as the first elements of the results screen are shown;
• Placement and size of elements such as bars, text and numbers differs marginally;
• There is no indicator of who the player is in the race standings;
• No Seiko advertising is present at all.

July 29 Demo	November 28 Retail

The replay HUD contains the same differences as the general race HUD, plus a couple more:

• There is no "REPLAY" text at the start, as the game just reuses "START" instead;
• "GRAN TURISMO 2" is prominently seen on the bottom left corner of the screen where the highlighted car's name would go in the final product;
• Lap timers are carried over from the race itself, with each new lap overwriting one of the existing slots instead of only appearing on the first slot;
• There is no indicator of what the current lap's "full time" is;
• Indicators of player input (acceleration, braking and steering) are not present at this point.

Demonstration Replays#

Demonstration replays in Gran Turismo 2 demos are stored as individual files in the replay directory of GT2.VOL, with their intended regional versions denoted by four-letter codes: scei for Japan, scea for North America and scee for Europe. As these are ordinary replay data, they are very sensitive to changes to the game's car part data or physics engine and, understandably, have to be replaced as development progresses, not resembling the final product in any way at this point.

Both regional variants of this build feature four attract replays as follows:

Unused Content#

Graphics#

Unused	Used

In-game HUD graphics use a compressed texture sheet stored in arcade/game_status_files. However, an older uncompressed file named meterall.tim is also present in the arcade directory of GT2.VOL, containing early tachometer and gear indicator graphics. Race positions and units of measurement are notably absent from this sheet, suggesting these elements were still rendered from the regular HUD font at the time it was in use.

According to its timestamp, the file was last modified July 15, 1999, about ten days before the sheet used in this build. It exists in the data of all demos but was deleted before the earliest Japanese retail version.

Embedded in GT2.EXE, at 0x4FCA4 in the European build and 0x4FCC8 in the North American version, is a set of 19 GZIP-compressed TIM files containing wheel graphics for various cars. They have a timestamp of May 12, 1999, marking them as some of the earliest surviving resources in the demo's data, and are present in all available demo builds.

Cars in both the original Gran Turismo and GT2 use wheels stored on the vehicle's own texture sheet, raising questions about the purpose and usage of these standalone graphics. While they're depicted in the same manner as final GT2 wheels — indicating that they were conceived after the game transitioned away from the old GT1 method of storing and rendering wheels with built-in tire textures, three of the cars in this set — the Nissan Silvia, Peugeot 306 and Volkswagen New Beetle — still contain GT1-style wheels on their July 1999 texture sheets, suggesting that these standalone files might have been used to override them at an earlier point in development. The final game introduces the Wheel Shop, a feature that allows players to override a car's default wheels with a selection of aftermarket rims, but the graphics associated with those are stored in a dedicated carwheel directory in GT2.VOL rather than the main executable.

Text#

GT2.EXE contains an unseen list of songs, much like the ones in the final product. The titles here correspond to the original Japanese soundtrack of the first Gran Turismo and are present in that game's data as well, albeit in different order.

This is located at 0x4F2D4 in the European executable and 0x4F2F8 in the North American version:

WORLD CHAMP
WINNING
START 2
START
Result SILVER
Result GOLD
Result BRONZE
RETIRE
RANKING
QUICK MENU
New G.T 1
NO BODY
MORE THAN LOVING
MOON OVER THE CASTLE
MAIN MENU
LIKE THE WIND
LICENSE
JAZZ
GREEN MONSTER
GOODIES
G.T 3
G.T 2
FREEDOM TO WIN
FINISH 3
FINISH 2
FAIL
UNKNOWN

This exact list is also present in the August 30 (at 0x56544) and September 7 (at 0x56E1C) demo executables.

Opponent and Event Data#

carparam/racedata.dat contains the general definitions (such as launch speed and A.I. catchup parameters) and opponent car setup data used by race events in this build of GT2. In addition to event data associated with Arcade Mode's nine class + difficulty level combinations, data for six events labeled DEMO1 through DEMO6 is present in this file, none of which are accessible to the player. These events were used for producing the demo's attract replays, defining not only the opponent IDs but also the exact colors and grid order they must spawn in.

While these demo events technically are used by the game as they still are referenced by the demonstration replays, only the general definitions remain relevant for playback, as the game stores car part IDs in the replay data itself, not directly accessing any of the opponent setup data when reloading the race.

Replay Data#

In addition to the used scee and scea sets of attract replays, six scei files exist and presumably correspond to an unknown Japanese build of GT2. The first four of these are 1:1 copies of their scea counterparts, whereas the last two are unique and, unlike replays found in later demos, sync correctly when loaded in the North American demo, indicating that no major changes were made to the game's engine or car part data since these replays were recorded.