Course Database

This is a sub-page of Gran Turismo 5/Courses.

While all of the courses that are normally playable in the game are referenced by the game's files, including its database and localization text, there is a handful of data in the game's files that is left unused. By examining the contents of the game's files, one can observe that the courses directory contains a lot more courses than the total number actually featured in the game. Why is this?

...this is because in the directory it contains files that are leftovers from Gran Turismo 4'' or the PSP spinoff title that were ported forward to the PlayStation 3 build of the game engine. References for these files and data can be found as far back asGran Turismo 5 Prologue'', but this game contains the actual files themselves. With the use of hacking and/or modifications, it is possible to load these courses in the game and drive on them. Most of these courses have all of the information needed to play on them; collision, AI pathfinding, recommended gear triggers, driving lines, textures, geometry, and other elements are present on most courses, with a number of exceptions. Some courses have missing or incomplete data, and some courses have glitches or bugs that either affect gameplay, or crash the game outright. Why this data remained in the game's files is unknown. These courses are unfinished and were probably not meant to be included in the files of the final release of the game, either they were used for testing purposes or they were actually going to be included afterall but were ultimately scrapped. Given that most of these courses have most of the necessary data needed to be playable, it's quite a surprise to behold.

All of these courses can be loaded on Version 1.13 of the game and below. However, starting with Version 2.00, the data for these courses becomes invalid, as the game engine has been updated which causes most (if not all) of them to not load at all. Three exceptions, however, are the PS2 rendition of Tsukuba Circuit, Driving Park - Test Course, and Pikes Peak of all courses. These three courses can load on all versions of the game, even the latest, Version 2.17.

Table Key#

A table of all of these leftover courses has been compiled below this section. This section details some information on what some columns in the table describe for better understanding of the table.

• Information - Basic information about the courses, such as data names and labels.

:*Model ID - Filename of the course's data to load from the crs directory.

:*Internal Name - Name of each course which is internally defined by the developers.

:*Label - English label for each course found in the localization text files, usually displayed in-game.

• Data - Lists what data courses have in relation to function.

:*RWY - Collision mesh, file extension .rwy; internally named "runway" by the developers.

:*CAM - Camera information, file extension .cam; used for the camera angles of replays and the pre-race screen.

:*CINF - Short for course info, file extension .cinf; contains information about the placement of sectors, typically used with the Drift Trial game mode.

:*ENVPTR - Environment Parameters, file extension .envptr; contains information related to lighting, shadows, particle effects and other related information.

:*All courses have a pack file, which contains the bulk of the geometry and textures for the courses; each file is named after the course's Model ID with an x at the end of the file; these files do not have an extension.

• Assets - Lists what graphical assets are present for each course in the game's files, used for presentation and selection of courses in-game.

:*Replaced means that assets for that course were updated for the rendition of the course that was actually used in the game.

:*Reference the Courses page to see if any of the courses here have any assets that were produced for them.

• Properties - Notes about the courses and information regarding playable status.

:*Notes - GT2 refers to Gran Turismo 2, GT3 refers to Gran Turismo 3, GT4 refers to Gran Turismo 4, TT refers to Tourist Trophy, GTHD refers to the cancelled game project named "Gran Turismo HD Classic''" which was scrapped and eventually becameGran Turismo HD Concept'', and GTPSP refers to the PSP spinoff title.

:*For the Playable? column:

::*Yes indicates that the course can be loaded and is entirely playable with minor or no issues.

::*Yes indicates that the course can be loaded and is playable, but has apparent issues, such as missing textures, LOD issues, and others, but is otherwise playable without a game crash.

::*Issues indicates that the course can be loaded and is playable, but has major issues that usually result in the game crashing.

::*No indicates that the course cannot be loaded and results in a game crash in attempting to do so.

Course Database Table#