The gold standard

2026-10-24.

English, and a newer game

Our disc had text in French, German, Italian and Spanish, and menu pictures in French only. The user doesn't read French and asked whether we could get the game in English. Before we wrote a mod, the user asked us to check that the original really had no English. The disc we had did not. A second archive.org item the user found, "POD (1997) (CD ROM) + Extras", did.

That item turned out to be POD Gold 2.8. Its EXEs were linked in late October 1997, seven months after ours. It has English text and menu pictures, 32 tracks and 16 cars where we had 16 and 8, new Direct3D and PowerVR builds, and a README dated September 1997. The download also had the official updates, fan cars and tracks, and the tools of the time. Every file matched archive.org's checksums (docs/versions.md).

The last version is the reference

The user's rule: always support the last version released, because it has the most fixes and improvements, and "it's the one that's gold standard". So the work changed from the first edition to Gold.

We then checked that nothing came after Gold. The patches we could find (the move from 1.0 to 2.0, the 2.1 updates for Direct3D and 3dfx, force feedback, Game Service) are all for older copies. A forum poster says Gold "is already patched to Version 2.8". The user's view, from what is on the disc: Gold is the final version, the one Ubi Soft released for the fans. We support what is on the disc, and look again only if an official updated build turns up.

Gold only

By the middle of the day the sessions were unsure whether to support both versions. The user settled it: everything loads and works from Gold, and the first edition is not used for ongoing work. AGENTS.md says so now. Each session moved its defaults, tests and emulator checks to Gold. What the first edition did differently stays in docs/versions.md as history.

What that move found:

• Physics: Gold's brakes use slightly different constants (0x14000 and 0x1cccc, where the first edition has 0x13fff and 0x1cccd), and its torque and wheel-spin code changed. The port follows Gold. On a race recorded in Gold, it matches every car step word for word, apart from one step where the game put a car back on the track.
• Opponents: the same in Gold. Every emulator check passes against Gold's EXE with no code changes.
• Menus: Gold's BETAMNU.BIN has 200 item slots a menu where the first edition has 90. Gold's load_menus at 0x428af8 reads it that way (observed). Its CIRCUITS.BIN has 35 rows: the 32 tracks, then three rows named "Night". Both read and write back byte for byte.
• Sound: four of Gold's track sound banks have an empty section. The reader takes them now, and all 50 banks round-trip.
• The app: Un-POD starts on Gold's disc, with its menus and race display in English (above).

What is next

Most of what is left waits on Gold running in the emulated PC. Then we can record a new reference race and capture the English menus there, so the race rules and the menu comparisons can move off the first edition's recordings.

For GameFrame, two lessons went back: record the main differences between versions, and on the first day check that the build in hand is the last official release. The second is now a step at the start of every project, with a buildid tool.