Managing Multiple Installs

There are tons of third-party mods available for rFactor. So much in fact that you probably do not want to install all of them in the same installation of rFactor. In the pre-Steam days, people kept multiple installations of rFactor on their harddisk. With Steam, that is still possible, with a little twist. This guide explains how to do install third-party mods in separate installations.

Preparing your Steam Installation

Before you start making multiple installs, the first step to take is to launch rFactor through Steam, setup a player and configure everything to your preference. Take some time to do this well, as a properly configured setup will help you in the next steps. At least setup the video configuration, detail settings and your controllers and buttons.

Copying your Installation

After you've configured your installation, it's time to make a copy. In this guide we are going to assume that you keep the copies in C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ where XYZ is some specific extension indicating what mod or mods this copy is for.

So let's get started, create a folder C:\Racing\Steam and then copy the rFactor folder from Steam into this folder. To find where Steam keeps this folder, in your Steam client right click on rFactor in your Library, select Properties and in the window that opens, go to the Local Files tab. Then click on Browse Local Files... Go up a level and copy the whole rFactor folder from there into your new location.

Installing the Mod

After you've made a copy of the rFactor folder, it is time to install the mod into it. There are several different ways mods get installed, and it depends on the mod you have what you need to do. In general there are two options:

• The mod comes in an archive (zip, rar, 7z, ...). Usually you can just extract that archive into the copy of your rFactor folder. Take care that you don't extract it at the wrong level. If you are unsure, simply give it a try and start with a fresh copy of the rFactor folder again if it does not work the first time. After a while you will recognize the folder structure of rFactor and this will become easy.
  
• The mod comes with an installer. In that case, just run the installer and point it to the copy of your rFactor folder. Follow the steps in the wizard and you should be fine.

Configuring rFactor in Steam

Now that we have copied the whole rFactor folder, the next step is to configure the Steam Client to use that copy. Again, we go to the Library, and right click on rFactor and select Properties. In the General tab, click on Launch Options... and enter the following options:

trace=3 config=configXYZ.ini

The first part, trace=3, is just a setting that helps you debug your installation in case things go wrong. You can find a trace.txt in UserData\LOG after each run.

The second part actually tells rFactor to use a different configuration file. We will create it in a minute. For now it's enough to just make the change to the launch options.

Now go to the original rFactor folder that Steam installed. You will find a "config.ini" file there, and you will need to copy that and rename it to configXYZ.ini. Then open this file in your favourite text editor. The file contains paths to all the different folders that rFactor uses to find its cars, tracks, sounds and many other things. In theory you can even use this to do more advanced setups, such as having a single folder for all your tracks, but different folders for cars, but we will stick to a simple scenario here, where we point all folders to our new copy.

Modify your file to look somewhat like the file below. Change only the properties that point to a directory, and use an absolute path including the drive letter. The video and other settings in this file will probably be different for you, leave them alone.

//[[gMa1.002f (c)2007    ]] [[            ]]
[COMPONENTS]
GamesDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\RFM\
SoundDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\SOUNDS\
VehicleSound=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\SOUNDS\
OptionsAnim=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\UIDATA\MOVIES\
OptionsFlags=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\NATIONS\
OptionsSounds=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\UIDATA\UISOUNDS\
OSCFile=UI.OSC
OptionsDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\UIDATA\
ReplayDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\REPLAYFRIDGE\REPLAYS\
ReplayPluginsDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\REPLAYFRIDGE\PLUGINS\
PluginsDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\PLUGINS\
MovieDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\MOVIEFILES\
TracksDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\LOCATIONS\
PitsDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\SCRIPTS\
VehiclesDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\VEHICLES\
DriversDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\TALENT\
HelmetsDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\HELMETS\
CommentaryDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\COMMENTARY\
CommentaryFile=COMMENTARYENGLISH-USA.INI
LogDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\USERDATA\LOG\
SaveDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\USERDATA\
MusicDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\MUSIC\
CameraEditorResourceDir=DEVFILES\CAMED\
ShadersDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\SHARED\
ControllerDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\USERDATA\CONTROLLER\
ScreenShotsDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\USERDATA\SCREENSHOTS\
SupportDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\SUPPORT\
LanguagesDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\SUPPORT\LANGUAGES\
LanguagesFile=GAME.DIC
MasterPlayerFile=
CPURating=5
SystemRAM=4092
VideoRAM=2680
ObjDetail=1
TexDetail=1
VideoGUID=D7B71E3E-5344-11CF-4B7D-29161CC2C435
VideoDriver=0
VideoMode=51
VideoRefresh=0
WindowedMode=0
RenderMethod=0
RenderTexSize=0
RunBenchmarks=1
FSAA=39
VSync=0
ShaderLevel=3
SubViews=0
WidescreenUI=1
CustomVidRes=(0, 0)
MinimumVidRes=(800, 600)
MaximumVidRes=(8000, 6000)
RenderTargetParms=(0,000000, 0,000000, 1,000000, 1,000000)

[INSTALL]
InstallFrom=
InstallTo=

[VERSION]
Version=-1,000000

Optional: Check the rFm file of your mod

Car mods often come with an rFm file. You can find it in a folder called rFm and you only need to worry about the file with the name of the mod and the .rFm extension. It defines a series of cars and race events. However, sometimes this file also contains some configuration overrides that override settings normally made in "config.ini". So after installing a mod, you need to check if it actually contains such overrides. They are usually near the top of the file, and here is an example that also shows that you need to set the paths in the same way you would do in config.ini itself:

ConfigOverrides
{
  SoundDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\SOUNDS\Xyz\
  VehiclesDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\VEHICLES\Xyz\
  OptionsDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\UIDATA\Xyz\
  ShadersDir=C:\Racing\Steam\rFactor-XYZ\GAMEDATA\SHARED\Xyz\
}

If the section is missing or empty, you're good.

Launching and troubleshooting rFactor

Now that everything has been configured, it's time to start rFactor. If everything works as planned, you will be looking at your newly installed mod and can start playing.

If not, one of several things can happen:

• rFactor stops working without any message. If this happens, your best bet is to look in UserData\LOG\trace.txt (remember to look in the copied rFactor folder for it). Usually near the end there is a clue about what went wrong.
  
• rFactor seems to pause. Switch back to your desktop. A lot of the times, you will find a dialog there stating it could not find some file. It is usually tricky to trace that back to a missing file (as rFactor uses so called .mas files which are like .zip files as they contain many other files). Ask around, and use common sense. :)

[wormyyyxd]

Real men just put everything in one install and deal with the suffering

[Pedal to the metal]

Useful advice thanks. I had a big mess of mods all together and often the game wouldn't load at all. Now I have created various GameData directories with different names and have also created subdirectories within the rFm directory for those files. Then I created various config.ini files and copy them to the config.ini using batch files. It all wotks really nicely. Things are much tidier now.

[bstreet]

I've done this several different times and no way does it work. I have an entire rFactor install on another machine that works fine with numerous mods, but on this machine with Steam on it the installation will not see any mods. Is there some place you can set the path to the executable that you want Steam to use? Very frustrating, rFactor used to be so simple for adding mods to and now this is pretty bad.

[Gelannister]

Does it still work? If I want a DRM install, a Enduracers install and a HistorX install, with specific rotation configurations for each one (using a fckin G29), can I do it with this settings?

[Kibōchen]

I've already had mods installed in the Steam installation... help??

[marrs]

Machine, you do realize you are asking about rF2 in a guide about rF1, right? To stop rF2 from installing all subscribed workshop items in your secondary installs, I would recommend running such installs in "offline mode". Our next build has some updates to make that work even better.

[Machine]

With this installation method, if you subscribe to items in the workshop, will they be installed in all installations of rFactor2? Currently I use 3 separate installs, but each installed using SteamCMD to a different folder. Unfortunately anything I subscribe to is installed in all 3 of my installs. Not good.

[fs7kills]

I have the non-Steam version that I bought directly from ISI's website, if I get the Steam version can I simply edit the folder paths in the config.ini file and set the Steam version to look for mods & tracks in the folder of my original non-Steam install?
Also, does the +fullproc command works in the Steam version?

[CJorex]

Can you help me? I am following your instuctions for launching alternate installs from the steam client, but it is not working. When i change the launch options it doesn't work- it just uses the normal config file.

[marrs]

That is another option, and easier than what this guide describes, but it has the downside that you cannot launch that copy from the Steam Client. That in itself does not matter too much, but also features like "join a friend's game" or "join a game via the server browser" won't work that way. So it's a trade off. Don't need those features? Then yeah, just copy the whole folder. Need them? Follow this guide for an alternative.