Le Mans 24 Hours

Contents

• Quirks and Features
• The Cars
  • Car List
  • Team Lists
• The Tracks
  • Track List
  • Lap Records
• The Events
  • Quick Race Mode
  • Championship Mode
  • Le Mans Mode
  • MultiPlayer Mode
  • Time Trial Mode
• Gameplay
  • Getting Started
  • Options
  • Select Difficulty
  • Workshop
  • Pit Menu
• Game Data
  • AutoLoad Bug
  • AutoSave Feature
  • Copying A Le Mans Mode Race
  • Copying Progress And Game Settings
  • Gamesave Internals
  • Loading Another Gamesave
  • Reducing 'Wear And Tear' On A Memory Card
  • Reserving Space For Manually-Saveable Data
  • Saving Championship Data
  • Workaround For The AutoLoad Bug
• Miscellaneous Notes

1. When the PS2 is booted with the Le Mans 24 Hours disc inserted, the first screen will show 1 of 3 dialogs:

   	Dialog	Shown If
   1	Do You Wish To Save To The Memory Card ... [X] To Allow Saving, [Triangle] To Cancel Saving	Memory card in MC Slot1 contains an LM24H gamesave, or has 200K free space
   2	There Is Insufficient Space On The Memory Card ... [X] To Continue Without Saving	No LM24H gamesave found on memory card in MC Slot1, and card has less than 200K free space
   3	Memory Card Is Not Inserted In MC Slot1 ... [X] To Continue Without Saving	No memory card in MC Slot1

   Ideally, Dialog 1 will be shown since it's the only one that includes the "[X] To Allow Saving" option. Pressing [X] on that dialog enables the AutoSave and AutoLoad features. If Dialog 2 or Dialog 3 is shown, you can try other cards until you find one that causes Dialog 1 to be shown. Note that continuing without AutoSave and AutoLoad is not recommended unless you just want a quick peek at what the program has to offer.
2. The next screen will allow you to specify your TV's Refresh Rate. The choices here are 50Hz, 60Hz, and Test.
3. Next, you're shown a series of short promo videos plus the Le Mans 24 Hours Intro video. If you want to bypass these, you can press [X] 4 times after specifying the refresh rate.
4. At this stage, the main program will load while showing a Le Mans 24 Hours background image, white "Loading" text, and a blue progress bar.
5. The program then waits for a response while showing a Le Mans 24 Hours background image, white copyright info, and blinking green "Press Start Button" text.

   User Response	Program Response
   1. [Start] button pressed	Load gamesave if AutoLoad enabled and/or Continue with main program
   2. No response within 30 sec.	Run in Demo Mode until [Start] is pressed

6. Once you've entered the main program, the Main Menu offers a variety of racing modes including Quick Race, Championship, Le Mans, MultiPlayer, and Time Trial. But, before doing any racing for the first time, it's probably a good idea to go to Options and set your preferences.
7. Once you've set your preferences, the best place to start racing is probably in Quick Race Mode.

• Downforce. The choices here are Medium, High, or Low. High downforce will generally give you better handling, while Low downforce will give you faster top speeds on long straights.
• Fuel. A full fuel load will give you the longest possible stints. However, more fuel means more weight, and more weight will generally give you less performance (acceleration will be slower and understeer will be more pronounced).
• Gearbox. The choices here are Automatic or Manual. Manual will give you complete control over the gearbox, but also adds the extra burden of having to learn when to shift; this is really only recommended if you're a die-hard racing fan.
• Tyres. The choices here are Soft, Intermediate, Wet, or Hard. For dry conditions, Soft will give you better grip but won't last as long, while Hard will last longer but give you less grip. Intermediates are recommended for light rain, while Wets are recommended for heavy rain. The softer tires (Soft for dry or Wet for rain) will tend to give you a touch of understeer, while harder tires (Hard for dry or Intermediate for rain) will tend to give you a touch of oversteer. Using Intermediates or Wets for dry weather conditions is not recommended.
• Gear Ratio. The choices here are Top Speed, Acceleration, or Balance. Setting the gears wide (Top Speed) will give you faster speeds on long straights but acceleration may be slow. Setting the gears short (Acceleration) will give you faster acceleration but the car may "top out" too early on long straights. If your car never reaches its top gear (or reaches it for too short of a time), you can probably afford to go with a shorter setting (Balance or Acceleration). If your car "tops out" too early on the longest straight, you can probably afford to go with a wider setting (Balance or Top Speed).
• Engine. The choices here are Balance, Sprint, or Endurance. The Sprint setting will give you the best performance but your fuel won't last as long. The Endurance setting will give you the best mileage but less performance. For the full-length Le Mans Mode races, a full tank of fuel will usually last about an hour with the Sprint setting or about an hour and a half with the Endurance setting; the Balance setting will probably give you something in between (i.e., about an hour and a quarter).

• Change Tyres. The choices here are Soft, Intermediate, Wet, Hard, or No. Setting this to No allows you to skip changing tires, shortening your pitstop by about 12 seconds. Harder tires will last longer but, unfortunately, not quite twice as long; so, if you skip a tire change, it might be a good idea to also reduce the fuel level since the tires probably won't last for another full-length stint. For example: for the second stint on the same tires, you could go out with a fuel load of something between 50-80% so that the tires and fuel will be back in sync on the next pitstop.
• Downforce. The choices here are Medium, High, or Low. Changing this setting costs about 2 seconds. In general, it's probably best to stay with the same setting unless the weather conditions change.
• Refuel. The choices here are maximum, minimum, or something in between. Refueling costs about 5-13 seconds, depending on the amount refueled. Setting this to minimum allows you to skip refueling.
• Confirm. Once you've made the desired changes to the above settings, selecting Confirm will let your pit crew know that they can start work (once you've stopped in your pitbox).

• Changing a setting in Options and then exiting the Options menu.
• Starting a race and then finishing or exiting the race.

1. Use the "Loading Another Gamesave" technique to load the older gamesave (the one that has the Le Mans Mode races done). Alternatively, you could turn off the PS2, insert the older gamesave, and then turn the PS2 back on.
2. Go to a Le Mans Mode race and select Load Game. The program will load the pertinent circuit and then resume where the race left off when it was last saved. Ideally, the saved race position should be somewhere near the end so you won't have to do more than 1 stint to finish.
3. Press the [Start] button to pause the game.
4. Remove the current memory card and insert the one that contains the newer gamesave (the one that you want to copy the current race position to).
5. Press [X] to allow saving.
6. Select Resume to return to the Pit Menu.
7. Select Save to copy the current race position to the newer gamesave.
8. Press [Start] to pause the game once more.
9. Remove the memory card, and then press [X] to continue without saving. This will prevent the program's AutoSave from overwriting anything that shouldn't be overwritten.

1. If you didn't start Le Mans 24 Hours with the gamesave that you want to copy the progress and game settings from, use the "Loading Another Gamesave" technique to load it.
2. Once your gamesave has loaded, remove the memory card and then insert a card that has 200K free space and doesn't already contain an LM24H gamesave.
3. Press [X] to allow saving. The program will immediately create a new gamesave that has the same progress and game settings as the one currently loaded.

1. If you didn't start Le Mans 24 Hours with the gamesave that you want to copy the progress and game settings from, use the "Loading Another Gamesave" technique to load it.
2. Once your gamesave has loaded, remove the memory card and then insert the card that you want to copy your progress and game settings to.
3. Press [X] to allow saving. From the program's point of view, nothing has changed so nothing is immediately written to the newly-inserted card.
4. Invoke the AutoSave function. The current progress and game settings will then be copied to the gamesave on the newly-inserted memory card. Important: The AutoSave function doesn't ask for confirmation, so you'll need to be very sure that the gamesave you're overwriting is one that you really want to overwrite.

• Analog Sticks On The Game Controller. An alternative to using the game controller's directional and function buttons is to use the analog sticks for steering, accelerating, and/or braking. The sticks can be enabled by pressing the [Analog] button.
• Changing The Difficulty Level Of A Le Mans Mode Race. Before starting a Le Mans Mode race, you have the option of setting the AI Driver Skill to Normal (the default), Hard, or Easy. Normally, you'd choose a level and then do the entire race at that level. However, although it's not documented in the game manual, it is possible to change the AI Driver Skill mid-race (i.e., without having to start a new race). This may be useful if, for example, you started the race with a harder level and you want an easier go of it in the final stages (or vice versa). The steps below assume that you've already saved the current race position and you want to resume with a different setting for the AI Driver Skill.
  1. On the second Select Game screen (after selecting either Petit Le Mans or Le Mans 2000), select New Game.
  2. Press [X] twice to select the default Class and Team.
  3. At the Select Difficulty screen, set the AI Driver Skill to the level you want, and then press [X].
  4. Press [Triangle] 4 times to go back to the second Select Game screen.
  5. Select Load Game. When the race resumes, you'll find that the program is now using the newly-set AI Driver Skill.
  The reason this works is, apparently, because the AI Driver Skill setting isn't stored in the gamesave along with all of the other race settings. Since the ability to change the setting mid-race is undocumented, it's unclear whether this was an intended feature or a side-effect of a programming oversight. But, either way, you can use it to your advantage to make things a bit more interesting.