DRIG: an open-source engine for Race Driver: GRID (2008)

DRIG is a reimplementation of Codemasters' Race Driver: GRID (2008) in Rust with the Bevy engine. The goal is a 1:1 recreation: the same handling, AI, damage, events and menus as the original game, running on a modern, open codebase.

The repository contains no game assets. The engine reads tracks, cars, textures, sounds and game data from your own installed copy of GRID, the same way OpenMW uses Morrowind's data files or OpenRCT2 uses RollerCoaster Tycoon 2's.

I also work on graphics improvement, testing technologies like DLSS/DLAA, RT etc

Status

Early and experimental, but you can already race. What works today:

• Driving. The vehicle physics, tyres, suspension, gearbox and driver aids (traction control, stability control, braking assist, automatic or manual gearbox) are ported from the original code.
• Events. Circuit races, Time Trial, Drift (Battle, GP, Freestyle), Touge, Demolition Derby, the Le Mans 24 Hours and the championship series (Touring, GT1, GT2, Pro Tuned, Open Wheel, Prestige, Le Mans Series and others). You choose them from the original Race Day menu.
• AI opponents that follow the original racing lines, overtaking and drift logic.
• Damage. Body contacts, collision damage, wheel detachment, mechanical and handling damage.
• Audio. Engine, gear changes, tyres and collisions.
• Career. Its research and a first port are in progress.
• Front end. The pause menu, HUD, results screens and the options for sound, screen and wheel controls.
• Input. Keyboard, gamepad and steering wheel.
• Android. An experimental build with tilt and touch steering and gamepad support.

Expect crashes, physics blow-ups, missing features and visual differences from the original. Fidelity work is tracked in docs/FIDELITY_BACKLOG.md.

What you need

• A legally purchased copy of Race Driver: GRID (2008) for PC, for example from Steam. The engine finds the Steam installation by itself.
• Windows 10 or 11 with a reasonably modern GPU.
• To build from source, Rust 1.99.0 (pinned in rust-toolchain.toml). The first build compiles Bevy and takes a while.

Building and running

cargo build --release -p grid-app

Then double-click Play GRID.cmd in the repository root and pick an event in the Race Day menu (event menu). The other Play GRID *.cmd launchers start one event directly, for example Play GRID Le Mans 24 Hours.cmd or Play GRID Drift Battle.cmd.

You can also run the executable directly:

target\release\grid-app.exe --settings settings\race.ini

If your game is not in a Steam library, set [game] root in local\settings.ini or pass --game-root PATH (settings).

Controls

Key	Action
Up / W	Throttle
Down / S	Brake; hold near rest to reverse
Left / A, Right / D	Steer
Space	Handbrake
X / Z	Gear up / down (manual gearbox)
Escape / P	Pause menu
R	Restart the event

More detail, including gamepad, wheel and driver-aid settings: docs/TRY_THE_PROTOTYPE.md and docs/DRIVER_AIDS.md.

Android

The Android build is experimental. It runs the same program on arm64 phones (Android 12+), using game files you import from your own copy. See docs/ANDROID.md.

macOS

Native build and local .app packaging: python3 -I tools/build_macos.py. Compilation needs no original game files; playing requires your own Windows GRID 2008 installation. See docs/MACOS.md for setup and validation limits.

How it is made

The original grid.exe is studied with Ghidra and other reverse-engineering tools. Its behaviour is then written again in Rust and checked against the original: recorded driving, AI and audio traces, plus bit-exact comparisons of individual routines. The port does not reuse original code or bundle original data.

Research notes for each subsystem live in docs/. The current state is PROJECT_LOG.md; the running record of findings, decisions and verification is one file per entry in log/.

Repository layout

Path	Contents
crates/grid-formats	Readers for GRID's file formats (PSSG models and textures, databases, audio banks and more)
crates/grid-world	Simulation: physics, tyres, collisions, damage, AI
crates/grid-app	The game itself: Bevy rendering, menus, HUD, audio, input, Android
crates/grid-tools	Inspection and comparison command-line tools
crates/grid-probes	One-off research probes (built only on request)
tools/	Research and diagnostic scripts
docs/	Research notes and design documents
local/	Your machine's private files: extracted data, captures, logs. Ignored by Git and never published

Contributing

Forks, bug reports and pull requests are welcome. Most of the code is written by AI coding agents; their working rules are in AGENTS.md. Never commit original game files, extracted assets or memory dumps.

Legal

DRIG is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Codemasters or Electronic Arts. "Race Driver: GRID" and related names are trademarks of their respective owners. You need your own copy of the original game to play.

The source code is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

Disclaimer

This is pure 100% AI slop. I didn't made this by hand at all, it's all thanks to Claude and I, pipeknight, take ZERO credit or responsibility of this port being unstable. It will run shitty, that's a guarantee. All I did is spent couple of sleepless night testing and pointing out the issues. Oh, yeah, and spent some pocket change on Claude sub ofc. Please be aware of it and feel free to fork this repo or use it as a reference in your future ports. Thank you and have a nice day!