RIDE 4
45 ratings
Downgrade game back to more challenging physics (v. 1.0.0.6)
By .hirbeL
This is a step-by-step guide on how to downgrade the game so you can enjoy the more challenging bike physics from Steam version 1.0.0.6 that was tuned down with the 9th december 2020 patch (1.0.0.7). This guide is for people that don't like the "on-rails" feeling with the physics set to realism. Be wary that downgrading can have unforeseen consequences.
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Intro
Congratulation, you found this guide! Surely because you want back the bike physics from a former game patch version - namely version 1.0.0.6. This is a step-by-step guide on how to rollback/downgrade the game.

"But why this guide?" you may ask. Because downloading the old patch files through Steam did not work for me and perhaps for other people too. So in this guide we will use a tool for this perticular task instead.

Disclaimer:
I reserve the right to not update the guide if things will change! But I hope with this provided informations people will be able to adapt.

Also I take no responsibility for breaking the game, get VAC or shadowbanned by following this guide. There could be even more possible downsides or side effects (DLCs and stuff, at the end of the guide). You have to weigh up whether to do the downgrade.

Preparing
First read this guides to get an idea about the whole thing. Make sure to read and understand these.

Then download DepotDownloader from Github[github.com] and extract the zip file. For this tool to work out of the box you need to install .Net Core from Microsoft[dotnet.microsoft.com]. If you want to opt-out of the telemetry which is set by default with the installation you can set an Environment Variable. Opting-out is just optional if you're as paranoid as I am. ;D To set this variable you can open a PowerShell window with admin rights (open Windows Start Menu, search "PowerShell", rightclick, then "Run as Administrator") and paste the code below into that window and press Return (if everything is correct there will be no reaction from the console).

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT", "1", "Machine")

Or if you prefer the GUI. Add this entry and set this to 1 or true

DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT



I spare you the hassle to gather the needed numbers for downloading the correct files. Here you go! First is AppID, Second DepotID, then ManifestID for game version before changed physics.

1259980 1259981 1818651756780342477

(ManifestID 1818651756780342477 is for patch or game version 1.0.0.6; ManifestID 9119218242017123021 is patch 1.0.0.7, ManifestID 9119218242017123021 for patch 1.0.0.8 and so on... Click here for reference[steamdb.info].)

There's no need to but I would recommend closing Steam at this point and open this guide with your browser. ;^)


Downloading
With all the information we are now ready to download! Open the folder with extracted DepotDownloader and hold down SHIFT while you Righclick into empty space to get the entry in the context menu to open PowerShell or Command Line Interface.



Now you add this into the CLI and change your Steam username and Steam password accordingly. For me I had to set my password in quotes. Maybe you have to use other escape character if your password is not accepted.

dotnet .\DepotDownloader.dll -app 1259980 -depot 1259981 -manifest 1818651756780342477 -username YOURNAME -password "YOURPASSWORD"




The download can take some time. The game is still 40GB big after all. The progress looks like this.



Verifying (optional)
You can skip this part, as its not nessesary if you trust them downloaded files. :)

After the download is finished we may want to check, if we have the right files. With the DepotDownloader you can download just the manifest (overview of files) with calculated SHA1 hash - perfect! To do this you need to add "-manifest-only" to the command so its like:

dotnet .\DepotDownloader.dll -app 1259980 -depot 1259981 -manifest 1818651756780342477 -username YOURNAME -password "YOURPASSWORD" -manifest-only



As you can see here the right numbers are from the ManifestID from the old patch 1.0.0.6 and on the left from the patch 1.0.0.7. We can see that ride4.exe was changed and has different hashes (yellow marked), while that 1000.txt did not change (green marked hashes). The numbers over the hashes are filesizes which did not change and are therefore no good way to measure actual changes.

So we are able to check if we got the right files by calculating our own hashes for some files after we downloaded the version we want. To do so open up another PowerShell (or PowerShell ISE) and type this in.

Get-FileHash "PATHTO\steamapps\common\RIDE 4\ride4.exe" -Algorithm SHA1

Now calculate the hash of the just downloaded ride4.exe. For this simply change the path. The result can look like this.



As you may notice are these the same hashes in the PowerShell output and in the downloaded manifest documents. So this comparison worked as intended.

If requested I can share a whole stupid PowerShell script over PasteBin for calculating and comparing file hashes for all downloaded files.


Moving files
Nothing too fancy here. If not already happened you better make a backup now of the most recent game files (steamapps\common\RIDE 4).
You should also make a backup of your savegame at this point. The files are located here:

C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\ride4\Saved

When the backup is done you can copy over the downloaded file to your game folder. Before that you might want to wipe the contents of the RIDE 4 folder. The downloaded files should reside in the DepotDownload folder under depots, DepotID, GameVersion.



FINISHED!
That's it. Now you should be able to play.


Thoughts about online mode, future updates and DLC
You cannot play online anymore with an old version... you will get an error message that you can not connect to the servers. Uploading lap times in time trial mode won't work eather and sometimes there will be the same error message.

If you remember in that one guide it was all about prevent the game from updating. I don't want to go to deep into details here but consider that you may have to copy the old downloaded files again, if an update is faster than you.

Also better make a backup of your save files when a new patch is released.

I guess you should also keep in mind to monitor the appmanifest_1259980.afc file and check the state and perhaps change the ManifestID to the most recent one after an update.




I think with this old patch we may not be able to use DLCs anymore since they rely on more recent game files, so bear that in mind too.


Now, that's it. Leave a comment or updates to this procedere in the comments if you want!

Cheers!


15 Comments
alva46 25 Aug @ 1:21pm 
I have a quiestion that might be considered a bit silly, but since I play online a lot, I could just make a copy of the install files and modify this copy to test these physics, and just start the original install to play online right?
Pasta 22 Apr, 2023 @ 4:12pm 
Anyone know if this still works after the recent update?
.hirbeL  [author] 16 May, 2022 @ 12:04pm 
Well... I only play in Helmet View - and did so in RIDE 3 as well. That doesn't change anything about the driving physics. But thanks for your comment anyway.
Lord_Chencho 16 May, 2022 @ 6:47am 
Stop playing it on third person camera. It is too easy :- S
atlas 2 Nov, 2021 @ 3:33am 
I came here because I honestly didn't even know the physics had changed and now that I know, it's so obvious lol
.hirbeL  [author] 20 Oct, 2021 @ 9:27am 
It's this file C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\ride4\Saved\SaveGame\PlayerProfile.sav . But i can't tell which part is for DLC. You may want to backup your save, delete the save (also in Steam Cloud), start a new game with a fresh save file and then compare the new file with the backed up file and find what you need to copy. As you can see that's quite a difficult task.
Major Jack Reacher 20 Oct, 2021 @ 8:31am 
@hirbel
Which file is it and what's the location? Can we just delete the glitched bike?
.hirbeL  [author] 20 Oct, 2021 @ 6:40am 
All the informations about your bike is in your savefile! Because of that you may be able to choose bikes from later patches which are bugged in terms of skins and controls. You can actually edit the savefile with an HEX-editor but that's really tricky to do and may breaks your savegame.
Major Jack Reacher 19 Oct, 2021 @ 6:38pm 
Okay uhhh my bad, I thought that the DLC I mentioned earlier was released BEFORE the 1.06 patch. No wonder the bikes are glitchy since the patch wouldn't recognize the DLC.
Major Jack Reacher 19 Oct, 2021 @ 6:36pm 
Okay first of all, thanks for this guide because it works like a charm!

But I still have a problem with some DLC bikes being a strange looking V4r skin (specifically Bonus Pack 2 and 3). Is there any way to fix this?