Crew Chief – an alternative race engineer

Overview

Getting started with Crew Chief, replacing the built in race engineer with something a bit more useful. Covers how to install and use Crew Chief.

What is Crew Chief?

Crew Chief is an external application which runs on the same PC as Project Cars. It monitors a shared memory location into which Project Cars writes data about the currently running session.

Crew Chief uses this data to build up a picture of what’s happening on track, and then informs the player with audio messages.

Crew Chief includes a ‘spotter’ to give messages when opponents are along side, as well as a ton of other race information. It also includes voice recognition so you can ask it various questions about what’s going on out on track

I made this in my spare time, but if you decide to use it regularly and it’s a positive part of your sim racing experience, I’d really appreciate a small donation to my beer fund. Details of this are on the Project Cars Crew Chief thread here:

[link]

Getting Started

You need to install .net 4.5 or above to use the app, unless you’re using Windows 10.

Download the CrewChiefV4.msi installer from here:

[link]

Run this installer. When you first run the app there will be 2 ‘Download’ buttons – one for the sound pack and one for the driver names. Click them both and wait till the downloads have completed. The app will unpack and prepare these packages, and prompt you to restart it when it’s completed.

The app will check for updated sound packs and an updated installer each time you start it, and prompt you to update when appropriate

Using voice commands

Using voice commands is entirely optional. The app is designed to function properly without them but they can add greatly to the immersion and are *very* useful.

If you want to use voice recognition, download the correct speech recognition installers for your system (speech_recognition_32bit.zip or speech_recognition_64bit.zip).

I’ve packaged the necessary files up into 2 zip files

One for 64 bit systems here:
[link]

and one for 32 bit systems here:
[link]

Alternatively, the Microsoft download links are, for the runtime installer (do this one first)
[link]

For the language packs (use which ever en-XX best suits your location / accent)
[link]

Download and extract the appropriate zip file. Run SpeechPlatformRuntime.msi (this is the MS speech recognition engine), then run MSSpeech_SR_en-GB_TELE.msi or MSSpeech_SR_en-US_TELE.msi depending on your preferred accent (these are the ‘cultural info’ installers).

For speech recognition, you need a microphone configured as the default “Recording” device in Windows.

To get started, run CrewChief and choose a “Voice recognition mode”. There are 3 modes (the radio buttons at the bottom right). “Disabled” means that the app won’t attempt any speech recognition. “Hold button” means you have to hold down a button while you speak, and release the button when you’re finished. “Toggle button” means you press a button once to start the speech recognition, and the app will continue to listen and process your spoken requests until you press the button again to switch it off (while the app is listening you can make as many voice requests as you like, you don’t need to toggle speech recognition off and back on again if you want to ask another question). “Always on” means the app is always listening for and processing speech commands. Selecting “Disabled” or “Always on” from this list makes the app ignore the button assigned to “Talk to crew chief”.

If you want to use Hold button or Toggle button mode, select a controller device (“Available controllers” list, bottom left), choose “Talk to crew chief” in the “Available actions” list and click “Assign control”. Then press the button you want to assign to your radio button.

You need to speak clearly and your mic needs to be properly set up – you might need to experiment with levels and gain (Microphone boost) in the Windows control panel. If he understood he’ll respond – perhaps with helpful info, perhaps with “we don’t have that data”. If he doesn’t quite understand he’ll ask you to repeat yourself. If he can’t even tell if you’ve said something he’ll remain silent. There’s some debug logging in the main window that might be useful.

The app understands and responds to the following commands (but this will increase as the app is updated):

“how’s my [fuel / tyre wear / body work / aero / engine / transmission / suspension / pace ]”
“how are my [tyre temps / tyre temperatures / brakes / brake temps / brake temperatures / engine temps / engine temperatures]”
“what’s my [gap in front / gap ahead / gap behind / last lap / last lap time / lap time / position / fuel level]”
“keep quiet / I know what I’m doing / leave me alone” (switches off messages)
“keep me informed / keep me posted / keep me updated” (switches messages back on)
“how long’s left / how many laps are left / how many laps to go”
“spot / don’t spot” (switches the spotter on and off – note even in “leave me alone” mode the spotter still operates unless you explicitly switch it off)
“do I still have a penalty / do I have a penalty / have I served my penalty”
“do I have to pit / do I need to pit / do I have a mandatory pit stop / do I have a mandatory stop / do I have to make a pit stop”
“where’s [opponent driver last name]”
“what’s [opponent driver last name]’s last lap”
“what’s [opponent driver last name]’s best lap”
“what’s [opponent race position]’s last lap” (for example, “what’s p 4’s best lap”, or “what’s position 4’s last lap”)
“what’s [opponent race position]’s best lap”
“what’s [the car in front / the guy in front / the car ahead / the guy ahead]’s last lap”
“what’s [the car in front / the guy in front / the car ahead / the guy ahead]’s best lap”
“what’s [the car behind / the guy behind]’s last lap”
“what’s [the car behind / the guy behind]’s best lap”
“what are my sector times”
“what’s my last sector time”
“who’s leading” (this one only works if you have the driver name recording for the lead car)
“who’s [ahead / ahead in the race / in front / in front in the race / behind / behind in the race]” (gives the name of the car in front / behind in the race or on the timing sheet for qual / practice. This one only works if you have the driver name recording for that driver)
“who’s [ahead on track / in front on track / behind on track]” (gives the name of the car in front / behind in on track, regardless of his race / qual position. This one only works if you have the driver name recording for that driver)
“tell me the gaps / give me the gaps / tell me the deltas / give me the deltas” (switch on ‘deltas’ mode where the time deltas in front and behind get read out on each lap. Note that these messages will play even if you have disabled messages)
“don’t tell me the gaps / don’t tell me the deltas / no more gaps / no more deltas” (switch off deltas mode)
“repeat last message / say again” (replays the last message)
“What’s the air temp / what’s the air temperature / what’s the track temp / what’s the track temperature” (current air / track temps in celsius)
“What are my [brake / tyre] temps”

Driver Names

Crew Chief includes (at the time of writing) about 2000 unique driver name recordings. Some of these are for AI drivers, some are for real online players. The app attempts to map a driver’s name (his Steam name) to a sound file. If it’s successful then the app will incorporate this sound file into some of the messages it plays (e.g. “You’re reeling Bob in, the gap is now one second”).

The driver name set will, along with the sound pack, be auto-updated whenever a new version is available (the two Download buttons will become available)

Updating Crew Chief

The app includes an auto updater – each time you run it, it checks for a new version and prompts you to download if one is available.

The sound pack and driver name packs are also auto-updating. If there’s a new version of these the appropriate ‘Download’ button will be enabled in the app