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Polyphony recently updated Gran Turismo 5 with a feature which allows you to race your
friends' B-Spec drivers through a browser. But if you want to get some serious experience
and money, that gets really tedious. You'd think there would be a better way to
do it. Turns out there is! B-Spec Grinder is a little helper app which
starts up races for you automatically in the background.
Your computer and PS3 need to be turned on and connected to the Internet to use it.
Make sure you have at least one shared B-Spec Driver, then go into the Community section
and select "Remote Race." After enabling Server Standby Mode, your PS3
is all set up. Now let's get the app installed.
B-Spec Grinder is a mini program called a "Widget," which is run in Yahoo! Widgets.
You can get Yahoo! Widgets by going to widgets.yahoo.com. Just hit the link under "Get Started," and
then choose the download for your favorite platform.
It's available for Mac OS X and Windows. Once the download has completed, go ahead
and run the installer. Make sure to uncheck the options to set Yahoo!
as your homepage and search engine. The process is similar on Mac OS X.
Open the disk image, run the installer, and then open Yahoo! Widgets.
After that's all done, just Google "B-Spec Grinder."
You'll land on the GTPlanet.net forum. Scroll down a bit, and you'll see a download
link for B-Spec Grinder version 2.0. The Widget is compressed in a ZIP archive,
so just open that up, then open the Widget. I wrote this Widget myself, but if you don't
trust me with your account info, you can look at all the things the Widget does in its security
sandbox. Go ahead and enter your PlayStation Network
account info, make sure the country is correct, then hit "Save."
The Widget will quickly log into Sony's servers, and immediately start a race for you.
When the race ends, the Widget will automatically start another race.
Both your PS3 and your computer need to stay online for this to happen.
You can change how the Widget selects your friends' drivers by right-clicking on it and
selecting "Manage Drivers..." There are lots of things that you can do in
here. You can click and drag to reorder how your
drivers and friends are selected. You can have your drivers chosen at random,
or selected in the order you specify. You can also balance the credits or experience
of each driver, which will always pick a driver with the least amount.
You can scroll through your entire friends list and choose exactly how your friends'
B-Spec drivers will be used in races. This menu allows you to choose how many drivers
you want to leave free for each friend. Higher numbers mean that the Widget will pick
drivers over a larger range of friends, whereas lower numbers will give each friend a better
chance at earning more money and experience. Finally, this menu lets you choose whether
or not you want the Widget to prefer friends who use your drivers in their races.
Once you're happy with your settings, hit "Save" and the Widget will apply them to every
race going forward. You can also change what sorts of events the
Widget will choose for racing. And, if you have a spotty Internet connection, there are
even some advanced preferences for you, too. That's pretty much it! Now go get the Widget,
and stop babysitting B-Spec Bob.