Ego ERP Archiver

Ego ERP Archiver is a free modding utility for Windows that opens the ERP archives used by games built on the EGO engine, mainly the Codemasters racing titles. It lets users export resources from an ERP file, edit them with other tools and import the modified files back into the archive.

The program is developed by Petar Tasev as part of the Ego Engine modding tools and is distributed on itch.io under a "name your own price" model, so it can be downloaded without paying. Recent versions support F1 2016 through F1 23, GRID (2019) and GRID Legends, along with other EGO engine games. The following list outlines the key features of Ego ERP Archiver:

• Opening ERP archives: After starting the program, the user clicks File -> Open and selects an ERP file. The contents appear in the All Resources tab with the name, resource type, size, packed size and uniform resource identifier of every entry, and the columns can be sorted.

Ego ERP Archiver lets modders extract textures, XML and Pkg files from ERP archives and pack edited versions back into the game.

• Export and import of resources: Each resource can be exported to a folder and imported back after editing. The Export All and Import All commands process every resource at once, and a progress dialog shows the state of the operation. When importing, the program looks for the same folder and file names that were used during export.

• Separate tabs for Pkg, XML and texture files: The Pkg Files, Textures and XML Files tabs make it easier to work with a single resource type, and Pkg and XML resources can be filtered by type.

• Texture preview: The program previews textures in many DDS formats, including BC1 to BC7, ATI1 and ATI2 and texture arrays, and shows texture information next to the preview.

• Mipmap handling: In F1 2016 and newer, some textures have mipmap counterparts stored in separate files. Ego ERP Archiver exports them into a single DDS file and asks the user to save a new mipmap file when the texture is imported back.

• Compression support: The archiver handles ZStandard compressed data, used since F1 2020, as well as version 4 ERP files first seen in GRID (2019).

• Game directory setting: For F1 2016 and newer, the game directory must be set in the Settings menu. The same menu selects the tab that is shown when the program starts.

• No installation: There is no installer. The user extracts the ZIP archive to any folder and runs Ego ERP Archiver.exe.

• Runtime: Current versions are built on .NET 6.0, so the .NET 6.0 Desktop Runtime must be installed. Earlier versions used the .NET Framework 4.7, .NET Core 3.1 and .NET 5.0.

• Platform: The tool is available for Windows only; there are no Mac or Linux versions.

• Support: Help is available in the modding channels of the Ego Engine Modding Discord and on the RaceDepartment forums, and bugs can be reported to the developer.

Ego ERP Archiver is a practical tool for players who create or install mods for Codemasters racing games. It does not edit resources itself: textures, XML and Pkg files are changed in other programs, while the archiver takes care of extracting them from ERP archives and packing them back. The latest version, 9.1.0, was released in June 2023 and added support for F1 23.