Download a GTA V or FiveM car and you get a folder full of files with short, cryptic extensions. Knowing what each one does saves a lot of guessing: it tells you whether a download is complete, why a car shows up without textures, and which file to look at when the handling feels wrong. This guide walks through every file you will meet in a typical car mod, in the order a converter reads them.
Two kinds of download
GTA V car mods come in two shapes, and both carry the same core files.
- Single-player add-on or replace mods are usually a folder with a
.yftand a.ytd, sometimes inside adlc.rpfthat OpenIV installs into themodsfolder. Replace mods overwrite a stock car; add-on mods register a new one. - FiveM resources are a folder (often zipped) with an
fxmanifest.lua(older ones use__resource.lua), astreamfolder that holds the model and textures, and adatafolder (or loose files) with the.metafiles that describe the car.
If a FiveM download has a stream folder but no .meta files at all, it was probably meant to be used with a server's shared vehicle data. The model will still load, but the car's name, handling and colour options have to come from somewhere else.
The model: .yft and _hi.yft
A .yft file is a fragment: the car's 3D model together with its skeleton, its damage pieces and its collision. Inside it sits a tree of named parts called bones. The bones are what make a car a car rather than a static mesh, because the game moves them: wheels spin around wheel_lf, wheel_rf, wheel_lr and wheel_rr, doors swing on door_dside_f and door_pside_f ("driver side" and "passenger side"), the hood is bonnet, the trunk is boot, and the steering wheel is steeringwheel.
Most cars also ship a second model with _hi in the name, for example mycar.yft and mycar_hi.yft. The _hi file is the full-detail version GTA uses when the camera is close. The plain one holds lower levels of detail (LODs) for distance. When you convert a car, the _hi model is the one you want, because it has the most detail and usually the cleanest interior.
Each model holds several LOD levels, named High, Medium, Low and Very Low. A good car has all of them; a rushed one may have only High. For other games that is usually fine, because the converted car gets its own distance handling.
The textures: .ytd
A .ytd is a texture dictionary: a pack of images the model points to by name. A car usually has at least one, named like the model (mycar.ytd), and many also carry mycar+hi.ytd with higher-resolution versions. Some textures, such as generic tyre walls, badges or interior dials, are not in the car's own file at all: they live in GTA's shared vehicle texture packs, and the model simply asks for them by name.
That explains the most common complaint after any conversion, a part that comes out grey or white. Either the .ytd was not included in the download, or the part uses a shared GTA texture that is not in the car's files. Check that every .ytd in the download was loaded before assuming anything else is wrong.
Inside the dictionary you will see three kinds of texture for most materials: the colour map (diffuse), a normal map (usually ending in _n) that fakes fine surface detail, and a specular map (_s) that controls shine. Paint is normally not a texture: GTA paints the body with a shader colour, which is why a converter has to decide which parts are "paintable".
handling.meta: how the car drives
handling.meta is a plain XML file and the most useful one to understand, because it is the car's physics sheet. Converters that build physics, like the Assetto Corsa, ATS and Farming Sim converters, read it directly. The fields worth knowing:
| fMass | Weight in kilograms. A sedan is usually 1,400 to 1,800; an SUV or truck goes over 2,000. |
|---|---|
| fInitialDragCoeff | Air drag. Higher numbers slow the car more at speed. |
| vecCentreOfMassOffset | Moves the centre of mass from the model's centre. A negative Z lowers it and makes the car harder to roll. |
| fDriveBiasFront | Where the power goes: 0.0 is rear-wheel drive, 1.0 is front-wheel drive, anything between is all-wheel drive. |
| nInitialDriveGears | Number of forward gears. |
| fInitialDriveForce | How hard the engine pulls. This is the main "power" number. |
| fInitialDriveMaxFlatVel | The top-speed target the game aims for on flat ground. |
| fBrakeForce / fBrakeBiasFront | Brake strength, and how much of it goes to the front axle. |
| fSteeringLock | How far the front wheels turn, in degrees. |
| fTractionCurveMax / Min | Peak and sliding grip. The gap between them decides how suddenly the car lets go. |
| fSuspensionForce / fSuspensionRaise | Spring stiffness and ride height. |
One FiveM pack can hold several cars in a single handling.meta. Each entry starts with a handlingName, and that name is what links it to the car in vehicles.meta.
vehicles.meta, carvariations.meta and carcols.meta
- vehicles.meta ties everything together: the model name, the
handlingIdthat points intohandling.meta, the display name and make, the vehicle class, the layout (which decides seat positions and animations) and the audio name the engine sound comes from. - carvariations.meta lists the colour combinations the car spawns in, plus which extras (
extra_1,extra_2and so on) are switched on. Extras are optional parts like bull bars, roof racks or light bars. - carcols.meta defines custom mod kits and, for emergency vehicles, siren patterns. Many cars don't need one.
- dlctext.meta and .gxt2 files only hold the display names shown in game.
A quick completeness check
Before you convert anything, open the download and confirm:
- There is a
.yft, ideally with a matching_hi.yft. - There is at least one
.ytdwith the same base name. - For FiveM, there is a
handling.metaand avehicles.meta, and the model name invehicles.metamatches the.yftfile name. - Nothing is still packed inside a nested archive you have not extracted.
If all four are true, the car has everything a converter needs. If the car still comes out wrong, the problem is in the model itself, and our guide on choosing a car to convert covers what to look for.
