Latest NFS News

NFSCars will be down temporarily as there has been unforseen complications regarding the servers. We hope to get everything back online as soon as humanly possible, but it is still a matter of time. We apologize for the inconvenience, and hopefully you will continue to utilize our friends and affiliates in order to keep up with current Need For Speed News. Our IRC will still be available for the time being at irc.nfscars.net.

Thank you,
The Staff at NFSCars.

EA's E3 Press Conference opened up with a trailer for the next Need For Speed game, NFS Hot Pursuit, developed by Criterion games.

HP3 (which I'll call it for now) includes a new Autolog feature, which will tell you which of your friends are currently online, as well as which records they've claimed.

It will be released on November 16th.





More info coming...

I know I'm late with this, but as you may or may not know, last week saw the public release of the first Modtool package for Need For Speed: Carbon, meaning there's officially one more NFS game open to the modding community from now on.

The package includes:
- NFS:Carbon Geometry Compiler
- NFS:Carbon Texture Compiler
- NFS-CfgEd for NFS:Carbon
- NFS: Carbon Car Setup
and can be downloaded at NFSCars.net.

Around the same time we also got the first two official add-on cars for NFS Carbon: a Bugatti Veyron (by nfsu360 himself) and a 1967 Dodge Charger (Robin'7t4), both of which are also available at NFSCars right now.

If that wasn't enough, another breakthrough was announced when nfsu360 showed the first example of a working add-on vehicle in NFS Undercover, meaning there's yet another NFS chapter that may be available to modders soon.

Read more about the Carbon Modtools and the other news in this article on NFSCars, as well as on nfsu360's own website nfs-tools.blogspot.com.

Need for Speed is very excited to announce the Need for Speed World Create-A-Porsche 959 contest!


We are asking the NFS community, to model a car for the launch of Need for Speed World. We’ve seen some of the amazing work you’ve done with our PC games once they’ve shipped and we’d like to showcase some of that work in World. Our good friends at Porsche have agreed to give players the chance to model the 959 for inclusion in the game and get credit for their creation. The car that wins will be available in Need for Speed World as a drivable car when the game launches.


The competition opens today, April 8, 2010, and will close on April 25, 2010 at 11:59:59 PM PST.

Please refer to the complete RULES & REGULATIONS for details on participation restrictions, winner selection criteria and other important information. Participants must submit their creations in the following file formats in order to be considered:

- 3D Studio Max
- Autodesk Maya

File requirements must follow:

High Res LOD:
14,000 triangles for bodywork, glass, trim, headlights, taillights
1,000 triangles for interior
1,400 triangles per wheel
200 triangles per brake caliper/rotor

LOD 2:
6,000 triangles for base car
600 triangles per wheel
600 triangles for interior
25 triangles for brakes

LOD 3:
2,500 triangles for base car
200 triangles for interior
200 triangles per wheel

LOD 4:
1250 triangles for whole LOD

LOD 5:
400 triangles total

Texture Size: *Note ALL textures should be created at double resolution to the requested size.

MISC: 512x256
BADGING: 256x256
BADGING_N: 256x256
INTERIOR: 512x512
TAILLIGHTS: 256x128
TAILLIGHT_GLASS: 256x128
HEADLIGHT: 256x256
WHEEL: 256x256

To submit your entry, email your submission to drew@needforspeed.com. Attach (2) screenshots (1280x720 resolution) that best show your submission as well as complete 3D files. Only include:

“Need for Speed World Create-A-Porsche 959” in the subject line.

Emails must also contain the submitters:
- First and Last Name
- User or Screen Name
- Email Address
- Date of Birth

Regardless of format, all Submissions MUST be your original work, not the work of a team or other entity.


All Submissions MUST NOT (as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion):

- Contain material that violates or infringes another’s rights, including but not limited to privacy, publicity or intellectual property rights, or that constitutes copyright infringement;
- Contain material that is unlawful, sexually explicit, indecent, obscene, violent, hateful, defamatory, slanderous, libelous, or be inappropriate as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion;
- Disparage Sponsor or any other person or entity;
- Have been previously published or entered into any previous contest or competition; or
- Contain material that is unlawful, in violation of or contrary to the laws or regulations in any jurisdiction where Submission is created.

The contest is officially open so get busy and start submitting your cars. We’re looking forward to seeing the NFS community’s creativity at work!

Since the Release of Carbon in October of 2006, Carbon has been locked and virtually unmoddable. Finally after tirelessly working with the code, Dawid, known as NFSU360, solved the equation, and has the ability under his thumb for new user created cars to be imported into the game.

The Tool release date has yet to be announced, as well, the performance modding is yet unchanged, so for now, any cars imported would still use the original settings from the one it had replaced.

Carbon Modding news will be known when more proper detailed information becomes available from the original source.

Source: Carbon Geometry Successfully Cracked

For the first time since NFS Hot Pursuit 2 (8 YEARS ago!), you can play Need For Speed with Officially Licensed Ferrari's. Assuming you have an Xbox, of course:


February 8, 2010 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that, after a seven year hiatus, the venerable automaker and elite racing brand Ferrari is returning to Need for Speed. On February 16th, players of Need for Speed™ SHIFT will be able to download a content pack that delivers 10 extraordinary Ferrari cars including the 430 Scuderia and the ultra-rare FXX and F50 GT. Now, Need for Speed SHIFT players will feel the rush of being in the driver’s seat, realizing the true driver’s experience of being behind the wheel of a Ferrari car.

The Ferrari Racing pack is the latest downloadable content for Need for Speed SHIFT and will be available worldwide today exclusively on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system for $10.00 or 800 Microsoft Points (Need for Speed SHIFT and Xbox LIVE® account required).

In addition to 10 new cars, the Ferrari Racing Series will also extend SHIFT’s career mode with 46 new Ferrari specific challenges designed for the Ferrari cars to participate in including hot laps, eliminators, endurance races and a world tour. Completing the perfect Ferrari package are an additional 125 gamerpoints as a reward for undertaking various exciting challenges. All Ferrari cars can also be taken online where players can prove who has the skills to master these high-performance Italian racing machines.

The Ferraris available include:
1. 1996 Ferrari F50 GT
2. 2005 Ferrari F430 Spider
3. 2005 Ferrari FXX
4. 2005 Ferrari Superamerica
5. 2006 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano
6. 2006 Ferrari F430 Challenge (Online/Quick event only)
7. 2006 Ferrari F430 GTC (Online/Quick event only)
8. 2007 Ferrari 430 Scuderia
9. 2008 Ferrari California
10. 2008 Ferrari 16M Scuderia Spider



See all 6 Screenshots

(Un)Fortunately, the day has finally come when users can rice out and modify their own imported cars for Underground 2 using NFSU360's Modtools available at NFSCars (until it is uploaded here).

NFS SHIFT has been nominated for Best Driving game of the Year in the Spike Video Game Awards, up against rivals Forza 3, Gran Turismo PSP and Dirt2.

A large part of the result is based on user votes, so head on over to vote for your favourite!

EA sent over the following list of fixes in the upcoming SHIFT patch. It is currently in the testing process, and there is no release date set, yet.

NEW CONTENT/FUNCTIONALITY:

• Increased the maximum number of online players from 8 to 12

BUG FIXES - CROSS-PLATFORM:

• General game stability and performance improvements


• Improved car handling


• Fix for issue where some cars would bounce on their suspension during high load situations


• Fix for grass sometimes being displayed out of position


• Fix for intermittent incorrect driver duel results


• Fix for inverted balance slider operation


• Fix for online wins and losses occasionally being calculated incorrectly for drift races


• Fixed issue where loaned career car would inherit the player's career car tuning settings


• Fixed various usability issues with the advanced tuning screens


• Fixed lap timing for first lap of rolling start events


• Fixed car tuning settings sometimes not taking effect


• Fix to prevent rewinding past the start of instant replays


• Fixed car livery occasionally appearing all white during driver duel events


• Fixed incorrect screens being shown when player is disqualified


• Fix for occasional invisible opponents appearing during online drift events


• Fix for intermittent hang when skipping quickly through post-race screens


• Fix for intermittent hang when pressing X repeatedly in My Cars screen


• Fix for missing race groove on point-to-point tracks


• Prevented car livery resetting to default after an online race


• Fix for advanced tuning not staying unlocked on reload


• Fixed invitational event cars getting their setups corrupted and becoming undrivable (e.g. Veryon and Carrera GT)


• Fix for Lamborghini's having a low top speed when upgraded


• Fix for Corvette Z06 and Dodge Viper not able to move at the start of some events


• Fix for some upgraded AI cars bottoming out causing some instability over bumps


• Fix upgrade menu bug


• Fix for a force feedback strength settings save bug


• Fix multi-player settings for AI opponents and drift mode


• Fix for vinyls being incorrectly applied on rear wing


• Fix for a hang in lobby when accessing friend's list from car select


• Fix for profile load bug which skips save select menu when holding down Enter key


• Fix for jumping body parts when car resets

PC SPECIFIC:

• Improved ATi graphics card support


• Improved dynamic vertex buffer usage (performance optimization on all PCs)


• Fixed crashes on certain PC configurations when changing shadow settings


• Fixed intermittent crash during first lap of races on certain PC configurations


• Disabled forced dampening for custom wheel presets on PC


• Optimized multi-GPU PC operation


• Fix for intermittent missing surface sounds on certain PC configurations


• Fix for intermittent black skies


• Fix for LAN menu hang for client when host quickly returns to main menu

Just a heads up, the XBOX360 and PS3 versions of the NFS Shift demos should finally be available tomorrow for your downloading pleasure. The Xbox demo will likely be out first, early in the morning, and the PS3 demo will be out later in the day at around 5pm (your local time. Sony's rules, nothing EA can do about the time discrepancy)

Enjoy!