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[NFS 4: High Stakes Career]

#1

General NFS / Differences in Career mode bet...

Last post by nikon - Today at 3:55 AM

Hi everyone,

I've recently made an editor for the original NFS 4: High Stakes Career, which allows editing the Career structure, tournaments, restrictions, rewards, and other parameters stored in "CircDef.cdb" and "TierDef.cdb".

At the moment, the editor is based on the US/European version of the game.
I recently received a request from a user to add support for the original Australian PC version, so I'd now like to properly adapt the editor for it as well.

This came up because the Australian version has some Career differences, most notably the HSV Pro Cup instead of the Chevrolet Pro Cup, with an HSV manufacturer restriction and the MHRT Commodore as the prize.

I managed to get the following files from what should be an original:

- "DATA\TEXT\CircDef.cdb"
- "DATA\TEXT\TierDef.cdb"
- "DATA\TEXT\MAN.DAT"

I also got the original IDs of the Australian cars:

- MHRT Commodore — Serial "24", Car ID "Hcom"
- VT Commodore / HSV Clubsport — Serial "38", Car ID "HSV9"
- Police Commodore — Serial "21", Car ID "PHsv"
- Ford XR8 — Serial "37", Car ID "FXr8"

However, this raised some new questions.

The Australian "MAN.DAT", "CircDef.cdb" and "TierDef.cdb" appear to be the same as the standard files.
In particular, "TierDef.cdb" still contains Chevrolet Pro Cup rather than HSV Pro Cup.
Or did I get the wrong files?

So I'm now trying to understand how the original Australian version handles these differences.
Is there another data file involved? exe?
Is the Career modified at runtime by the Australian executable?
Or is there some other regional mechanism I'm missing?

If anyone has experience with the original Australian PC release, has investigated its files/executable, or knows anything about how the HSV Pro Cup and Australian-specific Career data are implemented, I'd really appreciate any information.

I'd also be interested in any other differences between the Australian, Japanese, and US/European Career versions that should be taken into account when adding proper support for these regional versions to the editor.

#2

General NFS / Re: A Hope for mods in Need Fo...

Last post by KarenJBarden - Sep 17, 2026, 2:40 AM

Great idea! It would be awesome to see more mods available for PS2 players!

#3

Help/F.A.Q / Re: NFS4 Buggy Projected Headl...

Last post by Hommelwomb - Sep 13, 2026, 6:41 AM

I think I'll stick with vertexed lights - the sight range seems also to be very limited with projected lights.

Any way to make vertexed lights look more smoothly directly left and right of your car?

#4

Help/F.A.Q / Re: NFS4 Buggy Projected Headl...

Last post by PomFrit - Sep 13, 2026, 6:11 AM

This is "projected lights" bug and propably not possible to solve, you just can reduce this problem. If polygons texture has transparency, all vertices conected to this polygon has still "vertex light" effect, like trees, guardrails, fences, road lines, lots of pillars, ...

EA used transparent texture on polygon which are not seen, if you change texture to something without transparency, "projected lights" should work fine.

#5

Help/F.A.Q / NFS4 Buggy Projected Headlight...

Last post by Hommelwomb - Sep 13, 2026, 5:06 AM

https://imgur.com/a/wLI5yA4

How to fix these buggy projected lights for Redrock Ridge and Lost Canyons?

Is it a polygon setting?

I'd like to switch from vertexed to projected headlights because vertexed lights have annoying texture flickering on the side.

#6

Editing Projects / Re: T3ED Updates (NFS4 Track E...

Last post by pete9516 - Sep 12, 2026, 5:52 PM

But that's pretty dark, even for a nighttime track. I can barely see any shadows there; I'd set the Sun value higher.

I'm using the same ambient color values so it's almost as dark as the original. With these settings i've been going well in Redrock Ridge. Ofcourse the settings for Redrock Ridge are different depending on the Tr.ini's. I don't even know what those  values are, i just take them from the .ini's and hope it's working like that. So what values should i increase? Do you mean the sun rgb colors? They need to be just like that, else the track is either too dark or too bright and actually this shouldn't matter. You can always re-set the ambient RGB values in the .ini's afterwards

#7

Editing Projects / Re: T3ED Updates (NFS4 Track E...

Last post by JimDiabolo - Sep 12, 2026, 9:10 AM

Type 7E textures should now have transparency in trackview.

#8

Editing Projects / Re: T3ED Updates (NFS4 Track E...

Last post by JimDiabolo - Sep 12, 2026, 5:32 AM

But that's pretty dark, even for a nighttime track. I can barely see any shadows there; I'd set the Sun value higher.

#9

Editing Projects / Re: T3ED Updates (NFS4 Track E...

Last post by pete9516 - Sep 12, 2026, 1:33 AM

On both (Route Adonf & Rocky Pass), but more on Rocky. There i usesd strange colors to see the effect.

Can you show me your Shadow RayTracer settings?

I simply wanna give the world some lighting based on the light sources in the track, just like i've did for Redrock Ridge Remastered
These are the settings i'm trying to use for Rocky Pass:

#10

General NFS / Re: NFS High Stakes EXE addres...

Last post by pete9516 - Sep 12, 2026, 1:25 AM

But it turns out it can be made to work properly just by removing the filter that decides which parts to render depending on the side.

Yeah that's always been a nasty issue. They've probably tried to reduce the resource usage, RAM, CPU, etc. but nowadays these filters can be savely turned off if you ask me

About the issue with the positioning in the results screen: This has never been an issue to me, i've always found it to be funny how the game decides wether i'm 1st or the opponent