Ok, just to show you what I mean I'll start with a little O/T thing:
I told that I use the NGLide's glide2x.dll in my system directory still for an old (even older than NFS) game called GEX II 3D - Enter the Gecko, a nice oldschool Jump'n'Run game with an excellent, clever gameplay you'd miss these days. (screeny is attached for those who are too young to even know it..)
In those days it had been written for Glide, and only Glide .. until the Glide Wrappers came up you couldn't play it anymore on 'newer' (those days as said) machines since Voodoo Cards had disappeared.
Written for Windows 95, on Windows 98 you still could install it, but as 'finally' NT, Vista or XP came up it was completely gone, unless you had some old Windows 98 registry paths saved and patched it - for yourself - and using Glide Wrappers, too.
Then, still a little later a patch appeared which let GEX now run portable (gex3dfx.exe), just like VEG's patch does now with NFSHS. This is a parallel I'd like to mention here since this a similar case.
No-one ever thought of patching this game for widescreen or things like that, it runs fine on old machines - since it simply had been written for those old machines.
I cannot reenact all you folks' wishes for full functionality on the recent, latest machines with the latest Windows 8,10 support and full graphics enhancements ...
Get yourself an old machine for not even 50 bucks on the bay, install it there and - be happy!
No-one ever complains about e.g. old console games written those days, people even buy that old hardware to be able to play it because it was simply fun.
I have an old XP machine, NFS runs fine here and I am absolutely happy about the patch, glad I can even get it to run on my Windows 7 partition (Dual Boot) - even if some nice tools don't work here no longer.
But I would never spend such an effort to have it run on the very latest OS or most complex hardware. GET REAL PEOPLE!
NFS isn't dead, there's a great support by folks like us who still keep it alive - and that's GREAT - but it might have reached its limits long ago, and if you can't get it to run properly on your new machine, just think about.
Greetings and g'night
Frank
There is a reason why people write patches for old games to play in new OSs: old machines can't go on forever (they will eventually break) and as time goes by, old PCs and parts will be harder to come by.
Also, you have to set physical space apart for old hardware (especially if that machine needs some old periphelals like a 4:3 VGA screen and PS/2 mouse and keyboard).
^ this
Also, a big advantage of PCs over consoles is their flexibility. Things can be made to work there. And I think VEG has proven already he's well capable of highly improving on HP's and HS' compatibility. If people ask for more, and some even donate for that, that's just good enthusiasm which is important fuel for a small community around an old game.
I appreciate VEG's work very much! And he absolutely knows what he's doing, undoubtedly!
I rather meant that if NFS is absolutely not willing to run properly on a current machine or latest OS I'd rather prefer switching to some older hardware (Console games where just an example) than demanding from him to have it work on modernmost machines or OS's which are available now.
What he did until now is remarkable, and as said I apprechiate that very much and I admire all his efforts, question is if there might be a certain limit of what we can expect what can be done. (Just asking myself ...)
Other people than myself propably would actually invest much more effort to make things run on every different machine or environment.
I greatly hope all our expectations towards him and his further work will come true, but as said I believe there might be limits ...?
I'm just wondering ... what else/even more can we expect?
I apologize if anything I wrote was mistakable or even offending.
Regards,
Frank :'(
Totally agree with AJ and Jim.
Old hardware can never deliver the experience for NFS3 and NFS4 you can get with a new PC now. Not even a Voodoo system can. You can now drive a full grid of high poly cars at 60 FPS+. Impossible on old hardware that runs Win98.
Also your console comparison is flawed. If you think original console hardware is required to run Playstation or Arcade games you're really not up to date. There are many emulators that run such games on PC's, optionally with very high resolutions too.
...wouldn't it be possible to let those old games run it an own environment like it can be done on Linux, 'in a nutshell' as to say? Like most older hardware with newer OS's is already running on 'compatibilty mode' drivers? Not the same as it was earlier, meaning running really slow and buggy ....
Solves many incompatiblity problems also on the latest machines, wouldn't it? Don't emulators do the same?
So starting NFS would mean running a seperate environment which is treated like an own OS with all necessary drivers loaded (sry. if I mistake that, but the Modern Patch IMHO does exactly that as it delivers the necessary drivers in a seperate folder, whereas NFS regulary looked up for the drivers in the system directory, what a great advance ..) and stuff ... sry, I'm not so much into as it may sound, just guessing ...
And by all of that let's just don't forget the raising amounts of fun with NFS' gameplay as it is possible NOW by the patch, ever really realized what's happening right here now?
If I think of the pics I just posted I never thought it was possible to have them run in a regular chase like the 80's NVHP Diplomat ... what an experience .. perhaps all my thoughts are just being seen from the Point-of-View of an old car tinkler .. but, thanks again Evgeny!
Sounds like creating a massive overhead in my opinion. Not to mention the flaws of old OS. And driver problems. I think a modern 7 provides much more resources someone like VEG can utilize.
Also, I suppose he's testing in the environment the game will be played in. Switching between OS for dev purposes, e.g. writing code in 7 and then testing in 98 or something, does not sound fun. At all.
Ok folks, as I just told you I'm afraid I might see this from a completely different point of view.
The games' environment is a secondary issue to me rather than gameplay's improvements itself, such as finally de-encrypting, for example, those AI driving lines which is IMHO an issue with recent and proper gameplay. Cars (traffic, AI drivers as well as Cops) don't find their way to drive on replacement tracks which is annoying to me .. Jimmy had done his best with de-encrypting the tracks' codes by creating the latest version of TRED. But how AI's driveways are being set upon tracks must insofar be hardcoded, don't they?
I don't expect anyone to re-write the overall games' codes, but it can be improved, as Dr. Speeds experiences with the Replay files proof these days, don't they? Such as managing the amount of AI drivers or cops, what cars they use on which tracks and so on. That would be REAL improvement to the game, I admit that as an average 'user', playing the game and no longer those 'bugs' appear, such as stucking opponents on replacement tracks or the cops being that stupid as they are during the game (since they don't find the AI driving lines) -whereas in real life, ok, that's a different thing- ^-^ and so on.
Therefore, as said, the game's code doesn't need to be re-written(?), but if the code was partly de-encrypted in that way and outsourced into .ini files, the peripheral things could be improved and adjusted so the old game gains from that as it increases gameplay.
Lets not forget another critical point:
Anyone have tried Need for Speed 2015? >:(
If you answer is "yes", your question answers itself...
If not, trust me: just stay with classic NFS titles. Any improvement for HS deserves more respect than whole new NFS. In other words, making HS run smoothy in a new PC makes more sense than using the new PC just to run new NFS titles :-D
So ... ok, this thread might have become obsolete by now, I was just wondering if there might come up a little discussion about it and folks are really interested in further development and participate in the Patch's great idea rather than leaving this all up to Evgeny, but always forgetting how easily a subject can hive off and gain a momentum of its own in a forum ;)
So it seems there's many people enough here taking care about it, that's really great and ... nevermind
Thanks and Greetings
Frank