Messages

How do I donate for VEG's project?

Unfortunately, it isn't possible anymore.

Paypal doesn't allow to accept money in my country, so I asked my old friend from Moscow to accept all the donations and then send them to me using a local money system (which works in Russia and Belarus, but doesn't work worldwide). My friend sent me part of the money, and disappeared then, so I still didn't received all the money, but it is my fault, so don't worry, I remember about every donation (which is accounted on the donation page), and I'll do everything what promised either way, but I'm not sure about terms. And I think that my old friend just has some temporary problems himself and I still hope he will appear again one day

I'm sorry that I can't keep the deadline. I worked on the project more than for 2-3 months and didn't finished the work because I wanted to do it in a perfect way. You know, sometimes perfectionism exhausts you and prevents you from finishing your work in time. But my other side helps me to do everything I want at last. I always return and keep trying till it's done

Last time I was working on a new tool which will help me to patch other programs and games maybe 30% quicker. It is also not finished, but I would like to use it for NFS4 when I'll be porting the most important changes from the NFS3. I'm writing this tool not only for these patches, actually I'd like to patch some other games also, that's why I want to finish this tool before any further work.

Again, sorry that it takes so long time.

I've just posted an interesting screenshot from an article about the NFS3. EA hadn't published that utility which converts tracks from the 3D Studio Max to in-game format. Just a small piece of interesting information.



Another interesting screenshot. It seems that it's from a beta version of the game

Sorry for offtopic. Maybe it is better to move my last 2 posts to a separate topic.

It was published in the Next Generation Magazine 44 (Aug 1998), a month before the release of the NFS3. So, it seems that it is an original looking of development of tracks of the NFS3/NFS4

Hello VEG, I've made a donation of $50 to the project, but it was a while ago, hope you got it.

Yeah, it was 2017/02/14 as far as I can see. Thank you for your support.

BTW, have anyone seen some beta stuff of the NFS4? I mean maybe some screenshots were published before the release of the NFS4, or maybe even early beta versions, etc.

Increasing cars limit is on my todo list, but it is not in the mandatory list. So, I'm planning to try to do it some day. But it is really a little bit tricky code in the game. I've tried to find the code which blocks Ferrari and Mercedes cars in the NFS4, I've spend several hours without proper result. I know that it is possible just to change attributes in the car files. I just thought to remove this limitation like it had been done in the NFS3. In the NFS3 I've fixed this problem in a minute, just because this code in the NFS3 was much simpler and there were two hardcoded strings "Ferrari" and "Mercedes", so it was easy to find it
I'm just trying to say that the code which works with cars is tricky and increasing the limit can't be done easily. I don't know how much time it will require, but I will try when other planned things will be done

I'm just trying to understand if this problems occurs sometimes. The game can hang completely just after pressing Esc button by host of a multiplayer game. It is what I think while I'm investigating the code which sends message that the server opened pause menu. But maybe I misunderstood it. So I'd like to know if anyone had seen similar problem in the game during multiplayer games. This bug is not permanent, it can happen rarely (race condition and a possible deadlock in the result).

Hello, guys. Sorry for this huge pause in the development. I've returned and I'm working on the project for 2 weeks already. Refactoring is still not finished, but it will be. I've done some other small things, also investigated the code a little bit.

I have a question for you. I've found the code (in the NFS3 and NFS4) which could cause a dead lock when server (host player) opens chat (presses Esc) during gameplay. Maybe I'm wrong, because this code is complicated and it is possible that I understood something not right. The question: do you remember if the game was freezed completely just after pressing Esc (opening pause menu)? If you remember such problem, how often it happens?

Hello, guys. I'm still working on the other project, but I'll return to the NFS patching soon.

BTW, I've updated my Firefox extensions. Maybe someone will like some of them

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/advanced-locationbar/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pure-url/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/omnibar-lite/ (awaiting review)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/system-menu-ex/ (awaiting review)

The truth about the patch



Initially, I had not planned refactoring of the thrash init code, but started to do it and would like to finish this work. It takes much longer than I thought, but I think that it's worth it. Don't worry, all other proposed things will be done.

I need a little pause for some other projects (several my Firefox addons require updates for the Firefox 50+ multi-process mode, also I have a small commercial project for a couple of days). I'll return to the NFS patches during the week.

game crashes at launch with this errors when using DX8 mode:


oddly, the game works well only in windowed mode.

At least now I know exact call (thrash_lockwindow) which fails for some reason on every odd frame on your system in fullscreen mode. It explains that flickering: when the game can't lock the frame buffer, it can't render a frame. But it is very strange. I'll try to guess what may be wrong.

here's a video, -sorry for the audio desync (Bandicam things)-
http://webm.land/media/mAb0.webm

Please check if the problem is solved for movies in this beta: http://veg.by/files/nfs3/nfs3_modern_patch_beta.7z

It means that if there is no such code in the game, it will be a completely new task and it will be extremely hard to implement. Actually, I'm not sure what exactly are you talking about (I've never even tried to create a new car), but it seems that you're talking about some new thing like I had described before.

Good news: game now works in DX8 mode (only movies and loading bar are glitchy -flicker-, but it runs well)

Nice. Can you record a video how it looks like? You can even use your phone to record it. High quality isn't required.

Did DX8 have the same flickering on previous versions, when gameplay wasn't visible?

DX6/DX7 from the latest build work without any problems?

Bad news: 16-bit modes do not show up when Prefer32bitModes=0

It's ok. Actually, Windows 8+ doesn't support 16-bit display modes without enabling special compatibility modes

UPD. It seems that the latest betas have some regression with resolution choosing code (sometimes 640×480 will be chosen instead of maximum resolution). Also it seems that latest build doesn't work at all on my notebook. Something is broken

I'll fix it in next updates.

Previous versions could start in DX8 mode, but when I start a race I either get a black window or this error

That's very strange. It would be nice to understand when even menu stopped to work. But now I have a new beta version, please check it.

http://veg.by/files/nfs3/nfs3_modern_patch_beta.7z

It has many small fixes in almost all renderers (according to the 32bpp support), and it fixes some problematic code in the DX8. Maybe it will help. Please try to run DX8 with Prefer32bitModes=1 and Prefer32bitModes=0. It is important to try these both modes. Also please check if 16-bit modes are available in the game settings when Prefer32bitModes=0 is 0.

This may not quite fit into here at this point of time, but I wonder if things that are still hardcoded in the .exe could also be changed like non-reflective polygon assignments in certain .fce parts like the OD, OND, Wheels and stuff.

I think that all this was done to let the the game run smoother in those days, but meanwhile it would be nice to finally have shining rims an so on?

I'm planning to enable all standard effects in cases when they are buggy or locked for some reason, but I'm not planning to add new effects, sorry.

Previous versions of the patch have the same problem?