Need For Speed 4 Modern Patch - Donations?

[XJ220]

A Carrera vidwall for a turbo? How dare you!

I think when VEG says he wants to add glide features to dx, the resolution is high on the list of things to do?

[FranknFurter]

 ..eeek.. Nils, do you always have to be that picky? .. I know, it isn't quite correct but I choose my Vidwall's pictures by uhm.. flavour .. as to say ... shut up!

But you guys know what I mean? To see the cars in the menu .. that way?

I don't really care about 16:10 (widescreen) support or stuff, resolution is much more important IMHO.
1280x960px (inGame as well as menu resolution) is already veeery good, this doesn't mean it couldn't get higher, but as said the NGLide renderer lags the game in an unbearable way, that's why I use the old Zeckensack Glide Wrapper.

.. what should widescreen really mean to that old game except cutting the Video Card /renderers frames off? huh?

See it's the same thing like watching an old movie, like 'Blues Brothers' or so on my widescreen TV, I can either broaden/widen it which looks ridiculous, see it as it is in 4:3 or cut bottom and top off, or do I mistake smth.?

Do you mean you can re-write the game's graphic engine to show more of the scenery than it does now? I doubt this ...

BTW.. Nils you should alter your profile entries LOL .. R-u-mmsstein ... is.. ok.. but we are all Classic NFS Fans in here, aren't we?
ROFL - nevermind ..

[XJ220]

I think VEG actually aims for proper widescreen support, no stretching, no letter-boxing, no-pillar boxing and no pan&scan. So it's not the same thing as a video or movie because those have fixed content, while the screen in games is filled dynamically with 'fresh' content. With classic cutscenes etc. being the exception but, well.

Also, my nick + sig are way more classic NFS than your stamp-sized avatar and the pretentious line beneath it, Frank lol

[ExoticLover]

Hoorah! There's the NFS4 version now. Gonna try to get it. Too bad my mother lost my NFS4 CD.

[VEG]

I tried your latest HS patch and got problems with all dx modes. The menus are fine, but in game it looks always like that

That's very strange. Try to open the player car menu. Is your car visible in this menu?

Please check if this problem occurs on the NFS4 Modern Patch v0.1 and NFS3 Modern Patch v1.6.

I think when VEG says he wants to add glide features to dx, the resolution is high on the list of things to do?

Unfortunately, menu will work in 640×480. All resolutions and aspect ratios will be supported only for gameplay. Menu is hardcoded to be 640×480, all graphics and other code is intended for working in 640×480. But you can use wrappers like dgVoodoo to scale 640×480 to your desired resolution if you wish. But this solution isn't beautiful, and it doesn't add high resolution support to the game menu. The game will think that it is still 640×480.

Maybe in the far future I'll start a new project with full rewriting of the NFS3/NFS4 menus Actually, I would like to try to rewrite (on C++) the whole menu of the Future Cop L.A.P.D. sometimes in the future. Just as an experiment, because this game has very simple menu and it is a very good sample for practicing such things (rewriting of a whole component of a game using high-level language). NFS3/NFS4 have much more complicated menus, there is too much different things, so it will take much time to rewrite all of them. It will be better to start from simpler thing. In any case, it will be not in the near future.

[ExoticLover]

VEG, in that case, if it does happen, do you think that you can make NFS3 and NFS4 have interchangeable tracks installation? Like if I want a NFS3 track in NFS4, I just add NFS3 track over there? This is a wet dream, I must say. Years ago, when I was talking to Agent Mulder, I almost been able to convert a NFS4 track to NFS3 by changing some very few stuff, and he confirmed that to me by pointing that it just crash at 3,2,1 section of the race, but it loaded alright. There was also a claim in NFSGB.ND4SPDWORLD.COM years ago that someone converted NFS4 track to NFS3.

[VEG]

VEG, in that case, if it does happen, do you think that you can make NFS3 and NFS4 have interchangeable tracks/cars installation? Like if I want a NFS3 track in NFS4, I just add NFS3 track over there? This is a wet dream, I must say. Years ago, when I was talking to Agent Mulder, I almost been able to convert a NFS4 track to NFS3 by changing some very few stuff, and he confirmed that to me by pointing that it just crash at 3,2,1 section of the race.

Everything is possible, theoretically. But this task will require extremely enormous amount of time for reverse engineering and rewriting needed parts of the game. I can't even imagine how much time it needs. Possibly, it will be easier just to rewrite this game from scratch

The only real task for reasonable time is expanding the limit of installed custom cars. Adding new tracks (even in the format of the proper version of the game) is maybe 100 times more complicated task because there is too much hardcode for each track inside the executable. Yes, not all information is stored in external files! Many things like "disable horizon here and here on this track" and "play these sounds here and here on these tracks" are hardcoded in the game code. So, proper implementation of simple adding of new tracks require reworking of the track format (to store in it all hardcoded things), rewriting all hardcode to use the new information from the track files, etc. At the moment I'm not brave enough to start such project.

Actually, even rewriting of the whole menu of the NFS3/NFS4 looks too big for me at the moment. That's why I'm thinking about similar but 10 times simpler task in the other game (Future Cop L.A.P.D. has only one menu screen and a couple of dialogs). On the other hand, several years ago I thought that things that I'm doing now are barely possible. So, maybe in the future I'll be able to do much more complicated things, who knows

[AJ_Lethal]

The only real task for reasonable time is expanding the limit of installed custom cars.

That would be glorious. The serial number limitation is bigger nonsense than poly/geometry memory limit

[ExoticLover]

Never had a problem with serial numbers. I used serial numbers above 50 before, and they are all below 65000.

[AJ_Lethal]

Never had a problem with serial numbers. I used serial numbers above 50 before, and they are all below 65000.

Only in HP's case. HS can't have more than 49 cars installed, otherwise the game will glitch (BAD TEXT INDEX 0 error) or will not start at all.

[Stifen_DY]

The only real task for reasonable time is expanding the limit of installed custom cars.

That would be glorious. The serial number limitation is bigger nonsense than poly/geometry memory limit

I've been waiting for this moment. The pain from the measly car limit of NFS3 and NFS4 is almost gone. Hooray!

Never had a problem with serial numbers. I used serial numbers above 50 before, and they are all below 65000.

Only in HP's case. HS can't have more than 49 cars installed, otherwise the game will glitch (BAD TEXT INDEX 0 error) or will not start at all.

The downside of having custom cars with serial numbers above 50 in NFS3 is that the opponents never drive those custom cars in any races.

[VEG]

Unfortunately, expanding limit of cars quantity isn't included in current list of mandatory features. It is not a trivial task, it is not a "just fix this number" task. There are several static arrays with size for 50 cars, so I have to allocate new arrays and change all places where these arrays are used for using new bigger arrays. Every pointer have to be fixed. I would like to do it for the NFS3 and NFS4 sometimes. So, the feature is in the long-term todo list.

[JimDiabolo]

I tried your latest HS patch and got problems with all dx modes. The menus are fine, but in game it looks always like that

That's very strange. Try to open the player car menu. Is your car visible in this menu?

Please check if this problem occurs on the NFS4 Modern Patch v0.1 and NFS3 Modern Patch v1.6.

The player car menu is fine in dx7 mode. Have a look here :  https://youtu.be/5J5C9D6Vi8E

I remeber I already had this with the first modern patch. But I was happy with the glide modes.
I'm trying the NFS3 Modern Patch later.

[VEG]

The player car menu is fine in dx7 mode. Have a look here :  https://youtu.be/5J5C9D6Vi8E

I remeber I already had this with the first modern patch. But I was happy with the glide modes.
I'm trying the NFS3 Modern Patch later.

That's very strange. I thought that there is some problems with rendering of 3d models, but it seems that there is something else.

1. When you will have a bit of free time, please check how D3D modes work in the NFS3.
2. Also please check (in NFS4) these different versions of the dx7 renderer, especially dx7api115: http://veg.by/files/nfs4/dx7drivers.7z
3. Also please check (in NFS4) how DX7 will work if you disable DirectDrawLagFix in the ./drivers/dx7/thrash.ini.

Thank you in advance.

[JimDiabolo]

Ok testing done (Win 7 64 bit on a Intel Xeon E3-1241 v3 with Radeon R9 380 4GByte RAM) :
1. NFS3 results :

• dx5 doesn't work at all
• dx6 stable 60 fps, everything is fine
• dx7 stable 60 fps, everything is fine
• dx8 stable 60 fps, but no intro movie
• dgvoodoo stable 60 fps, but no intro movie
• nglide dx7 stable 60 fps, everything is fine

2. NFS4, dx7 renders

• dx7api115 - No scenery, only HUD
• dx7api113 - Game doesn't run, "Exception caught" error message
• dx7api107 - No scenery, only HUD

3. NFS4 with DirectDrawLagFix

• dx7api115 & DirectDrawLagFix=0 - No scenery, only HUD
• dx7 from modern patch beta & DirectDrawLagFix=0 - No scenery, only HUD

I also did some testing on a Notebook with Windows 10 64 Bit. CPU AMD A6-4400M, Radeon HD 7520G (512MB RAM)

• dx6 - Video, Menu, loading screen, Race, -> flickering screen
• dx7 - Video, Menu, Race Ok, loading screen-> flickering screen
• dx8 - Menu, loading screen, Race -> Ok, No Movie -> black screen
• dgvoodoo - everything Ok
• nglide - everything Ok

I didn't counted the frame rates, but the glide modes ran smooth.