Differences in Career mode between NFS4 regional versions (AU, EU, US, JP)

[nikon]

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.

[nikon]

The more I investigate this, the more likely it seems that the HSV Pro Cup simply didn't exist in the Australian PC release.
Apparently, it was only present in the PlayStation version.

[pete9516]

I wish i could help you, but i don't know stuff about neither the different releases nor the carrer stuff. But be careful with any information spread in Discord servers, it might be wrong. Those differences are most probably only present in the PS1 releases

[EvoX]

Never seen a game with a Holden cup, though heard of it.

[nikon]

My investigation so far has led me to this:

There is a page on the NFS Wiki specifically describing the "HSV Pro Cup in the PC version":
https://nfs.fandom.com/wiki/HSV_Pro_Cup_(PC)

It explicitly states that the Australian PC release has an HSV Pro Cup, with the "MHRT VT Commodore" as the prize instead of the 2bonus Chevrolet Camaro".

However, I'm starting to seriously doubt that this information is correct.

I also found another source claiming that the MHRT VT Commodore is unlocked by winning the "Pro-level Arcade Tournament" instead.

I even managed to find what appears to be an original Australian NFS4: High Stakes image (version 4.0).
I installed it in a VM, and there is no sign of an HSV Pro Cup there either.
"TierDef.CDB", "CircDef.CDB", and even "MAN.DAT" are identical to the files from my regular version.
The game itself also displays the normal "Chevrolet Pro Cup".

So if an HSV Pro Cup really existed in this release, it would have to be substituted at runtime.

That's not impossible.
While looking through the code, I found that although bonus car serial numbers are normally stored in an array, there is a special case for El Niño.
Roughly speaking, the code does something like this (for illustration):

if ((int)circ_record->prizes[0]== 9)
    return 39;

if (loc_bonus_car_index <= 1)
    return g_bonus_car_serial_num[loc_bonus_car_index];

g_bonus_car_serial_num = [0x29, 0x2A]

So in principle, a similar runtime substitution could have been used for the MHRT VT Commodore.

And, interestingly, I actually found something that looks somewhat similar.
This appears to depend on the "variant" value from "nfs4.ini".

For "variant == 4", one of the bonus-car tables is modified at runtime.
Roughly:

if (variant == 4)
    g_BonusCarSerials[0]= 24;

Normally that entry is "0x29" (41).

This is a different table from "g_bonus_car_serial_num"; it normally contains: [0x29, 0x2A, 0x27, 0x14, 0x24, 0x31]
And serial "24 is Hcom — the MHRT VT Commodore" in this Australian release.

I haven't analize this part of the executable yet...
I might come back to this later.

*But I'm becoming more and more doubtful that the "HSV Pro Cup" actually existed in the Australian PC release.

**If you find any more information, please let me know.

[EvoX]

I put the MHRT in my game folder and gonna c if it opens during career... never tried)