Breakneck AKA N.I.C.E.2 on modern PCs? And Superbike 2001 for that matter... \ VOGONS

Breakneck AKA N.I.C.E.2 on modern PCs? And Superbike 2001 for that matter...

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First post, by VirtuaIceMan

Posted on 2014-12-09, 00:13

VirtuaIceMan Offline

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I'm trying to get the 1998 Synetic game Breakneck (UK version of N.I.C.E.2, aka Excessive Speed) to work on Win8.1 on GTX 980. I think it might be a tricky one.

To install the game, apply Win98 mode compatibility to both autorun.exe and setup.exe on the CD-ROM, then it'll install.

The nice2.exe launcher in the game folder always gave me grief, even on WinXP, so I tend to launch the game from the n2_arc.exe or n2_std. exe (for arcade or standard modes). However when I do, it immediately crashes, with an Event Viewer log blaming either the game exe or ntdll.dll

At least twice I got into the n2_arc.exe file and half selected my car track before it crashed.

I've tried the 1.0.4a patch (from Patches Scrolls) but that doesn't help. This seems very similar to issues I'm having with Superbike 2001 (EA/Milestone), where I managed to get into the game precisely twice on my PC, but it soon crashed. However that game (SBK2001) works fine on my ATI powered work PC, so I suspect it might be down to Nvidia drivers once again (as both these games were on my "have issues with later Nvidia drivers in WinXP" list)...

Any ideas?

UPDATE: Mercedes-Benz Truck Racing (also by Synetic) also crashes the same, boo!
UPDATE2: Mercedes-Benz World Racing works fine, though that uses DirectX8.1, so whole different ballgame...

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 1 of 9, by Deadalus

Posted on 2014-12-09, 11:49

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Semi-related: Breakneck tested working on Windows 7, however the original German N.I.C.E 2 (to be more specific, N.I.C.E 2 with Tune Up addon) gets black screen in standard/career mode during in-game, standard mode menu and arcade mode in-game works fine however (despite both having more or less the same graphics setting).

Reply 2 of 9, by VirtuaIceMan

Posted on 2014-12-09, 12:21

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Here's the original list of games I made that newer Nvidia drivers broke on my previous PC. Maybe they're still broken... Not tried them all yet. Although Wipeout 2097 works fine...

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/5431 … -earlier-games/

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 3 of 9, by VirtuaIceMan

Posted on 2014-12-09, 16:42

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Update: just tried Mercedes-Benz Truck Racing on my work PC (Win7 64bit with ATI Radeon HD 4600 graphics), and it works fine.

So it's looking like an Nvidia driver bug issue then, as both MBTR and Superbike 2001 work fine on ATI (although Win7 not Win8.1). Maybe Dege's DirectX wrapper (or something else) might help. Otherwise I might have to set up a WinXP virtual machine with Direct3D in VMWare Player...

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 4 of 9, by ZellSF

Posted on 2014-12-09, 17:21

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Breakneck works fine on a Nvidia 670 (which shouldn't be that different than 980 in terms of legacy support) here using DXWnd.

Performance is barely keeping above 60 though.

Superbike 2001's problems are probably rendering related: it works (poorly) with DXGL in software rendering mode.

Reply 5 of 9, by Mr.Blade

Posted on 2014-12-11, 15:01

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N.I.C.E. 2 works fine on Windows 8.1. I host a couple of patches on my website:

http://www.replaying.de/nice-2/n-i-c-e-2-patch-1-0-4a/
http://www.replaying.de/nice-2/n-i-c-e-2-nvidia-patch/

Suprebike 2001 works fine with Nvidia graphics cards. If you use an AMD graphics card, you probably encounter problems when you try to run the game in D3D. Instead, try Software Rendering. It's of course not as good-looking as D3D, but at least you can play it.

Here's a Windows XP Patch for Superbike 2001. Does also work with Windows 8.1.

http://www.replaying.de/download-datenbank/?did=27

Reply 6 of 9, by tincup

Posted on 2014-12-11, 18:18

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I had a similar experience with my old XP/7800GT-SLI setup and nVidia drivers. I'd test each new driver release but always ended up rolling back to v2.84 [if memory serves me] since they were the most reverse-compatible and performance loss was only minimal. Broken games were a typical issue with NVidia driver releases back then, despite the consensus that NVidia was superior to ATI in this respect.

EDIT: memory *didn't serve me. They were drivers v 84.56 drivers

Reply 7 of 9, by VirtuaIceMan

Posted on 2015-04-15, 11:23

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This is fixed; like many errors on my PC it was the USB link cable for my H100i water cooler being detected wrong. Game works okay(ish) now.

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 8 of 9, by Davros

Posted on 2015-04-15, 20:50

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Dont forget for superbike 2001 you must set your desktop to 16bit colour

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 9 of 9, by VirtuaIceMan

Posted on 2015-04-15, 22:10

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Yeah SBK2001 is a different story, keeps crashing. I managed to get in game using Dege's DX wrapper, but it ran very slowly. Will play with that more later.

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

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