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First post, by VirtuaIceMan

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What have these 4 racing games got in common? They all try to connect to an online server which no longer exists, preventing the game from working.

I know there was progress with Motor City Online and Need For Speed World, to enable them to still be playable (to a degree) even though the servers are gone, so I wonder if these games can too be fixed? Here's the details:

RaceRoom The Game (SimBin) - this was a free game (rFactor engine based) that pre-dated the current RaceRoom Racing Experience site. As the web domain is now a different game, this no longer works, as it can't connect any more. Get the game from here if you would like to have a look into it: https://games.reveur.de/de/raceroom...ingle/1 … stallation.html

RaceRoom The Game 2 (SimBin) - an enlarged version of the previous game (more cars/tracks), again tries to connect to non-existant server. Get it here: https://raceroom-the-game-2.fileplanet.com/

Ferrari Virtual Academy 2K10 - a hotlapping game made by Kunos Simulazioni, in-between netKar Pro and Assetto Corsa. This was sold on Ferrari's site http://www.ferrarivirtualacademy.com/ but despite being briefly down in 2015, it was working as late as 2017 and even early 2018. However now the game can't find the server, so I assume it's been removed, meaning you can't get into the game at all. It has a laserscanned Fiorano track too. This one is less easy to find; if you'd like to investigate it, get in touch and I can supply the files.

Wincars Racer (DragonJam Studios) - this is still available to purcase on Steam over here https://store.steampowered.com/app/451060/Wincars_Racer/ but no longer works, just showing a black screen when starting the game. If you contact Steam about it, they say to contact the devs, but the devs are non-responsive and many seem to have new jobs, meaning it's probably dead. But can it be hacked to work offline perhaps?

p.s. I've also asked this on AssemblerGames (https://assemblergames.com/threads/raceroom-t … be-fixed.69914/), but wondered if there's any tecchie hackers over on VOGONS too, perhaps?

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 10, by VirtuaIceMan

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No one got any ideas?

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 2 of 10, by Davros

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All your problems seem to be games need to connect to a no longer running server
your only hope would be to emulate that server.

VirtuaIceMan wrote:

As the web domain is now a different game,

It's still there
http://game.raceroom.com

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 3 of 10, by VirtuaIceMan

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The current RaceRoom is a new entity with new software, the games I mention were short lived freeware titles that used the URL before it moved on to the new game.

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 10, by VirtuaIceMan

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A little update on this, using Wireshark I can see that FVA tries to connect to fva.3d-game.com, whilst RaceRoom The Game (1, at least) tries to reach rrgamesrv.race-game.com

I tried redirecting both to 127.0.0.1 but it didn't help!

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 5 of 10, by VirtuaIceMan

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Update on Ferrari Virtual Academy: I heard from Kunos' brand manager that "no, the software has been definetely closed last year". So unless the sign in screen can be hacked/bypassed, you can't race official Ferrari F1 cars laser-scanned Fiorano without using a different game.

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 6 of 10, by Davros

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Someone should have done a data capture before the server shut down
are there any other games using the same engine that are still running ?

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 7 of 10, by VirtuaIceMan

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Ferrari Virtual Academy is built upon NetKar Pro technology, but is probably a bit more like Assetto Corsa. I think it uses curl for networking.

The Raceroom The Game titles are essentially a cut back version of Race 07, powered by the rFactor engine.

Wincars Racer... no idea.

Most of these just need to get past the sign in screen, but as there's no server, there's no indication of what a "successful connection" response might be, and whether they write back to the server frequently or not.

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 9 of 10, by VirtuaIceMan

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Ferrari Virtual Academy has had the launcher bypassed (not by me)! Available now on archive.org

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 10 of 10, by VirtuaIceMan

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And the free RaceRoom The Game titles are fixed too! https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/how-to … ne-mode.268808/

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