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First post, by RoyBatty

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Well, I learned some cool stuff on this forum over time. So I thought I would start to give back some of the things that I have done. 😁

Here I am posting a little guide on making Need For Speed II SE work properly on XPSP3 (32bit) with a multi-core processor and modern graphics card, with glide. Also some tips on getting it to look as good as it possibly can.

First thing to do is install the game. It won't find any 3dfx compatible hardware, so it will just install the software renderer version. Don't worry about this.

Then you need to install the patch, which will install some updates for TCP/IP play and some language files, in addition to both an updated software renderer version and a 3dfx version of the main game.

Finding the patch can take some hours of google searching, but I finally found it here. (I hope it's ok to post the link)

http://www.giffer.com/public/dos/pgam3/Files/NFS2SE_U.ZIP
unzip the files to the installation directory of the game and double click PATCH.BAT.

You also need the Application Compatibility Toolkit (I am using v5.5) which you can find on the microsoft download site. Install it (requires .net framework 2.0).

From the program menu, choose Compatibility Administrator.

under Custom Databases there should be a New Database entry, right click it and choose Create New > Application Fix.

Under Name of the program to be fixed: type Need For Speed II SE (or whatever you like)

Under Name of the vendor for this program: type Electronic Arts

Hit the browse button and navigate to the installation directory for the game, and select nfs2sea.exe.

click next, under operating system Modes choose none, and click next.

You need to check the following boxes:

EmulateCDFS
EmulateGetDiskFreeSpace
GlobalMemoryStatusLie
IgnoreException
MapMemoryB0000
SingleProcAffinity

Click next, and click finish. Click Save, and give the database a name (Need For Speed II SE), and a filename (nfs2seXP) and click save.

Then click on the file menu, and choose install. This will solve all the errors with running the exe.

Now for Glide...

I chose the dgVoodoo glide wrapper as it works very well with this game. I used 1.50beta2 (google is your friend here). unzip it and copy dgVoodooSetup.exe and glide2x.dll to the games installation directory.

Double Click dgVoodooSetup.exe , click search, and choose the glide2x.dll. For the settings under the Global tab, Rederer API: Direct3D9, Display Device: (your card), Display Driver: Automatically Selected, Screen Mode: Full Screen, Screen bit depth: 32 bit. For the settings under the Glide tab, D3D textures bit depth 32 bit. Refresh Rate: uncheck both boxes, Texturing options: check Force Trilinear mipmapping, check Force Bilinear filtering, check Texmem scaled to 4MB, LFB access: Enable LFB access, check Use Hardware cache buffers when poss., check Use fastwrite for unmatching formats, check Closer to real hardware, Colorkeying method: Automatic, Texture mem size: 65536 kB, Resolution: 1600x1200 (or whatever you like), leave the Gamma Correction slider alone, Monitor Freq: 60Hz (or whatever your monitor is set to, this is important!), Miscellaneous: check Force triple buffering, check Use hardware vertex buffers, check Enable Glide-gammaramp. When your done press OK.

You may have to adjust these somewhat for your videocard, I have an nvidia 9800GX2 and this is what worked best for me after hours of tinkering and trying not to get any errors and also achieve the best graphics.

Since I have an nvidia card, I also used nhancer (v2.51) to create a profile for the game to enhance it further.

Create a new profile, and call it Need for Speed: II SE (or what you like)
under executables, press the file icon on the right side and navigate to nfs2sea.exe.

In the right hand pane there is a lot of options, I set mine as follows (you can change them depending on how powerful your card is).

Enhancements tab:
Antialiasing, Multisampling, 16x
Anisotropic Filtering 16x

Compatibility tab:
check Antialiasing compatability, and select 00000000 general compatibility

SLI Mode: (If you have SLI as I do)
in the drop down list, choose Alternate Frame Rendering

In the Tools menu, select write all profiles to registry.

Your done. You can now enjoy Need for Speed II SE in it's maximum quality (makes psx version look so bad!) and also play it on XPSP3 without any error or crashes.

I'll write some more of these guides as I do them.

Cheers!

Reply 1 of 12, by sam767

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awesome guide Roy ,altho i tried couple guide before the game works fine
but for some odd reason the game crashes when i watch videoes (car profile)
Now it's even better this your guide!

oh btw my video card is 6600 GT 512mb

have a nice day !

Reply 3 of 12, by Paul_CZ

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First off, thanks for the awesome guide!

I have some questions though : ).

I installed the game step by step, when I run it, it works OK, but I must have the image or cd in drive - otherwise it crashes - that is I presume normal.Is it possible to make it run without the drive, maybe somehow copy the music and videos to the install folder? Maybe you know.

Also, Is it normal that in the menu in the car selection the images kind of flicked, and also loading screen (one second long) strangely flickers?

Otherwise the game runs well and I am extremely happy to find this guide.I always wanted to play this game in its 3dfx glory but I never had 3dfx card back in the day, so now it is...awesome .).

Reply 4 of 12, by RoyBatty

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Yeah, the cd rom needs to be in the drive, nothing can really do about that (legally). I chose a full install, maybe that puts everything on the HD, not sure.

hrm... I don't get any flickering at all... every computer is different so I can't really say what causes that.

Glad the guide was able to help you however, enjoy =]

Reply 5 of 12, by RedRork

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I followed your complete guide. The game works fine in software mode but when I run the nfs2sea.exe it starts and I can get in the main menu but when I want to race it lags! It's just unplayable. Does anyone have any solution for this. I've been trying all day now but no help...

**********COMPLETE STORY HERE******************************

Hello everyone,

I came accros alot of guides to installing and running NFS II SE on XP. But i'm having the same problem over and over.

Alright here goes my explanation.

I installed the game (full installation) and installed the .sdb files (for the normal one and the 3dfx version). The normal software version runs fine. But the 3dfx version does start but when I want to race it lags like hell?!

I tried different settings on DGvoodoo (version 1.50 beta 2) but no matter what I do or change it keeps on lagging. In one desperate attempt I tried using an older version (1.30) and yes the lagging was less! But still no smooth fps.

So my system is:

- Windows XP (service pack 3 installed)
- Intel E8500 dual core processor @3.69 ghz
- Nvidia Geforce GTX 295
- 2 gig ram @800Mhz
- 2 HDD @ 7200 rpm (both 500gig)

The .SDB files have the following enabled:

- CorrectFilePaths
- EmulateGetDiskFreeSpace
- GlobalMemoryStatusLie

(also tried -ProsAffinity *or something like that* but also made no difference)

Oh and on a site note when I install the full game and don't use any .sdb files the game won't even start.

So PLEASE help me. I just want to play the game in 3DFX and I think the Glide Wrapper is the problem here, since older version makes the game less lagging....

Reply 6 of 12, by RoyBatty

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The sdb files are incomplete, use all the settings I gave, the SingleProcAffinity is what causes the slowdown, it doesn't like multiple cores.

CorrectFilePaths also has no bearing on getting this game working properly.

Reply 7 of 12, by RedRork

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Hey RoyBatty,

Thanks for the reply I already managed to get it working. The strange thing is I reinstalled the game (full) and didn't use the sdb files at all... only the DGvoodoo 1.50 beta 2 and it worked! Guess I don't need those sdb files after all the game is working like a charm now sometimes a few sound glitches but nothing serious.

Thanks anyway for all the help ... windows XP remains a mystery ... amazing that a difference in hardware makes such a difference in setting up the game just right.

Well i'm off playing some more! 😁

Reply 10 of 12, by SUPERCHARGE

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So, I can run this game using the Application compatibility toolkit on two older PC's using windows xp sp3. But my newer laptop and main computer using the same OS lag. If I disable sound acceleration, the lag becomes much much less but still lags too much to be able to play, and over that the sound becomes laggy without the aceeleration.

Because I have a much nicer monitor on my regular PC and have it hooked up to surround sound and to a steering wheel in a much more convenient place, i'd really like to have this game running on my main PC.

Anyone have any suggestions as to what kind of fix i could try to use to fix this issue?

Reply 12 of 12, by SUPERCHARGE

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Ok... I just figured a couple things out and it all makes sense. First off, I only now found out that to play in 3dfx mode, you have to copy a separate executable file from the cd (NFS2SEA), stupid me. I should of known this since other old games had similar setups.

But for those who are unable to play this game on their PC due to really bad lag problems, who go through these threads, get DGvoodoo 1.5beta2 as instructed and make sure you're running the 3DFX version of the game (NFS2SEA, which is found on the NFS2SE cd rom) and not the 2D version (NFS2SEN). Although the 2D version works properly on few PC's, the 3DFX version will work with any PC when you use a glide and the microsoft compatibility toolkit. Absolutely no lag... Only downfall to this is that you lose the cockpit view capabilities in the 3DFX version.