A patch for the Need For Speed 4: High Stakes. This is a side project of the Need For Speed III Modern Patch. Currently, it has a small amount of fixes. The key features of this patch are portability (no more registry!) and high poly cars support (it is useful for modding). There is still no widescreen resolutions support.
How to install
- Copy DATA and SAVEDATA directories from the NFS4 CD to a new empty directory.
- Extract contents of the nfs4_modern_patch.7z (1.2MB) into that directory with replacement of files.
- Done!
Find other NFS4 fans for the network games in our Telegram group chat!
If you wish to find someone who wants to play NFS4 with you, join this Telegram group chat.
Plans: Milestone 1 (Full Widescreen Support)
Goal: $500.
Collected: $864 (the surplus will be moved to the next milestone).
Status: suspended.
Mandatory set of features:
- Refactoring of the thrash init and get resolutions list code. It have to solve some compatibility problems with D3D renderers.
- Widescreen resolutions support for the gameplay. It will be possible to choose it from the graphics settings in a general way.
- Proper handling of all aspect ratios (from 5:4 to 16:9, inclusive 4:3 and 16:10). HUD will be adopted automatically for every supported resolution.
- Better modding abilities. AllowHugeTextures setting support, which will allow to use textures up to 2048×2048.
- Patching of the voodoo2a.dll to add an ability to use widescreen resolutions (a Glide API extension, by default only d3da.dll can use widescreen resolutions).
- 32bpp support in the voodoo2a.dll (another Glide API extension).
- Huge textures support in the voodoo2a.dll (and again, it's also a Glide API extension).
It is planned to release v1.0.0 when these features will be done and they will be stable. I'm planning to include some other nice features into the first release, but the list is not predefined. For example, I'll try to remove effect limitations in the menu for the D3D renderers.
Well I'm sure he is doing a great job. I cant do anything like this so I rely on people like Veg. I cant wait for NFS4 to be patched and be available. Hopefully he can do a good a job as he did with NFS3. :)
Hi. Veg! hope you have a good day. thanks for reply. we are not trying to make you work faster or something. We just want some updates once in a while, that’s all :) and thank you again for making my childhood game NFS III playable on modern hardware ! can’t wait for number four
Work him faster, really. Ive been waiting 1 1/2 years for this. Thing is people have pledged and donated money for this and Veg did NFS3 instead apparently. There must be money left over in the pot to get this project done. He did a great job of NFS3. Maybe we all need to throw some money his way so he can continue his masterpiece....
Paul I understand your frustration; you just can’t wait to play, same as me. First of all - The patches he is making are 100% illegal because I don’t think that EA will allow anybody to mess with games as much as he does, even the old ones. We just have to be patient and give him some time- even two years! Think about it this way; it has been 19 years since the release of NFS III HP and EA haven’t revisited the game at all! So I thought I would never get the opportunity, even in my dreams, to play that game again on the modern PCs. I would give him as much time as he wants- it’s worth it. Lastly to be honest the money he got from the fans for the patchs is still not enough to cover the work he put in NFS III ! If EA made a patch for NFS they likely wouldn’t do as much as he did probably compatibility with Windows 10 that’s it and they will still charge you £15 for it. Just my opinion ;) take care dude!
Omczyk, 2 years are out of the question. VEG himself made the terms and said it will take 2 months for both milestones and he broke the deadline not for a month or two but more than a year and people donated almost all that he asked. I am not angry at VEG and what bothers me is the way he choose to do things. He wanted to patch NFS3 to perfection and then started to develop tool that will help him to implement fixes from NFS3 to NFS4 much faster and that makes sense. The problem is that time required to do so caused the deadline to be breached by more than a damn year. Instead of wasting time making that tool he could finish the NFS4 patch by now. I clearly remember when he was developing NFS3 patch that updates for that patch were much faster without any special tool needed to speed up the process. I really like what VEG did with NFS3 and I respect his work but what he is doing with NFS4 now is not ok.
Please don't get me wrong, I thnk Veg has done something amazing with NFS3 but a long time has passed and he should come onlne now and then and tell us whats going on. I come back on here daily, for well over a year. Veg made his own deadlines, not us and its way passed that. I know we have to be patient, as he is doing all the hard work, and we are just waiting and some of us moaning. I'm sure he will work it all out in the end, I just hope its sooner rather than later. In fact, Veg even said he would come online this weekend and tell us all whats going on, but nothing has happened. Personally, I am the type of guy that if I say something is going to happen then it happens. I do not let people down. Don't make deadlines you cant keep and always keep people informed, its really that simple......
And yet another weekend approaches and nothing from VEG. I was actually going to make a decent contribution to this but I'm giving up on this project. There are enough racing games out there to satisfy my speed addiction. Another case case of someone dreaming of doing something but does nothing. Trust me, there are plenty of racing games on Steam on sale. Take care guys....
VEG, are you writing a book about NFS or progress report for the patch? Two weekends have passed and this is now the third one.
I think Star Citizen will be finished before this,lol.
Probably it will Paul. At least Chris Roberts and his crew show some videos of game progress from time to time. One thing that VEG doesn't realize is that when you start asking for donations your hobby becomes your job and you have obligation deliver what you have promised especially if you've got all the money up front.
Well that's just it, you hit the nail on the head. We are all looking forward to this and we just want some updates. Its taking long enough......
This is why I refuse to fund these so called home programmers. They are great at taking your dollar but that's about it. Very few deliver what they promise. They pray on peoples wants and needs and then rape them. Yep, another weekend gone, nothing again. I think Veg should seriously think about giving donations back. People should just pay him for him work once its complete, not before.
VEG, are you still working on it or is it dead?
I think Veg is dead........
VEG, you should really come up with some answers. If you continue to ignore us you will lose all respect and trust from NFS community.
Already lost Milan. This has become a joke. He gained a lot of respect with his hands on approach and hard work and now its all come undone. What a shame !
Yet another weekend..... I honestly thought Veg would of been online and left a message or something regarding these projects. Veg, come on dude, time to wake up and step up to the table.......
It's sad.
I really think that Veg would come with a new version and make my dreams come true. I'm still able to make a donation to get his job finish.
Veg, if you are reading this, please show up and tell us what's going on with this project.
Don't bother making any donations to this guy. Con man....... patch NFS3 with files from need for Speed world and cant do NFS4, hence why he is avoiding everyone now. LAME CUNT. People like you make me sick VEG. Your a fucking JOKE !
Paul, VEG is probably tired of making these patches cause they are very time consuming and affect his personal life but nobody forced him to do it. Nobody put the gun to his head. He choose to do them for money got payed and he should deliver what he promised. If you take the money for some job you can't fuck around or there will be consequences. VEG will lose all respect and trust from community.
That's right. He took money , sure. And projects like this take a little time. But he should of done the decent thing and come online to talk to us....
Come on VEG it's time for you to show up with some answers.
The thing is I am still willing to put money into this project. Maybe veg has a real life problem. All you need to do Veg is pop on, let us know whats going on and then we can take things from there.
You are maybe right Paul. There is a chance that VEG has some real life problem but we all have them. Does VEG cares for our problems if we have them? Probably not. Should we care for VEG's problems? Probably not but we could let him breach a deadline for month or even two. The problem is he breached the deadline for a payed work for more than a year and no one in the world tolerates that kind of shit.
Hey Milan, yeah man, I am very frustrated also. Wish I had the talent to sort out NFS4 because if I did I would do it myself, but we have to rely on people with a talent for doing things like this. All I want is need for speed 4 : high stakes to play on my modern pc. Grrrrrrr
Another weekend passes. Sunday tomorrow......... You've really let us all down VEG. Hang your head in shame dude.......
Guys, sorry for so late reply. Now I work on fixing the most important part. I'm trying to fix my life =)
Please, don't think that I'm trying to complain. I didn't want to make it public, and the only reason why I write this is because I feel like I owe an explanation to all the donators. Me and only me is responsible for what happened, and I was able to fix it at the any moment (just a bit of determination could help me a lot).
So, the story... and it begins from a small prehistory.
I had been a freelancer since 2012. In 2015, I was fed up with all these boring projects. It was really kind of stagnation, no any professional growth. So, I decided to finish with it and to find a normal job. I had written to all my old customers that I quit and that they should try to find someone else. I had some savings, so I decided to have a small rest, but suddenly my very old assembly mania (which had been sleeping since 2010) woke up, and I had started the NFS3 Modern Patch project. I was so excited about it that I forgot about all the other plans, and my savings actually allowed me to do what I wanted without thinking about money. Some time after I understood that I spend my money too quick, so I cut down all my expenses. Occasionally I did some small tasks as a freelancer, but income had been much lower than my expenses, so my savings were becoming lower and lower. A year ago, in the October 2016, it was clear that I'm already on the bottom. I had enough money for a month or so, it was enough just to find a job quickly and to live until first payment a salary.
But I made a huge mistake at this moment, and everything became really fucked up. Things were not so good even at that moment, but I thought "I need another two months to finish what I want", so I started that small campaign about collecting money for a couple of months of development. I collected money via my old friend from Moscow. But I wanted to do too many of things, and two months weren't enough actually. So I had been working 14 hours a day, fulfilled some of my plans about this project, but it was far from the finish line. And I became tired, a rest had been required (it is really very exhausting to work so much on a project continuously). So I had a rest for a month or two, and then I decided to improve my tools to make process of making patches a bit easier, faster, and even with more robust result than before. I had been working on it for two months or so... It was in the April and May 2017. Everything took much more time than I planned. And as it turned out my friend from Moscow couldn't transfer all the money to me instantly. I had been waiting for months for transfers, and he still owe me $280 (of $1134 of donations). I started to sell all the unnecessary things (which became useless for me), so I had some additional money from it. Then the summer 2017. It was very hot. I tried to work on the project, but without any worthy result. My productivity was very low. Maybe because of eating cheap and shitty food also. You know, our brains require a lot of energy to work with full power.
I felt guilty before all the donators, so I had been vainly trying to continue to do at least something all the summer. The quality of my life had been constantly becoming worse and worse. From the beginning of the 2017 a lot of stuff became broken and I didn't have money to fix it: a vacuum cleaner, a faucet in the kitchen, my work chair, a laundry drying rack, half of RAM on my PC... Even several light bulbs burned out and I decided to not replace them to save some money. Several times I had been invited to some places by my friends, but I rejected most of these propositions, actually just because of money, but I told them that I was "busy". It was a year of real frustration.
At the end of the summer I had exactly $0 and a lot of broken stuff. It was sobering. I gave up my guilty and trying to do what I didn't have any strenghs and resources to do. I lent $400 from a friend for a month, really quickly found a normal job (it took just 4 days), and now I have a good salary, so every month I have even more money than I had for the whole last year. I already returned $400 to my friend, paid new replacements for all the things which had been broken. Now I eat normal food without trying to spend as little money as possible. I still wear my old 3-10 year old clothes, but I'll resolve it soon.
Truly, there is one good thing about hitting rock bottom... There is only one way left to go. And that's up! =)
It really takes much time to buy new things, especially when you didn't buy anything for a long time, and now you should buy a lot of things quickly. Also I started to get together with my old friends more frequently. This is why I wasn't able to reply here for weeks.
In 2012, I had written a note to my "to do" list, it was about visiting USA for observing of the solar eclipse on the 21 August 2017. As you may guess, this plan was ruined also, just because I had been refusing to accept the evident things. I had to start to prepare for this a year ago. To collect some money, to prepare a visa, etc. All the other plans were also postponed. I'm 30 now, I have to follow my plans for my life more thoroughly. It means that even if I eager to do something right now, I have to think about how it could affect my other plans.
I still like this project. I still want to do a lot of things for these games. I still plan to work on new better tools for patching (and I have a lot of ideas how to make it more productive), and to use them to make great patches for the NFS3/NFS4. I'm eager to do this, but it is not the main goal of my life. So, I don't have any estimations when it will be finished or even when you will see some noticeable progress. I will work on it when I'll have some free time and when I'll be not so tired, because these things require a lot of concentration and you can't do it when you want to sleep.
So, I don't discontinue this project. I'm still going to do all the planned things. But it will be not so soon. It is not what I had promised before. So, if you are a donator, and you wanted to have the result this year, and I ruined all your plans, feel free to write to me about it, and I'll return you all your money. Fortunately, my country doesn't have any limitations about transferring money to other people using PayPal, so I can do it without a middleman.
Both games NFS3 and NFS4 got significantly improved with your patches. Not many people can do this level of reverse engineering and achieve what you accomplished. When you say this work allows no distractions and it's not possible to this on the side, i totally believe you. Im also convinced it was not your intention to skim quick money from users with unrealistic promises.
Thats why i donated.
What is there to say - i cannot deny im a little frustrated now - or maybe just disappointed your great work is not continued.
Ok, its was really nice of you to come online and write about your situation. Thankyou for doing that. You say the NFS4 project wont be finished soon, its been a long time now, so when you say soon, I'm guessing this project will take another couple of years. I'm very disappointed and upset at the speed of this amazing project. Guessing its not really going to happen. Take care guys, good luck....
It's good that you finally showed up VEG even if the news are bad. I can't speak for others but I don't want refund I just want NFS4 patch to be finished. I would like you to make NFS4 patch your main priority when you have time to spare. One or two fixes from time to time would be great. NFS3 patch can wait since it's work perfectly already so put it on hold and focus only on NFS4 when you have the time. Can you do that?
Well, for me it doesn't really matter in terms of time, how long it would take. Take OpenTTD for example. Guys still working on that game despite original game was released tenths of years ago.
Had you considered making some kind of more or less open source on either github or something similar, so there would be chance to contribute not only in terms of money? I bet some guys will gladly try to contribute as good as they can.
Milan,
I had written "I hope, this weekend". As you can see I hadn't been so sure. My previous message took almost 4 hours to be written. English is not my native language, so it takes more time to write a big message using this language. So, I had to find this time to write the message.
Paul,
You're not right. This project took enormous amount of time. Just NFS3 Modern Patch took more than 1500 hours of work, and it is not a joke. I had been recording approximate amount of time I spent on the project almost from the beginning of the project in 2015. This value doesn't include the time when I had been doing some auxiliary work, like trying to find an old beta version of the game, advertising the project on the web, or supporting of the users. I accounted just pure reverse engineering and development time. It is easier to make an equal patch for the NFS4, maybe 70% of this time (because the code is similar and it requires less reverse engineering), or even less for another 20% if I improve my tools. But still, it is a very big amount of time.
Milan,
I'll stick to my current plan according this project. It is improving the tools, finishing of the refactoring of the NFS3 "thrash init" code, and then porting as many as possible of fixes from NFS3 to NFS4. Just because it is the smartest way to do all the things.
The problem that it doesn't have a schedule. My job has higher priority now. I learn a lot of new stuff. I'm a C/C++ programmer, but a work project requires Objective C also, so I learn it, along with learning of new libraries and subsystems. It takes much time and makes my brain tired till every weekend, so I don't write any code at weekends now. But it will be much easier in the future, when I'll know everything which is required for the project at work. I plan to return to this project then.
Rider66,
I plan to release at least my tools when they will be ready for using by other people. But it will not be soon.
MADMAN,
I also want to have it done. I almost love this project, it is something I could be proud of. But...
Then I'm cool with the plan, take your time to learn that C/C++ stuff you need and come back when ready. Just let us all know if you'll need a hand on testing/finding/assisting in something regarding the project :)
Take your time to learn C/C++, LOL. This project will take years to finish. STOP taking donations and get on with the job, or hand our refunds. Yes, you did good work with NFS3, but anyone with half a brain would of concentrated on NFS4, why, because all the tracks and cars from Need for speed 3 are in need for speed 4. So all you had to do was work on NFS4. You have gone the long way around things. Just like most shitty games makers these days, that is why games take too long to make these days and when they come out they are more like demos. Sloppy programming and bad workmanship. Give up programming and go work in MacDonalds.....
And you lame followers, stop sucking up to this guy.
Paul,
I stopped collecting donations 6 months ago.
As it had been written before, if a person needs to get their donation back, I'm ready to return all the money.
Veg, I think what you did was amazing with Need for Speed 3. Thing is, you choose a game that a lot of people love and hold dear to their hearts. Maybe the project got out of control for you and just grew too big. Maybe start up a new donation page and start work on Need for Speed 4. I was really annoyed that you didn't answer us for a few weeks but maybe we should all just donate 10 euro to your self and hopefully youll be able to get the job done. Or ask for help and see if a few of you can work on the game and sort it out......
Calm down Paul. It's not okay to say to VEG to go and work in MacDonalds. He reverse engineered NFS3 without source code and made a lot of good changes and that requires lot of knowledge and skill that not many people have. He is also willing to refund any donators if they want. There is no need to insult him. Give the man some break.
I'll have a Big Mac, make that large and a chocolate donut too please.....
I think the problem here is the time itself. If Veg replies that the project would be finished in 2 or 3 weeks, nobody would be angry at him.
But he said that the project has no release date, and that, is the real problem here.
Since NFS3 has already so many new features, we expect the same features in NFS4 right now, considering the time that VEG has been working in the project.
@Paul and other people who wants to play nfs4
search on google "NFS_HS_EP_Setup_V4.0_1.76 Expansion Pack"
you will get this link http://www.freak-ds.de/dl-tools.php or this one http://www.nfsaddons.com/forums//index.php?topic=1691.0
it works (only the intro video can't load i don't understand why...) and you can play normally. choose the voodoo graphic option when it is asked.
I don't need my money back. I can play again NFS IV and with a high poly cars.
Thanks a lot, VEG.
Thanks See_This. I think you all have to accept that this project is dead. Veg has no time or inclination to finish this project. He took on a project that was just too big for him. Time to move along......
I would donate if it's sure this project is going to happen. But it seems like NFS 4 patch will never become reality. A shame, because I think NFS 4 is even much better than NFS 3.
Momo Shiina,
Veg stated, "So, I don't discontinue this project. I'm still going to do all the planned things. But it will be not so soon." What makes you think it won't become a reality? Of course, it's taking longer than expected, but he's still here and saying it will be done.
I had been thinking about patching NFS3 since 2010. I actually started to do it in the 2015. None of you had been anticipating this patch. All of these 5 years none of you even knew me. And it looks like knowledge of nothing is better in this situation. It was like a real surprise for fans of the NFS3 when it actually happened =)
Yes, I want to create new better patches for the NFS3/NFS4. I know that it will not happen this year. It would be nice to have a huge patch for the NFS4 till 20th anniversary of the game. But I really can't promise anything about the schedule.
For me anyway, if it's happening and you post monthly I'm okay with the schedule delay. It's better that it's happening than not at all.
The work you've put in on improving NFS3 and NFS4 is incredible, and unparalleled—I doubt anyone else in the community has the skills, or especially the dedication, to reverse engineer these games. I missed the window to donate, and I understand if your ideal plans for this won't be realized for many years. Regardless, your patches comprise a massive breakthrough for the classic NFS community.
I'm a developer by trade, as well, and I find it absolutely exhausting to do any programming outside of a 40 hour work week. We respect your decision to prioritize a healthy life.
One final comment: if you do decide to open-source your decomposition and refactoring work, I think that it would compel other fans of NFS with technical skills to spend some time collaborating on improving the games. Count me in, for one; although I only have a cursory knowledge of x86 assembly, I have enjoyed studying embedded systems and computer architecture, and I would be very interested in lending my low-level programming skills towards this project.
Take care of yourself,
gdea73
Absolutely agree, life comes first. These games and this community will still be here whenever you want to work on it.
What arse kissers. He promised all these amazing things and didnt deliver. You people make me fucking sick. This project is suspended. He did a great job on NFS3 but as for NFS4, forget it, its over. Now stop lickiing his rim and get a life....
I just played NFS3 for the first time with this patch installed and wanted to check if there was going to be one for NFS4 for when I get around to playing that game. So what I'm getting out of this commend section is; there was some drama over money and missed deadlines, the NFS4 patch isn't going to be out for a while and that Paul is an asshole.
So Good Times...
I'll check back in a couple of months.