Retro Racing April 2020 NFS Porsche Unleashed

Join the OCAU Retro Driving Club in a different retro driving game each month and see who can lay down the fastest lap!

Sorry this one's starting a bit late... Had some trouble getting this to work. But hey now I'm unemployed there's no excuse next month eh?

The Game of the Month:

Need For Speed Porsche Unleashed / 2000






The Game Description (Usually stolen from Wikipedia)

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed gives the player the opportunity to race Porsche cars throughout a range of tracks located in Europe. There are two career modes:
Evolution, where the player starts with cars made in 1955, and ends with cars made in 2000.
Factory Driver, where the player goes through a series of events like slalom, stunts, and races, using cars preselected for each event.
Unlike previous games in the series, there are no pursuit modes. Some factory driver events include police cars, but the police cars only attempt to impede the players car during certain sprint events.

The factory driver mode introduces the first story line in the Need For Speed series. The player's goal is to become a Porsche factory driver by completing a series of events. The events involve stunts, like doing 180 degree spins, slalom courses, delivery, normal sprint and circuit races.


The Memories

I first heard of this at my local lan CCGL. It came highly recommended by some dude who's name I cant remember. I was pretty disappointed that only Porsche cars were included and turned my nose up at it. BAH! I don't even like Porsche's!
Then some years later when I set myself up a Windows 98 rig I remembered it existed. Wow and what a great way to come back at it. I really do like the physics in this game and it certainly is enhanced when using a steering wheel. The factory driver mode gives you a taste of Gran Tourismo license tests and its also a great romp through the history of Porsche cars. This game came out right before ALL Need for Speed games turned to S**T with a bunch of "cool dudes" belittling you by pointing out your inability to handle NOS... Probably can blame the release of The Fast and the Furious for that but... Seriously, whats with the constant NOS in games these days??


The How To

Grab the demo from here:
https://archive.org/details/NeedForSpeedPorscheUnleashedDemo
Or there are more suss ways to get it like from MyAbandonware
Thus far I haven't actually got the game to work on my main Win10 rig... It crashes to desktop when I click race on all three downloads that I tried.
So, well hopefully you'll be able to get it to work and hopefully I will before the end of month. I have had it working on Win98 without issue though. I might have to dig that old box out.


The Track

For the purposes of easy access generally we’ll choose a tracks that is available at the start of the game or in the demo so you don't have to unlock anything.

The demo version includes the "Normandie" Track so thats what we'll go for.







The Car

This one's gonna have to be a Porsche boys.

Same as the Demo '94 Carrera Coupe (993)





Oh and make sure you open the bonnet and doors and climb inside.



The Entry Fee

A $5 Donation to a legitimate charity of your choice. This is not mandatory. If you cant afford it don't worry. I just figure we may as well have some “greater good” come out of this!


The Rules
• Post your best lap time in the thread for the nominated car & track.
• Its basically the honour system and just for good fun. If it gets big and serious we might need to make some more official rules to keep it from getting out of hand but lets just see how we go.
• A screenshot will increase the legitimacy of your time particularly if you’re in the top 3.
• Dont forget a photo of your retro setup so that we can all drool over the Athlons n Geforce 2 MX's.
• An uploaded video will get you bonus points.
• Stating your donations will secure you a spot on the leader board with a gold star and many likes.
• Please don't show up on the last day and post a time half a second faster than the leader with no proof. Its rude and will likely be ignored.
• Shortcuts are encouraged. Cut corners, drive off road, get around the track as fast as you can within the limits of the game … but no cheats/hacks please. If you find some cool glitch/shortcut that gives you a super good time share it so we can all have a go.
• Original hardware is not required. Play on whatever you can get the game to work on.

You gotta be pretty quick on the screenshot at the end.
Also save your replays so that we can all have a gawk!

The Prize:

The glory of telling your family and friends that you beat some strangers on the internet in some random old racing game you played as a kid.


The Leader Board (12/4/2020)


02:55.18 Boneman
02:58.56 Crash Dummy
02:58.65 jimbogimp
03:06.53 Grant
03:00.21 Myne_h
03:07.43 mAJORD
03:09.43 trsc27
03:09.46 Pierre32
03:12.40 MUTMAN (kb)
03:18.15 cbjaust
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Do you have the need?

 

w00t. having a bit of a blast
demo on win10 laptop running OKish. had a single CT, but i think thats heat related ??

3:49 after 6 or so runs, second place
i'll put this on the big rig tomorrow and maybe even get a controller out and see what i can do

this is what i loved about NFS, it felt like you were really driving at speed. the way the car snaps out on you etc is great.

when did NFS take such a nose dive to become the utter dribble it is these days ?

edit - difficulty was the middle setting. 'advanced' ??

 

wow yeah laptop worked straight up. Time to throw out the gaming rig...

Pulled a 3:21 with the keyboard, auto, no AI and a fairly hefty signpost induced wall tap.

Not sure if the difficulty changes anything. I just kept it as advanced too.

 

3:21 !
damn i got some work to do over easter weekend it seems

 

Gave the demo a quick go under Linux with WINE, works flawlessly.

 

Yeah this one should be good! Fairly long track too. I'm looking forward to getting behind the wheel.

 

What controls are people using? I can map a controller in the options, but once in game it won't respond to any analogue input. Thinking I might go with an original Playstation controller.

[edit] Precisely the same symptoms as this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/needforspe...lp_nfs_porsche_unleashed_wont_let_me_use_the/

 

oooh i wonder if i still got the saved games on my old system with XP

 

Oh man! I have to look at this later.

Fun memory: At a lan party while CS was still in Beta, we made up our own competition with this game.

Autobahn 5-10 players. (forget)

One player would be in the shittiest 1950 whatever car.
Everyone else was in whatever car they liked trying to stop them.

Everyone had a turn in the shitbox.
Best time won.

Was utterly hilarious. We were pissing ourselves the whole time.
One poor bastard was pushed backwards like 2km by some insane turbo thing.

 

In general I've found pcgamingwiki to be a great resource on getting games going under various configurations - it has a great page on NFS: PU:

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Need_for_Speed:_Porsche_Unleashed

 

still have my boxed copy of NFS: Porsche 2000

 

the myabandonware page has a fix or two for this game. might be worth trying those if anyone is struggling to ge the game to start

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/need-for-speed-porsche-unleashed-bg9

 

Will try again at a different time, however at 2am this morning download time was 1.5 hours... apparently abandonware's servers are being hit hard by people looking for old games.

Downloaded two PSX ISO's, however would not run in Retroarch (yes even with the right bios file) and a PSX emu just crashed.

What is considered the "better" version, PC or PSX?


JSmith

 

below are not at all links to a drive host of those files from myabondonware


https://drive.google.com/open?id=1X3iqPaYaG3_69tJ5CD1e6Lq0GgFcaOXH texture pack
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11QuWbruKP62nCY60Ha_TjhRUmnNm9sfy/view?usp=sharing additional car pack
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1u7-CnCF06Fj6etL5O5ZSJDoNflNZg4_P patch 35
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ETvrGTlLEROBWwVAvM7iQhB05Z8SBBgj NFS V en-iso
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Uf9Rln8hUblpRBNQZJYEHRfgObZznYhV key is funny - 14077 BUSY BURP SEEK PRAY

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DT4aFoAUeuBsf1-2cd1RfNwPF8ISLbYt a video of my fastest time


I've moved the folder for these files ...
now everything is in one fat folder
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1on3_Uy9PL7RJUZ-PSkWHhLkoNv0Z1d_5
let me know if that doesnt work and i'll get some real links sorted out

 

Thanks bro, finally got the demo working on W10 with the dgvoodoo2 wrapper - https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/N...S_on_modern_systems_or_Crash_after_click_RACE

JSmithDTV They are actually two different games, it's a mess with NFS naming

 

I'll laugh if this works better in a Linux VM than in Windows natively. Might even test that out tomorrow.

I'll make a mirror of the myabandonware version as well. If MUTMAN 's links above don't work for anyone, PM me.

 

I only ever played the PC version of this, so just assumed it was the same game;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_Speed:_Porsche_Unleashed

Cheers, may well do.


JSmith

 

sorry i just had to put this in here

 

No need, it just pop's into the old noggin'.

https://forums.overclockers.com.au/posts/18486729/


JSmith

 

3:21.84
getting faster
comming to get you jimbo