Difference between revisions of "The Need for Speed"

Revision as of 04:48, 28 June 2021

This page is for the original 1995 game. For the 2016 reboot, see Need for Speed (2016).


⤏ Go to series page
The Need for Speed	1994
Need for Speed II	1997
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (series)
Need for Speed: High Stakes	1999
Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed	2000
Need for Speed: Underground (series)
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (series)
Need for Speed: Carbon	2006
Need for Speed: ProStreet	2007
Need for Speed: Undercover	2008
Need for Speed: Shift (series)
Need for Speed: World	2010
Need for Speed: The Run	2011
Need for Speed Rivals	2013
Need for Speed (2016)	2016
Need for Speed Payback	2017
Need for Speed: Edge	2017
Need for Speed Heat	2019
Need for Speed Unbound	2022

Key points

Re-released as The Need for Speed: Special Edition, featuring extra content and improvements.

(Special Edition) Windows version has very poor compatibility on versions of Windows NT. Run MS-DOS version in DOSBox instead.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		Disc check DRM for Windows version. DRM-free for MS-DOS.

Essential improvements

Patches

All patches are available from The Need For Speed SE Patches (Archived from original).

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\GAMEDATA\CONFIG\
Windows	<path-to-game>\GAMEDATA\CONFIG\^{[Note 1]}

Save game data location

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\GAMEDATA\SAVEGAME\
Windows	<path-to-game>\GAMEDATA\SAVEGAME\^{[Note 1]}

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		For DOSBox toggle with `Alt`+`↵ Enter` (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)		For DOSBox use an unofficial build (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
60 FPS
120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity		X-axis can be used for steering.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Y-axis can not be used to accelerate/brake.
Controller
Controller support		^[1]
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion		through JCU.exe

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback		FFB implementation doesn't work on modern systems.
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		race music, menu music, sound effects
Surround sound		8-bit mono, 8-bit stereo, 16-bit stereo
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		For DOSBox change the `priority` background value in the DOSBox configuration file.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
Local play
LAN play		Via modem or IPX (use DOSBox for TCP/IP or UDP/IP).
Online play		Use DOSBox modem/IPX emulation.

Issues fixed

Running the game on Windows 7, 8.1 or 10

The game neither installs nor runs on a modern Windows operating system. The game can be installed manually. However, it has been found that the game doesn't run when it finds an unsupported driver on the machine, for example, a USB audio driver. If you uninstall the driver, the game will work fine.

Manually installing the game and running using DxWnd

Copy 'FRONTEND', 'GAMEDATA', 'SIMDATA', 'IFORCE.DLL', 'NFS_WIN.EXE' from your CD to a desired folder. Rename 'NFS_WIN.EXE' to 'nfs.exe'.
Copy 'BESTLAST.EAS', 'BESTTIME.EAS', 'EIGTH.EAS', 'FIFTH.EAS', 'FINALLAP.EAS', 'FIRST.EAS', 'FOURTH.EAS', 'SECOND.EAS', 'SEVENTH.EAS', 'SIXTH.EAS', 'THIRD.EAS' from 'FRONTEND/SPEECH' to the game's root directory.
Copy 'dplay.dll' from 'REDIST\DIRECTX' folder of the CD to the game's root directory, or copy 'dplayx.dll' from 'Windows\SysWOW64' (64-bit OS) or 'Windows\System32'(32-bit OS) and then rename it to 'dplay.dll'. The first one is guaranteed to work while the later two may not work one some versions of Windows 10. However it is recommended to use the latter two.
Copy 'NFS.CFG' to the game's root directory which can be downloaded from here.
Copy 'PATHS.DAT' to 'GAMEDATA\CONFIG' in your game installation folder, which can be downloaded from here.
Open 'PATHS.DAT' with a hex editor like HxD and replace all text-strings "I:\" with your current CD drive letter, say "D:\". You can use the replace function of the program to replace all instances of "I:\" with you CD drive letter. This is a very important step, and the whole process will go wrong if you miss this.
Open DxWnd, and import this .dxw profile; right-click on the 'Need for Speed SE' entry that appears in DxWnd window and click on modify, change the path to your location of the game folder for "Path" and "Launch" pointing to 'nfs.exe'. Click OK.
Double-click on 'Need for Speed SE' in DxWnd, the game should run. The game will come to a black screen and freeze if you used the 'DPLAY.DLL' from the CD, just go to the Taskbar and click OK for the two errors that appear behind the game window. If it crashes try a few more times; if it doesn't work then you are out of luck because of the problem mentioned above.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Software renderer
DOS video modes	VGA, SVGA

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

System requirements

DOS
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	4.0 (5.0 for Special Edition) or later^[2]
Processor (CPU)	75 MHz Intel Pentium
System memory (RAM)	8 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	4 MB
Video card (GPU)	256 color VESA-compatible SVGA-compatible 512K of VRAM
Sound (audio device)	Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster AWE32, Sound Blaster Pro and 100% compatibles, Gravis Ultrasound/ACE and 100% Compatibles, Ensoniq Soundscape, Microsoft Sound System^[3]
Other	Modem (For Two-Player Online Play), Null-Modem Cable (For Two-Player Local Area Play)

Special Edition Windows Version

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95	95, 98, ME (NT versions of Windows not supported)
Processor (CPU)	75 MHz Intel Pentium	100 MHz Intel Pentium^[4]
System memory (RAM)	12 MB	16 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	30 MB	50 MB
Video card (GPU)	512 K of VRAM DirectX 2.0 compatible	1M of VRAM DirectX 2.0 compatible
Sound (audio device)	DirectX 2.0 compatible	DirectX 2.0 compatible
Other	IPX-Compatible Network Card (For 2-6 Player LAN Play), Modem (For Two-Player Online Play), Null-Modem Cable (For Two-Player Local Area Play)	IPX-Compatible Network Card (For 2-6 Player LAN Play), Modem (For Two-Player Online Play), Null-Modem Cable (For Two-Player Local Area Play)

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References

[gamedir-1] 1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

[2] The Need For Speed SE System Requirements

[3] Need for Speed SE Speed Requirements

[4] The Need For Speed: Special Edition Tech Info - MobyGames

[5] Need for Speed SE Speed Requirements

[Note 1]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

@@ Line 207: / Line 207: @@
 #Copy 'BESTLAST.EAS', 'BESTTIME.EAS', 'EIGTH.EAS', 'FIFTH.EAS', 'FINALLAP.EAS', 'FIRST.EAS', 'FOURTH.EAS', 'SECOND.EAS', 'SEVENTH.EAS', 'SIXTH.EAS', 'THIRD.EAS' from 'FRONTEND/SPEECH' to the game's root directory.
 #Copy 'dplay.dll' from 'REDIST\DIRECTX' folder of the CD to the game's root directory, or copy 'dplayx.dll' from 'Windows\SysWOW64' (64-bit OS) or 'Windows\System32'(32-bit OS) and then rename it to 'dplay.dll'. The first one is guaranteed to work while the later two may not work one some versions of Windows 10. However it is recommended to use the latter two.
-#Copy 'NFS.CFG' to the game's root directory which can be downloaded from [http://www.mediafire.com/file/gv5quxk89o9tnal/NFS.CFG/file here].
+#Copy 'NFS.CFG' to the game's root directory which can be downloaded from [https://www.mediafire.com/file/gv5quxk89o9tnal/NFS.CFG/file here].
 #Copy 'PATHS.DAT' to 'GAMEDATA\CONFIG' in your game installation folder, which can be downloaded from [https://www.mediafire.com/file/lcg9s2hkxlcujcm/PATHS.DAT/file here].
 #Open 'PATHS.DAT' with a hex editor like [https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/ HxD] and replace all text-strings "I:\" with your current CD drive letter, say "D:\". You can use the replace function of the program to replace all instances of "I:\" with you CD drive letter. This is a very important step, and the whole process will go wrong if you miss this.

Developers

	Pioneer Productions
	EA Canada
Publishers
	Electronic Arts
Release dates
DOS	August 31, 1995
Windows	1996