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Colin McRae Rally

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

For the 2014 game, see Colin McRae Rally (2014).

Colin McRae Rally
Colin McRae Rally cover
Developers
Codemasters
Publishers
Codemasters
Re-release Sold Out Software
Release dates
Windows September 29, 1998
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Controls Direct control
Genres Racing, Simulation
Vehicles Automobile, Off-roading
Art styles Realistic
Series Colin McRae Rally
Colin McRae Rally on HowLongToBeat
Colin McRae Rally guide on StrategyWiki
Colin McRae Rally on MobyGames
Colin McRae Rally on Wikipedia
Colin McRae Rally 1998
Colin McRae Rally 2.0 2000
Colin McRae Rally 3 2003
Colin McRae Rally 04 2004
Colin McRae Rally 2005 2004
Colin McRae: DiRT 2007
Colin McRae: DiRT 2 2009
DiRT 3 2011
DiRT Showdown 2012
Colin McRae Rally (2014) 2014
DiRT Rally 2015
DiRT 4 2017
DiRT Rally 2.0 2019
DIRT 5 2020

Colin McRae Rally is a singleplayer and multiplayer racing game developed and published by Codemasters. Named after the rally driver Colin McRae, it is the first entry in the Colin McRae Rally series.

It was released in Europe on September 29, 1998, followed by the North American release on February 29, 2000.

The game requires the unofficial patches to run on modern operating systems and even then, it has some issues on Windows 7 and later. (See the fixed issues and unresolved issues.)

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
Windows
No longer available due to licensing reasons.[1]
Demo is available

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patch 1.5 (EU/US) and patch 1.4 (IT) are available at www.patches-scrolls.de and soggi.org.

Unofficial

CMRONW2K by Krister Brus makes the game compatible with Windows 2000 and XP.
kFYatek's Unofficial Windows 7 Patch makes the game compatible with Windows 7 and later.
Patrxgt's Unofficial Modern Patch makes the game compatible with the newest operating systems (without breaking menus, like "kFYatek's Unofficial Windows 7 Patch" does) and skips CD check.

Skip intro videos

You can skip the intro by launching the game from <path-to-game>\rally.exe.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\save[Note 1]

Video

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
Use Colin McRae Rally widescreen fix
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
Use Colin McRae Rally widescreen fix
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Use Alt+ Enter to toggle.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Borderless Gaming doesn't seem to work
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Can be forced through driver control.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Can be forced through driver control or through dgVoodoo2.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Can be forced through driver control or through dgVoodoo2.
60 FPS
Turn Motion Smoothing off in the settings to disable the 30 FPS cap. Disabling Turn Motion Smoothing will make the camera wobble. See Cap the frame rate to 60 FPS
120+ FPS
Frame rate is capped at 111 FPS.

Input

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Hungarian
Hungarian retail re-release (EVM) only. Released as a downloadable separately.
Italian
Italian retail release only.
Polish
Polish retail release only.
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Notes
Local play
LAN play
Direct IP only
Online play

Connection types

Issues unresolved

When using the dgVoodoo2 wrapper the intro videos for the Rally School courses have sound but no image when the game runs in fullscreen

Make sure the Alt+ Enter shortcut is not disabled in dgVoodoo2's settings so you can switch to windowed mode when you want to see those videos

Issues fixed

3D elements on the menus don't show properly on Windows 7 or later

Use Patrxgt's Unofficial Modern Patch

Twitchy screen and sudden top-down camera view for a short period of time.

Set Motion smoothness to "ON"[citation needed]

Game occasionally crashes when loading a stage on Windows 7 and later

Use the dgVoodoo2 wrapper[citation needed]
  1. Download dgVoodoo2, copy dgVoodooSetup.exe and the contents of the MS folder into the <path-to-game> folder
  2. Run dgVoodooSetup.exe, select DirectX, uncheck dgVoodoo Watermark (and change some settings if you want to force antialiasing and VSync)
  3. Run the game

Notes

If you use dgVoodoo2 and play the game in fullscreen mode the Rally School videos may not play properly so make sure the Alt+ Enter shortcut is not disabled in dgVoodoo2's settings so you can switch between fullscreen and windowed when needed

Game crashes when loading a stage on Windows 8 and later

Start the game in Windows XP (Service Pack 3) compatibility mode
  1. Right-click <path-to-game>\game.exe.
  2. From the dropdown menu, select Properties.
  3. Once the window is open, select the Compatibility tab.
  4. Check the box next to Run the program in compatibility mode for.
  5. From the dropdown menu, select Windows XP (Service Pack 3).
  6. Repeat the process for <path-to-game>\rally.exe.

Notes

Make sure you have the Patrxgt's Unofficial Modern Patch installed.

Intro videos have sound playing but no image on Windows 7 or later

Add compatibility for old Indeo codecs[citation needed]
  1. Open a 'command prompt' by typing cmd on search and,using a right click, select 'Run as Administrator'
  2. (32bit users can skip this step) Type cd %WINDIR%\SysWOW64 and press Enter.
  3. Type regsvr32 ir50_32.dll and press Enter.

Notes

Repeat the process but type regsvr32 /u ir50_32.dll to undo what you have done
Alternatively you can use these bat files(make sure you run them as the administrator)

The service menu before the stage starts is very laggy on Windows 8 and later

Use the dgVoodoo2 wrapper[citation needed]
  1. Download dgVoodoo2, copy dgVoodooSetup.exe and the contents of the MS folder into the <path-to-game> folder
  2. Run dgVoodooSetup.exe, select DirectX, uncheck dgVoodoo Watermark (and change some settings if you want to force antialiasing and VSync)
  3. Run the game

Notes

If you use dgVoodoo2 and play the game in fullscreen mode the Rally School videos may not play properly so make sure the Alt+ Enter shortcut is not disabled in dgVoodoo2's settings so you can switch between fullscreen and windowed when needed

The Motion Smoothing option is turned off but is unplayable at 60 FPS

This game has no Vsync option due to the age of games.
Disabling Motion Smoothing will make the camera wobble in game.
Instructions
  1. Use Rivatuner Statistics Server to limit the game framerate to 60 FPS.
Use dgVoodoo 2 to force Vsync and cap to 60hz.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 6
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95, 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 166 MHz
System memory (RAM) 16 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 20 MB
Video card (GPU) 2 MB of VRAM
DirectX 6.0 compatible


Notes

  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

  1. Verified by User:Mars icecream on 2016-11-25
    Email received from Codemasters customer service.