Anonymous edits have been disabled on the wiki. If you want to contribute please login or create an account.

Need for Speed: Undercover

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Need for Speed: Undercover
Need for Speed: Undercover cover
Developers
EA Black Box
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Engines
EAGL 4
Release dates
Windows November 18, 2008
Reception
Metacritic 65
IGDB 57
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives First-person, Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Racing
Vehicles Automobile, Street racing
Art styles Realistic
Themes Contemporary
Series Need for Speed
Need for Speed: Undercover on HowLongToBeat
Need for Speed: Undercover on IGDB
Need for Speed: Undercover guide on StrategyWiki
Need for Speed: Undercover on MobyGames
Need for Speed: Undercover on Wikipedia
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

Need for Speed: Undercover is a singleplayer and multiplayer racing game developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts. It is the twelfth entry in the Need for Speed series.

Undercover returns to the open world racing premise as most Need for Speed titles since Underground 2, where players can be also chased by cops during free roam and race. As the title suggest, players doesn't assumes the role of street racers in the story mode of Undercover, instead it have players assumes the role of an unnamed undercover police officer in the fictional Tri-City Bay as he infiltrate and investigate the underground street racing world.

It was released in North America on November 18, 2008, followed by Europe on November 21, 2008. The PC version is based on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game.

Some graphical effects, including car shadows, went missing after updating the game to version higher than version 1.0.0.1.[1]

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
CD key
Requires online activation
Can only be used x times
SecuROM 7 and SecuROM PA DRM, five activations limit. A De-Authorization Tool is available.
Taiwanese patch removes SecuROM 7 and SecuROM PA DRM.
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Origin (unavailable)
Requires online activation
Can only be used x times
SecuROM 7 and SecuROM PA DRM.[2] Launches without Origin when ran directly from executable.
Windows
Steam (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam uses v1.0.0.1 of the game; Origin uses v1.1.2.1.[3]
Steam's Origin key is stored in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts\ea games\need for speed undercover\ergc.
The Origin version of the game will not run with dll loaded mods present and will quickly throw and close a "Security Module could not be loaded" message.

Monetization

DLC was not released for PC, but some of the Collector's Edition unique content can be accessed with mods.

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.0.1.18 is the latest version. A patch for the Steam version is available here. Please note, this will render the Steam copy unable to load mods as it will fail securom security activation.
A downgrader to 1.0.1.17 is also available. This version has better performance and less compatibility issues compared to 1.0.1.18. Please note, this will also render the Steam copy unable to load mods as it will fail securom security activation.

Skip intro videos

Use NFS Undercover Generic Fix[citation needed]
  1. Open NFSProStreet.GenericFix.ini.
  2. Change SkipIntro = 0 to SkipIntro = 1.
Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\Movies\
  2. Delete or rename ea_bumper_##.vp6 (where ## is the region name of the game version)

NFS Undercover Generic Fix

Fixes the game's code to automatically detect available resolutions of the selected screen properly.
Improves gamepad support by adding controller icons.
Increases shadows resolution and shadows draw distance.

Game data

NFS Undercover Generic Fix can optionally save all registry settings to an .ini file as well as store user files in a specified folder

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\EA Games\Need For Speed Undercover\[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/17430/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\NFS Undercover\<user-id>\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/17430/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Origin
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

General settings
General settings
World settings
World settings
Car settings
Car settings

Field of view (FOV)

Use FOV fix[citation needed]
  1. Download FOV fix by NFS Business.
  2. Unzip Update 2-4-18.nfsms.
  3. Download and run NFS-VltEd.
  4. Import unzipped Update 2-4-18.nfsms.
  5. Save.

Notes

Alternative camera mods: close version and far version.

Bloom

Disable bloom effect[citation needed]
  1. Install NFS Undercover Generic Fix.
  2. Open NFSUndercover.GenericFix.ini.
  3. Change BloomIntensity = 1.0 to BloomIntensity = 0.0.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Movements interpreted like a directional pad except on world map.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Use NFS XtendedInput.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
DirectInput gamepads only. For XInput gamepads use NFS Undercover Generic Fix or NFS XtendedInput.
Controller Y-axis inversion
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
XInput controllers are poorly supported. To fix this, use NFS XtendedInput.
Xbox button prompts
Use NFS Undercover Generic Fix.
Impulse Trigger vibration
PlayStation controllers
Use NFS XtendedInput.
PlayStation button prompts
Use NFS Undercover Generic Fix.
Light bar support
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes

Generic/other controllers
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Hotplugging works only with already plugged in DirectInput controllers. If a new controller gets plugged in during the game session, the game won't recognize it. For XInput controllers use NFS XtendedInput.
Haptic feedback
DirectInput gamepads only. Doesn't work with XInput controllers even with this hack.
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

NFS XtendedInput

Fixes XInput implementation
Rebinding can be made only through .ini file, as for now entering controls settings crashes the game.
No force feedback feature yet.
Controls are reset to default

Audio

Audio settings
Audio settings

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, Speech, Sound Effects and Engine Effects.
Surround sound
Only a 'Surround' option is available.
Subtitles
Subtitles can be turned on by patching the game to 1.1.2.1
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

In languages with subtitles, they are on by default and cannot be turned off.
Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Despite files have exists Simplified Chinese, but game not approved National Press and Publication Administration China.
Traditional Chinese
Czech
Subtitles only in cutscenes.
Danish
Subtitles only in cutscenes.
Dutch
Subtitles only in cutscenes.
French
German
Hungarian
Subtitles only in cutscenes.
Italian
Japanese
Polish
Subtitles only in cutscenes.
Brazilian Portuguese
Fan translation, download.
Russian
Slovak
Fan translation, download. Replace Czech language.
Spanish
Latin American Spanish
Subtitles only in cutscenes.
Swedish
Subtitles only in cutscenes.
Turkish
Fan translation, download. Replace Polish language.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
4 Only in PlayStation 2 and Wii versions.
LAN play
Online play
8 Online servers were shut down in August 31, 2021.[4]

Issues fixed

Game freezes after loading a profile on system with more than 4 physical cores

Use MSCONFIG to reduce the core count
  1. Go to MSCONFIG.exe
  2. Go to the Boot tab
  3. Go to Advanced Options
  4. Check Number of Processors and set the drop down to 8 (If this doesn't work set to 4)
  5. Hit OK and Apply and reboot
  6. After you play the game set your settings back by following the instructions again except uncheck Number of Processors.
Use Special K to spoof the number of cores.[5]

This requires that the exe file is 4GB patched. The game may attempt to perform this, but usually only creates an unpatched exe.

  1. Install Special K by following the Special K Wiki.
  2. When the game starts, press Ctrl+Shift+Backspace to open Special K menu.
  3. Go to Frame limiter section and click on Advanced.
  4. Tick Spoof CPU Core Count and set the number of cores to 2.
  5. Restart the game.
Downgrade to 1.0.1.17

Controller deadzone issues

Adjust the left stick deadzone[citation needed]
  1. Download NFS Undercover Generic Fix.
  2. Extract the contents to the installation folder.
  3. Deadzone can be adjusted in NFSUndercover.GenericFix.ini.
Deadzone can be only increased with Generic Fix. If you want to use it for other reasons and don't want to increase the default deadzone value, set it to 0.0. To decrease the deadzone, use other tools like DS4Windows.

Video settings not saved correctly (Windows 8)

Disable display scaling[6]
  1. Open nfs.exe compatibility settings.
  2. Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.

Game renders logic and graphics at 60 Hz

The game renders game logic and graphics at 60 Hz, despite forcing the game logic to run at higher frame rate.[7]
Control the refresh rate of the gameplay engine[citation needed]
  1. Install NFS Undercover Generic Fix.
  2. If needed, change SimRate value in NFSUndercover.GenericFix.ini to control the refresh rate of the gameplay engine.

Game uses incorrect screen refresh rate

Fullscreen mode defaults to 60 Hz, even if the screen refresh rate is set higher than that.
Set screen refresh rate[citation needed]
  1. Download and extract Special K.
  2. Copy SpecialK32.dll into the game folder.
  3. Rename SpecialK32.dll to d3d9.dll.
  4. Start the game and exit.
  5. Open d3d9.ini in the game folder.
  6. Change RefreshRate=-1.0 to RefreshRate=0.0 under [Render.FrameRate].
It will still force 60Hz until you change the V-Sync setting inside the game's graphics setting. You have to change it each time you start the game. It doesn't matter if you set it from off to on or vice versa. To make sure V-Sync is forced to on or off, set it in the graphics control panel.

FPS issues on modern machines

Use specific game version[8]
  1. Install retail 1.0 version.
  2. Install NFSUC 1.0.17 patch for Origin (and possibly Steam).
  3. Use only original binary (NO-CD binaries cause FPS issues, and also patch 1.0.18, and 1.1.2.1 (Origin).
  4. Origin key can be used during activation of retail version (at least it used to if currently activation server is not down).
  5. Steam users can obtain a key from the registry after installing the game. Follow this guide.
  6. Be aware that newer 1.0.18 patch introduces challenge series. It is possible to have 2 copies of the game at the same time.
Set compatibility mode[citation needed]
  1. Open nfs.exe compatibility settings.
  2. Choose "Windows XP SP3" from menu "Run this program in compatibility mode for"
Game settings can constantly reset after restart of the game.
FPS boost on high details can be even more noticeable than using specific game version.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics Havok
Anti-cheat PunkBuster [citation needed]

Mods

HD textures pack

HD texture packs has been made by An7hraX and Dragozool. Both require texmod in order to work.

Project Reformed

Aims to overhaul gaming experience with reworked handling and AI, new vehicles, whilst attempting to fix game bugs and non-consistency of game plot.

Graphics Enhancement Mod

Makes changes to the streak effect, contrast, and bloom.

Unlock Collectors Edition content

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP SP2
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
1 GB (Vista)
Hard disk drive (HDD) 6 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 6600
ATI Radeon 9500
Intel G45 Express
128 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible


Notes

  1. Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for more details.
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/17430/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (17430) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. NFSUC Car dynamic shadow is missing (original game bug, introduced in the patch) · Issue #512 · ThirteenAG/WidescreenFixesPack - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  2. Verified by User:tyl0413 on 2020-12-12
    Verified by running and checking the details of the files.
  3. Verified by User:Aemony on 2018-02-17
    Verified by downloading and checking the details of the files.
  4. EA Online Services Shutdown: I-Q - last accessed on 2021-09-01
  5. [1]
  6. Patch 1.0.1.18 for Steam :: Need for Speed: Undercover General Discussion - last accessed on May 2023
  7. Verified by User:Hargabt on 2023-01-02
    Short frame-by-frame comparison without and with using ThirteenAG's Generic Fix's SimRate option.
  8. [2]