WHAT: NFS: Porsche Unleashed compatibility patch for Win2000 & WinXP. WHO: Prepared by Marc "Waccoon" Leveille Waccoon@ninechime.com WHERE: http://www.NineChime.com/Junk/pu/ (capitalization is important!) WHEN: Updated March 5, 2004 ========================================================== OVERVIEW: -------- This patch emulates key Win98 memory allocation under Windows 2000 and XP, allowing Porsche Unleashed to run properly. Supposedly, this patch will work on all Win2000/WinXP systems, though for Win2000 you might need a recent service pack installed (like SP2 or SP3). Go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to download any needed service packs. If you have performance problems under WinXP, try turning off Win98 compatibility mode and install this patch. You can always uninstall it from Add/Remove Programs. This zip file contains: "PatchInstall.bat", "PatchUninstall.bat", "PU_Patch.sdb", and "Readme.txt". Unzip them to a temp folder on your desktop. To apply the patch, just run PatchInstall.bat. To remove the patch, run PatchUninstall.bat. If for some dumb reason Windows can't find "sdbinst.exe", it should be in your Windows/system folder. Do a search for it and copy it to your temp folder if needed. That should be it! This zip file may also contain subfolders of tips for individual hardware configurations. Check out the readme in each folder for information. WARNING!: NEVER delete "gimme.dll". It is a memory manager. Deleting it will cause more problems than it solves. Also, do not resize your swap file. This patch is a proper fix for gimme.dll and swap file problems. ========================================================== OTHER ISSUES WITH PORSCHE UNLEASHED: ----------------------------------- If you're getting choppy fonts in the game with a modern graphics card, turn on 2x or 4x Anisotropic Filtering. This is usually done by going to the Control Panel/Display Properties/Settings/Advanced. nVidia and ATI cards will have their own properties tab, or a dedicated "Direct3D" tab. I don't know about Matrox cards. I've heard that for some people, antialiasing will work, but not anisotropic filtering. Try both. You'll be amazed how good this old game can look. ;) Some WinXP computers have trouble with very blurry textures. This appears to be a driver compatibility issue, so if your drivers support some alternate texture/pixel properties, you might have luck trying different options. ATI drivers have a dedicated "compatibility" button with a few options. Try one at a time to see which one helps. Don't forget to switch it back if it doesn't! ATI cards can sometimes get "stuck" with a compatibility option (such as alternate pixel center), so you may have to restart your computer between changes. I have yet to track down the real problem, but I know it has nothing to do with AGP apature size, and I hear it's a problem only on Pentium systems, I never had this problem with Win2000 and my GeForce3, but I now have an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, and now have this issue. If I find a proper solution, I'll update this patch file. The track "Normandie" causes lots of crashing problems within the first 5-10 seconds of racing. This appears to be a problem with the lens flare feature. Turn it off and see what happens (or doesn't happen!) Some people have told me that told me that force feedback causes crashing trouble, too, though I can't confirm this. If all else fails, try switching to a different car and see if you can complete the race. If you're racing a 911S, try the 911. Don't start a tournament at Normandie. If you do, and the game crashes, you will have to pay the tournament entry fee again! Start on a different track and then race Normandie later. The game may have problems with USB joysticks. If you get massive slowdown on the options screen, or your mouse cursor gets sluggish, try to map as many buttons as possible to the keyboard instead of joystick fire buttons. If your mouse locks up on the main menu, try shutting down the game, disconnecting your joystick, and then reseting the joystick mapping to defaults. This appears to be a Windows issue, and I am looking into fixing it with a new patch. If you have a USB keyboard and have problems, try replacing it with a PS/2 keyboard and retest. USB keyboards shouldn't cause too much trouble. Good luck! ========================================================== RELATED: ------- I have other Porsche Unleashed files on my website, including a Save Game Fixer that repairs corrupted save games, and the much-desired 3.5 patch. http://www.NineChime.com/Junk/pu/ ========================================================== CREDITS: ------- This patch was created with the Microsoft Application Compatibility Tool (ACT) v3.0, based on information downloaded from http://www.NTCompatible.com Please visit NTCompatible.com for lots of great information on how to get all things Windows running properly on... Windows. ;) ========================================================== -- Marc Leveille -- Waccoon@ninechime.com
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