Pro Rally 2001

[khvradik]

Hello guys.

The problem is: Without NGlide the game starts, but I can't start the race, it just turns into race-loading screen and plays game-music and that's it.
Well, I tried NGlide: the game starts, game-start-video plays and then the game crushes with message "mode selection error" I don't know what settings I need to launch the game, I just used default.
Please help somebody.

I Tried it on WinXP SP3 and on Win7, results are same.

Computer: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @3.00GHZ
Video Card: NVIDIa GeForce 9600 GT

upd: Fixed. That wasn't the Nglide bug. But I have a question: I start a game and why it's so slow ?

[OldByte]

Hi khvradik,

I'm surprised you actually got the game to start, last time I tried to play this game I got nothing but error messages.
Can you please tell me what you did to get it to work?

[Gamecollector]

Well, if you set voodoo driver, then replace "fullscreen" to "windowed" in ed3.ini - the "mode" error is gone. But the palette in the main menu will be broken.
Can't pass "Loading" screen, even in Win ME.

[OldByte]

Well, if you set voodoo driver, then replace "fullscreen" to "windowed" in ed3.ini - the "mode" error is gone. But the palette in the main menu will be broken.
Can't pass "Loading" screen, even in Win ME.

Aha, yes I see what you mean now, the menus are impossible to navigate.

Thanks for the headsup.

[IceMan]

If you use the Pentium 4 patch you can usually get the game to install, both on XP and Win7, as long as you set compatibility on the setup and ubisetup exes on the CD to Win98.

However I agree, the game is very finickity. I've never run it with a Glide patch, but found it only works on these systems:

Pentium 2 with Voodoo 5 5500 AGP (I expect it uses Glide)
Windows Vista machine (not sure what graphics)

However I never managed to get it to work after the loading bar to start a track on WinXP at all. It DID work on my work Windows 7 PC a while ago, but that too now does the same as XP and just plays the music/sound effects when the loading bar is full, but doesn't clear the loading screen.

No idea why. A shame really, it's not the best game ever but it'd be nice to run it.

[Zeus]

A shame really, it's not the best game ever but it'd be nice to run it.

Your wish may come true soon.

[IceMan]

A shame really, it's not the best game ever but it'd be nice to run it.

Your wish may come true soon.

Any progress on this? The game does work on Win8 (early release candidate at least), but I bet eventually it'll break like it did on Win7 (used to work at work, now locks on loading bar to a race like on XP)!

[Gamecollector]

Well, for the start I need the way to kill CPU detection code in the installer.
There is so-called "P4 installer", but - without uninstall log and without Ubi.ini editing...

[Gamecollector]

1) Unfortunately podcpuid isn't working.
2) I have attached the install dir content (with dll and instdata). Link.

[NicoDE]

Did not had a look at the setup yet (seems to be compressed/protected), but...

The ProRally.exe contains the well-known 5/2 test that often false-detects a Cyrix. The game later uses privileged instructions (out/in) to setup the CPU. The code is guarded by

Code: Select all

GetVersionExA(&VersionInformation);
if (VersionInformation.dwPlatformId == VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_NT)

...but as soon as you use Win9x compatibility shims the condition no longer avoids the privileged instructions if the 5/2 test "succeeds".

The test looks like this:

Code: Select all

.text:004BE0B0 55                               push    ebp
.text:004BE0B1 8B EC                            mov     ebp, esp
.text:004BE0B3 51                               push    ecx
.text:004BE0B4 53                               push    ebx
.text:004BE0B5 66 33 C0                         xor     ax, ax
.text:004BE0B8 9E                               sahf
.text:004BE0B9 66 B8 05 00                      mov     ax, 5
.text:004BE0BD 66 BB 02 00                      mov     bx, 2
.text:004BE0C1 F6 F3                            div     bl
.text:004BE0C3 9F                               lahf
.text:004BE0C4 80 FC 02                         cmp     ah, 2
.text:004BE0C7 75 07                            jnz     short @@return_false
.text:004BE0C9 B8 01 00 00 00                   mov     eax, 1
.text:004BE0CE EB 05                            jmp     short @@return
.text:004BE0D0                  @@return_false:
.text:004BE0D0 B8 00 00 00 00                   mov     eax, 0
.text:004BE0D5                  @@return:
.text:004BE0D5 89 45 FC                         mov     [ebp+var_4], eax
.text:004BE0D8 8B 45 FC                         mov     eax, [ebp+var_4]
.text:004BE0DB 5B                               pop     ebx
.text:004BE0DC 8B E5                            mov     esp, ebp
.text:004BE0DE 5D                               pop     ebp
.text:004BE0DF C3                               retn

To disable it find and nop-out (all 90) the following byte sequence:

Code: Select all

9E 66 B8 05 00 66 BB 02 00 F6 F3 9F

Note: The game is full of GetVersionExA/VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_NT conditions. You should avoid Win9x shims if possible.