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Cars 2

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Cars 2
Cars 2 cover
Developers
Avalanche Software
macOS (OS X) TransGaming Inc.
Publishers
Disney Interactive Studios
Russia Noviy Disk[1]
Release dates
Windows June 21, 2011
macOS (OS X) June 21, 2011
Reception
Metacritic 65
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Genres Racing
Series Cars
Cars 2 on HowLongToBeat
Cars 2 on IGDB
Cars 2 on MobyGames
Cars 2 on Wikipedia
Cars
Subseries of Pixar
Cars 2006
Cars: Radiator Springs Adventures 2006
Cars Mater-National Championship 2007
The World of Cars Online 2008
Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales 2010
Cars 2 2011
Disney Planes 2013
Cars: Fast as Lightning 2014

Key points

Based on the graphically inferior Wii release rather than the 360/PS3 versions. Despite this, Steam page falsely advertises the game with screenshots from said versions.[2]
DLC from the 360/PS3 was never released.

General information

World of Cars Wiki
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM 8 DRM.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Amazon.com (unavailable)
Requires online activation
SecuROM 8 and SecuROM PA DRM.
Windows
Amazon.com (unavailable)
DRM details are not known
macOS (OS X)

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Delete or rename video files
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\data_dxw\FMV\.
  2. Delete or rename the following files:
avlogo.bik
Copyright.bik
DIS.bik
gslogo.bik
Opening.bik
Pixar_Logo.bik

Arcade models

This mod replaces character models with ones from the arcade version of the game by Raw Thrills, which have richer detail compared to the default PC version models. Some cutscenes also get their animations restored with this mod, such as the one in Coastal Invasion mission.
Use the Arcade Model Pack mod[3]
  1. Download it here.
  2. Extract the assets folder into <path-to-game> and replace files when prompted to.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Disney Interactive Studios\Cars2
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/301760/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Disney Interactive Studios\Cars2\storage
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/301760/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

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

Video

Graphic settings
Graphic settings
The game doesn't allow to change graphic settings individually and only has presets.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution if it won't go higher than 1152x854 for you.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
HUD becomes very small with higher resolutions.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Framerate uncapped on Low settings. Locked to 60fps on Medium or High graphics settings.
Steering and drifting speed increase with framerate.

Input

Xbox 360 button prompts

This mod replaces generic controller prompts with Xbox prompts ported from the Xbox 360 version of the game.
Included with the Arcade Model Pack mod.
Use the Arcade Model Pack mod[3]
  1. Download it here.
  2. Go to Optional Files/Xbox 360 Controller Icons folder in the zip file.
  3. Extract either Default or 85x85 Icons folders' content into <path-to-game> and replace files when prompted to.

Audio

Audio settings
Audio settings

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, Effects, Voice
Surround sound
Subtitles
There is no option to turn them off.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Czech
Dutch
French
German
Italian
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Turkish
Ported from the Wii version. Download.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
2 Versus
Arena and Disruptor modes are multiplayer-only.
LAN play
Online play


Issues fixed

Looping music and game crashes

During an event, the music may loop, which ends up crashing the game when leaving the event. This is because of a threading issue with the CPU.

Let the game use only one CPU core[4]
  1. When the game has opened, go to Task Manager.
  2. Go to the details tab.
  3. Right click on the game in the list (called Game-Cars.exe) and then click on "Set affinity".
  4. Make sure only CPU 0 is selected, then click OK.
  5. Return to the game and have fun.
Do this every time you run the game, because all cores are selected by default the next time the game launches.

Widescreen resolution

For some reason, the game's resolution won't go any higher than 1152x854 on some computers.

Widescreen fix
  1. Open your game files.
  2. Delete your specs.cfg.
  3. Go to GameCars.exe's properties.
  4. Turn on the compatibility mode and set it to Windows 7.
  5. Done!

Other information

API

Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP SP3
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 3 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 6600
ATI Radeon X800
256 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Shader model 3 support
macOS (OS X)
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) Snow Leopard 10.6.7
Processor (CPU) Intel Core Duo
System memory (RAM) 2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 3 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT
ATI Radeon X1600
Intel HD 3000
128 MB of VRAM
Intel GMA 950 and x3100 GPUs are not supported on OS X.
This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems (Power Mac).


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 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>/301760/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (301760) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. Official page (Russian) - last accessed on 2023-02-19
  2. Steam page - last accessed on 2023-07-27
  3. 3.0 3.1 [1] - last accessed on 2023-07-15
  4. Video Game (Cars 2) Black Screen Crashing (AMD 6670) - Post #12 - last accessed on 2021-07-02