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Colin McRae Rally 04

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Colin McRae Rally 04
Colin McRae Rally 04 cover
Developers
Codemasters
Windows Six by Nine
Publishers
Codemasters
China Star Interactive[1]
Czechia, Poland CD Projekt
Italy FX Interactive
Re-release Sold Out Software
Release dates
Windows April 2, 2004[2][3]
Reception
Metacritic 87
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Racing, Simulation
Vehicles Automobile, Off-roading
Art styles Realistic
Themes Contemporary
Series Colin McRae Rally
Colin McRae Rally 04 on HowLongToBeat
Colin McRae Rally 04 on MobyGames
Colin McRae Rally 04 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

Warnings

StarForce DRM for this game does not work on modern versions of Windows (see Availability for affected versions).
GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Colin McRae Rally 04 is a singleplayer and multiplayer racing game developed and published by Codemasters. It is the fourth installment in the Colin McRae Rally series.

The game was released on April 2, 2004. Just like Colin McRae Rally 3, it wasn't released in North America.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM 5 DRM disc check in original Codemasters release and in Sold Out Software re-release. StarForce 3 DRM[Note 1] in the Chinese release, removed in a patch[8].
Windows
Retail
DRM-free
Re-releases from Codemasters (The Games Collection Rerelease with 1.00 exe version), CD Projekt and FX Interactive.
Windows
StarForce DRM for this game does not work on modern versions of Windows (see above for affected versions).
No longer available due to licensing reasons.[9]
Demo is available. SP version, MP version

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patch for the international release is 1.01, available on Patches-Scrolls. Re-releases from CD Projekt and FX Interactive are pre-patched to that version.
The Czech-exclusive 1.02 patch is available on Patches-Scrolls.
The Chinese release received a patch to remove StarForce 3 DRM[Note 2].

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Codemasters\Colin McRae Rally 04\[Note 3]
<path-to-game>\netopts[Note 4]
<path-to-game>\network.cfg[Note 4]
<path-to-game>\OPTIONS[Note 4]
<path-to-game>\SpecSelection.bin[Note 4]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\BESTTIMES_GHOSTS[Note 4]
<path-to-game>\CHAMPIONSHIP_SLOT_*[Note 4]

Video

Widescreen resolution

Edit game registry keys[10]
  1. Go to the game's registry location
  2. Adjust Width and Height values (make sure to be in decimal mode)
Widescreen is Vert-.
Use widescreen fix[11]
This fix requires game to be patched to version 1.01.
  1. Download the latest version of dgVoodoo 2 and extract the archive.
  2. Open the MS\x86 folder, copy D3D9.dll and paste it into the <path-to-game> where the cmr4.exe is.
  3. Run dgVoodooCpl.exe.
  4. Click on "Add" and choose the installation folder.
  5. Go to the DirectX tab.
  6. Set the resolution from the list.
  7. Disable "dgVoodoo Watermark".
  8. Optional: Configure other settings.
  9. Click OK.
  10. Download AuToMaNiAk005's widescreen fix
  11. Choose preferred level of widescreen and aspect ratio and unpack choosed folder.
  12. Backup <path-to-game>\fonts\ folder if needed, also backup cmr4.exe.
  13. Copy the contents of the choosed folder of fix into installation folder and overwrite files.
  14. Run pasted exe for patching cmr4.exe.

Notes
The aforementioned widescreen fix (15:9, 16:9, 16:10, 21:9 and 25:16 aspect ratios are supported) is divided into three levels:

  • Low - basic widescreen fix, which corrects 3D image, but leaves HUD stretched;
  • Medium - fixes width of the HUD elements at the bottom right, but slightly corrupts service area;
  • High - adjusts width of almost all HUD elements, but besides the distorted service area, it decreases the text quality, because the fonts textures had to be narrowed. Also, the font textures come from ENG/GER/FRA/ITA/SPA version and may not function correctly with other language versions.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Pausing the game using a controller requires this patch.
However, after entering the game for the first time and changing controllers, need to use the keyboard to navigate to the settings menu to reconfigure the controller.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
Using this patch.
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration
PlayStation controllers
Generic/other controllers
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Use this patch.
But using Patch cannot automatically pause the game when the controller loses connection
Haptic feedback
Use this patch.
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Up to 7.1[12]
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
EAX 4[13] can be restored with DSOAL.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Chinese retail release only.[1]
Czech
Czech retail release only.
French
German
Hungarian
Fan translation, download.
Italian
Polish
Polish retail release only.
Russian
Fan translation, download.
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
4
LAN play
8
Online play
8 GameSpy services have been shut down;[14] see GameSpy for workarounds.

VR support

Devices State Notes
TrackIR
Supports: Yaw, Pitch, Roll, X, Y, Z.

Issues unresolved

  • PC version lacks dynamic music themes change in menus. It's working only in Singleplayer Demo, both Multiplayer Demo and finished game (both 1.0 and 1.01 versions) hasn't this feature, despite music files weren't changed from Singleplayer Demo. Probably, it's some bug in game executable, that was made very late in development.

Issues fixed

Vsync setting not applied

The Vsync option doesn't take effect until I exit the game and open it again.

Other information

Enable advanced particle system

This should be available only when using an Intel Pentium 4 CPU with Hyper-Threading[15]
Launch the game with FORCEHT parameter

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Multiplayer GameSpy

Peugeot 206 OMV Rally Team Livery

A special OMV Rally Team-branded edition of the game has been distributed in Czechia as a competition prize. A Bonus CD includes multiple photos from real-life rally stages, biographies of OMV RT members, and a custom livery for Peugeot 206.[16]
Install Peugeot 206 RT Livery[17]
  1. Download Peugeot 206 OMV Rally Team livery.
  2. Unpack the files to <path-to-game> and overwrite when prompted.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 750 MHz
AMD Athlon 750 MHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 3 GB
Video card (GPU) 32 MB of VRAM


Notes

  1. This version of StarForce DRM does not work on Windows Vista or later.[4][5][6][7] For supported versions of Windows the StarForce driver may need to be updated manually using SFUPDATE.
  2. This version of StarForce DRM does not work on Windows Vista or later.[4][5][6][7] For supported versions of Windows the StarForce driver may need to be updated manually using SFUPDATE.
  3. Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for more details.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 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. 1.0 1.1 月光软件 - 游戏天地 - 单机新闻 - 科林4汉化完成,极速上市指日可待 - last accessed on 2023-07-05
  2. Most Anticipated PC Games of 2004 - IGN - last accessed on May 2023
  3. Colin McRae Rally 4 demo up - GameSpot - last accessed on May 2023
  4. 4.0 4.1 Windows Vista support - StarForce Support
  5. 5.0 5.1 Windows 7 support - StarForce Support
  6. 6.0 6.1 Windows 8.1 support - StarForce Support
  7. 7.0 7.1 Windows 10 support - StarForce Support
  8. Verified by User:Posedennetshow on 2023-12-09
    Codemasters officially shipped crack by Warez group "MYTH" in Chinese release.
  9. Verified by User:Mars icecream on 2016-11-25
    Email received from Codemasters customer service.
  10. Colin McRae Rally 04 | WSGF - last accessed on 2023-04-15
  11. Colin McRae Rally 04 - Widescreen Tutorial (NEW) - last accessed on 2023-04-15
  12. Colin McRae Rally 04 - SoundBlaster.com - last accessed on May 2023
  13. EAX Featured Game: Colin McRae Rally 04 - SoundBlaster.com (retrieved) - last accessed on May 2023
  14. Pricing | GameSpy Technology
  15. Readme.txt from installation media
  16. Soutěž s OMV BIXXOL Rally Teamem CZ (translated) - last accessed on 2023-04-15
  17. Verified by User:Silent on 2023-04-15