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Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

For the prequel, see Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit. For the 2010 game, see Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 cover
Developers
EA Canada
Windows EA Seattle
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Engines
EAGL
Release dates
Windows October 21, 2002
Reception
Metacritic 73
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: Hot Pursuit, Need for Speed
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 on HowLongToBeat
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 on IGDB
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 guide on StrategyWiki
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 on MobyGames
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 on Wikipedia
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Subseries of Need for Speed
Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit 1998
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 2002
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered 2020

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).
GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is a singleplayer and multiplayer racing game co-developed by EA Canada and EA Seattle and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sixth entry in the Need for Speed series and a sequel to Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit.

The Windows release was based on the GameCube and Xbox versions of the game (also developed by EA Canada and EA Seattle), rather than the PlayStation 2 version (developed by Black Box).[1]

It was released in North America on October 21, 2002, followed by the Europe release on November 8, 2002.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SafeDisc 2.80.010 DRM[Note 1]
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Demo

A demo is available.
Limited to 2 available cars (Ferrari 360 Spider and Porsche 911 Turbo) and 1 track (Calypso Coast).

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 242 is the final patch for the game. Adds multiplayer encryption and improves Force Feedback behavior and compatibility.

Skip intro videos

Instructions[4]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\movies\
  2. Delete or rename hp2E.mad, logoE.mad, and logoS.mad to anything else.
  3. Create three empty files with the above filenames in the folder.

Notes

This tweak will only work if a No-CD patch is used, as otherwise the game will simply load the movies directly from the game CD.
Alternatively, simply starting the game with the "-nofrustration" argument will skip the title screen and intro videos.

Increase distance in which particles fade out

Increases the distance in which particles are rendered. It will be most noticeable in the water effect not fading from waterfalls as their distance increases.
Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to the "EAGL" folder in the game directory.
  2. Open the "LOD" file with notepad.
  3. In the "[max]" section, increase the values for "worldParticle.farFadeIn" and "worldParticle.farFadeOut". It can go to values as high as 999, but keep "worldParticle.farFadeIn" slightly lower than "worldParticle.farFadeOut".

Crash/lock-up on launch or Low/Choppy frame-rate

Game may crash immediately after entering full-screen/after it creates its application window, or frame-rate may be around 20-30 FPS and lack V-sync.
Use DirectInput low frame rate fix[5]

Use the DirectInput FPS Fix.

(Alternative) Unplug or disable incompatible HID devices[6]

If the above doesn't work:

  1. Unplug any USB HID devices that are not needed to play the game (Xbox controllers, media remotes, desktop case fan speed controllers etc). For laptops unplug all external USB HID devices such as external mice and keyboards.
  2. Go to Device Manager and, under the "Human Interface Devices" section, disable any remaining "HID-compliant vendor-defined device" and "HID-compliant consumer control devices" (they can be reenabled later)
  3. Game should now launch and work properly. By reenabling and replugging devices and testing the game after each change the cuplrit HID device could be found. Alienware AlienFX controller seems to be one of them.
See also Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 (exception error)

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\EA Games\Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2\

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\EA Games\Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2\

Video

Video settings.
Video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Use HP2WSFix.[7][8]
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
Use HP2WSFix.[7][8]
4K Ultra HD
Use HP2WSFix.[7][8]
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
For NVIDIA cards, SGSSAA is available, using the same compatibility flag as "Need For Speed: Underground" (as both games use the same engine).
Otherwise, see the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Uncapped. Physics and animations are capped at 60 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Windowed

Enable windowed[9]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Edit rendercaps.ini.
  3. Change Fullscreen=1 to Fullscreen=0.

Input

Input settings
Input settings

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Menu can only be navigated with mouse.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion
Through controller remapping.
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
Some users have reported that their XInput controllers don't work. [10][11] See XInput controller not working for a workaround.
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration
PlayStation controllers
Generic/other controllers
Generic DirectInput controllers are supported.
Button prompts Input settings icon - Generic Controller.svg
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Tested with XInput Controller.
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M
To enable Force Feedback on XInput controller, see Force feedback driver.

Audio

Audio settings
Audio settings

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Menu Music, Race Music, Player Engine, Sound Effects, Voice
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
May need re-toggling after every launch to actually apply[12]
Royalty free audio
The game contains licensed music that were listed under the EA trax in-game.

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Choice between metric and imperial measurements
French
Italian
Slovak
Fan translation, download.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
Console versions only.
LAN play
8
Online play
8 Use OpenSpy.
Asynchronous multiplayer

Connection types

Issues fixed

Add high resolutions to options menu

By default, the resolution options are limited. Any resolution supported by the graphics driver can be added by making the following change to rendercaps.ini.
  1. Go to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My files\EA Games\Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2\rendercaps.ini
  2. Set LimitResolution=1 to LimitResolution=0

Game not rendering fog on modern systems

Even after setting "World Detail" at maximum, the game won't render fog on modern systems.[citation needed]
Patch Direct3D8 calls
Note: This fix contradicts any other render wrapper-based fix (HP2WSFix[13], dgVooDoo, etc.)

Go here and download the d3d8.dll and place it in Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 folder and the d3d8.dll will load d3d8to9 and convert DX8 API calls to Direct3D 9 ones.

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 (exception error)

Error is "The thread attempted to read from or write to a virtual address for which it does not have the appropriate access."
Screenshot of the exception dialog.
Screenshot of the exception dialog.


Patch game renderer with dgVooDoo[14]
  1. Download the latest version of DgVoodoo 2
  2. Follow the installation instructions for D3D8.
  3. Configure dgVooDoo using the included configuration applet.
Copy the following directories from the CD to <path-to-game>\[citation needed]
  1. actors
  2. AI
  3. Audio
  4. Cars
  5. Movies
  6. Particle
  7. Tracks

Game crashing with more than 1 hi-poly car

This issue can be fixed by installing HP2WSFix as the fix is integrated along with the widescreen fix.[13]

White screen after installing HP2WSFix

Remove the global.ini file from the main game directory.[citation needed]

DualShock 4 support

To use a DualShock 4 with the gas and brake axis, the .ini needs to be tweaked.
Tweak[citation needed]

Replace definitions.ini and defaults.ini with the ones from here.

Poor performance on high resolutions

May be fixed copying the game directory outside "Program Files" folder, so it can be run without administrator rights.[citation needed]

Settings not saved on exit

Profile must be saved manually from the Options menu after configuring settings, else they won't be saved on game exit.[citation needed]

XInput controller not working

Use devreorder to force intended device (needs dinputto8)[10]
  1. Download briankendall's devreorder and elishacloud's dinputto8.
  2. For devreorder, extract devreorder.ini and x86's dinput8.dll into main game directory.
  3. For dinputto8, extract dinput.dll into main game directory as well.
  4. Edit devreorder.ini- [order] and [visible] should be set to your controller's name; i.e. "Controller (XBOX 360 For Windows)".
Should work even across restarts as it's forcing enumeration order and hiding other enumerable devices from the process.
If the game shows an error message about the controller not being specifically recognized, ignore this message and proceed to manually configure the controller settings in the options menu.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 8.1
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Multiplayer GameSpy

Modifications

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 450 MHz
AMD Athlon 500 MHz
System memory (RAM) 128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1.2 GB
Video card (GPU) Direct3D compatible
16 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.1 compatible


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[2] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[3]

References