Need for Speed 3 Modern Edition

 

Need for Speed 3 Modern Edition has been superseded by Need for Speed 3: NextGen

Visit: https://rejzor.wordpress.com/need-for-speed-3-nextgen/

NFS3

I present you my new contribution to all true Need for Speed fans.
The Need for Speed 3 Hot Pursuit Vista Edition patch and 32-bit installer in one package.
This patch will allow you to play this legendary racing game on most modern operating systems like Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 and even the latest Windows 8. And thats not all. 64-bit Windows is also supported, where original installer simply fails to run (because it’s just 16-bit). I have also included optional package of all traffic vehicles and traffic pursuit cars. Thats right, you can now race with delivery trucks, taxi cars, school buses, SUV’s and so on. They are slow and steer like a whale, but racing with them is hilarious. Especially in Hot Pursuit mode on split screen. Pure fun!

Oh and don’t forget to crank up all game graphic settings and enable Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering in your graphic card control panel. The game will look much better with it

Patch includes CD verification! Only users of original NFS3 game can install it.
Patch will also copy game files from original disc during patch installation. Bypassing this check through built-in feature can be done on user’s own risk and i won’t take ANY responsibility if user decides to do so (in case if EA decides to bug me with piracy nonsense or if user’s PC crashes and burns).

PATCH REQUIREMENTS:
– original NFS3 disc (english retail version from 1998)
– ~460MB of free disk space
– Direct3D capable graphic card (all graphic cards we use today)
– Creative ALchemy or similar tool for EAX support under Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8

Changelog:
1.04 – Read-Only fixes and enabled Mercedes/Ferrari cars for Hot Pursuit (2014.12.18)
1.03 – added ability to bypass disc verification (*1)
1.02 – fixed bug where NFS3 crashed when saving replay or game progress
1.01 – fixed bug in Extra content extraction process
1.0 – initial release

(*1) – Bypassing disc verification is not recommended, but since i’ve had so many requests i’ve decided to add this feature. You can try bypassing but in that case, i cannot guarantee anything. The game might work, but it might just as well collapse into a black hole or something.

Download v1.04:

Download v1.03:

102 thoughts on “Need for Speed 3 Modern Edition”

  1. Wow! greast job. I just installed it and it works flawlessly. NFS3 was great. Do you have any plans on making the install for NHF4 and NFS5? Now that I’m on Windows 8.1, I can’t get them to work anymore. Thanks

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    1. I also have a patch for NFS4:

      Need for Speed 4 Modern Patch

      NFS5 works with ordinary latest patch, however there is a huge glitch with CPU speed where game reads CPU speed wrong and makes all textures low resolution and washed out on modern systems. There is no known way of fixing that as far as i know. Other than that, the game works fine.

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      1. Thanks for the reply. The main problem I’m having with both NFS4 and NFS5 on my new Windows 8.1 64-bit is that the installer won’t run at all. Do you know if there is a way to force the installer to run on Windows 8.1 or Windows 8 64-bit? If I’m able to run the installer, I will be able to use the NFS4 patch. Thanks again

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      3. Hey RejZoR I have a question did you ever test the NFS 3 Hot Pursuit Modern patch on vista before and does it work perfectly?

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      5. Unfortunately I can’t get the game to work. It did run intot he main menu, but when I want to actually race, it just crashes with some DX7 error. Have also tried some 2008 patch taht doesn’t work either. Seems like main problem is in the fact that game fails to detect 1920×1080 resolution of my monitor. The setting field in the game is simply empty and I can’t select a single resolution no matter what I’ve tried.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Works just great on Win 7 X64 SP1 – AMD 8 Core – HD7770 Graphic Card, Thanks dude….. I’d forgotton just how much fun this game is 😉

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  3. ok so I’ve managed to successfully install NFS 3 HP on my windows 8 pc not using this patch. however when I click the application on desktop nothing happens. ive tried running it in windows xp sp3 compatibility mode. my guess is its not letting me run it because I don’t have the cd. which brings me to my next ordeal, ive searched high and low but cant seem to find a crack for the game! i think this must be the solution. does anyone have a link for the crack??!! much appreciated!

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  4. I CAN’T INSTALL IT! I inserted the disc (yes it’s an original NFS3 CD), and clicked verify. I then click “no” to start the verification process, and it then says that Disc verification has failed! It tells me that the wrong disc is inserted, and that I need to insert it into the optical drive. What do I do! I’m running Windows 8 on a Toshiba Satellite C855. It’s not Windows 8.1, it’s just Windows 8. PLEASE HELP!

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  5. @harry12345, there is no crack. NFS3 has no protection, all you need is an ISO of.. ehm.. your original CD.

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  6. I transformed my original disk into a .iso file on my machine, and as scratched as that disk was it STILL verified as a mounted image in Daemon Tools Lite. Don’t you just love when that happens? Lawl

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  7. Little bit of an update…IT WORKS AMAZINGLY! I am tempted to throw these together into a pack but hate to see such any game worth playing become majorly subject to pirating. This works flawlessly, and I want to attempt to play an online game in Gameranger with this patch installed on two machines sometime!

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    1. The problem with FEDATA is solved … you have to firstly go into the install directory assuming you installed to drive G:\Games, then ……G:\Games\Need for Speed 3 Vista Edition\FEDATA\Stats\ and remove the write protection from the file RECORDS, simply right click on it and select properties, remove the tick on “Write protected”.
      When you run the game….. you need to run it in Compatability mode for Windows XP SP3.
      Right click on the Desktop shortcut “Need for Speed 3 Vista Edition” … select compatability and tick on the requester for that.

      My system is a Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit 8 core machine and it runs perfectly.

      Many… Many thanks to you RejZor for making it possible to play one of my favourite games again.

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  9. I’m really hoping you can help me with this. I used your patch to install, and it worked great; however, I wish to reset it completely as if I am installing it for the first time. I want to unlock everything again. The problem is that I’ve uninstalled everything and cleaned the registry, but it remembers all my settings and unlocks when I reinstall. How do I purge this from my computer so that when I reinstall it won’t remember? Thanks.

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  10. This is a life saver.

    Dusted off my old retail disc only to find out the installer was 16bit and not supported under Windows 8.

    Cheers.

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  11. Where does it install it to? There is no record of EA Need for Speed III under program files or anywhere else but the shortcut on the desktop. Where can I find the files?

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    1. There is no uninstaller for it beause it copies game files from the CD and adds my compatibility patched files. It installs where you decide to install it (extract it basically). By default it installs the files into Program Files, unless if you changed that.

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  12. Really meant that I can’t go to Programs and uninstall because it doesn’t show up there? How do I uninstall NFSIII if I need to? Thanks.

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    1. Look at my last reply. Just delete the install folder and desktop icon and the game will be gone. There will be one entry in Programs and Features that does have to be removed there like any other program with uninstaller.

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  13. Hello, can your modern patch still install and work on Windows 98SE? Recently I decided to dust off my original NFS3 CD and re-installed it on 98SE (on Pentium III 1.0GHz rig). I know nothing of any other NFS patches from over the years, and have only played whatever version was on the CD. So I just want to be able to use any new features. Plus I can only run the video in software mode because I have an nVidia GF4 and not the older ATI Rage 128 that the 3Dsetup only works with (I think).
    So again, while I do also have Windows 7(x64) & XP SP3(x86), I would also like to run it on 98SE (and even maybe 95B if possible).
    Also, could someone perhaps also recommend a website that has any other relevant patches? Thank you.

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    1. The game was designed for Windows 98 so you don’t really need any patch. The patch was designed for later systems that were not supported by the game.

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  14. RejZoR, I have the original NFS3 disc, but when I put it in and start your patch (I click “Verify” and then “No, I don’t want to bypass verification”), it says the wrong disc is inserted. How do I get it to recognize my disc? The select a drive setup page even has “DVD RW Drive (D:) NFS3” listed as an option.

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    2. Verification is recommended since i know the game was tested for those conditions, but you can opt not to verify and it might work, but it may just as well crash or fail to run.

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  15. Hello everyone! I’ve just released patch v1.04. It has a fix that removes Read-Only attribute from all game files and I have also enabled Mercedes and ferrari cars for Hot Pursuit Mode (only if extra content package is installed!). Hope you’ll enjoy it.

    Tested on Windows 8.1 Update 1 64bit and the game worked great.

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  16. I can install the game fine, but once it finally starts (which takes several minutes) I get nothing but a black screen Anybody else had this problem and found a fix? I’ve used this before and it worked fine then. Win7 64bit

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    1. Did you start the game using dedicated shortcut on desktop which forces game to run on a single CPU core?

      I was testing it few weeks ago and it worked fine, although on Win8.1 64bit…

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  17. Good job on the patch, RejZoR, but I have a question: It seems the game randomly crashes right when you’re about to start a race, there also seems to be random minilags in D3D mode while software rendering is okay and some 2D graphics seems to be messed up (I’ve had this issue only on W7 64, XP was fine). Do you know how to fix these issues?

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      1. Hey I had a little problem I try to download Need for Speed 3 hot pursuit Modern edition 1.04 to enable Ferraris and other two cars in hot pursuit mode and it won’t do it because it said it threat file! So what should I do?

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  19. The first time I tried it it was working fine and now it said threat and it been removed and I tried couple times and still the same

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    1. Sorry, but there is no Spanish version. Though you gave me an idea if I coudl fiddle with the game language files, maybe I could make a multi-language installer for it. Can’t promise anything, but I’ll certainly check if it’s an easy option to do it.

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    1. There’s a voodoo “patch” that supposedly allows you to play in much higher resolutions, but I haven’t found a way to make it work. If anyone does, please tell me.

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  23. Hello RejZoR. Great work. Games works perfect. I have a question. Can you try do similar patch for NHL 99 game? I tried some regfix placed on some forum to set some Voodo cards. And author wrote it should work under XP. I tested under Windows 7 64 bit launching command affinity.exe nhl99.exe but it crash after first logos. Probable I should do some patch like you from $400 offset in nfs3.exe but I have small reversing engeener practice. Patching some old dos games to bypass docs check completly without show or CD checks in old Windows games which was not packed or protected is in most cases easy – I can say even peace of cake. But I do not have any knowledge about patching games to work on modern system. Please let me know if it possible to do something with NHL 99. You can obtain ISO file from Efnet from well known channel with old games community, from Sugarbabe file server (CTCP trigger is !Nookies). Please answer in free time. Sorry for my bad English. Regards: olesio

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    1. I was never into sports games so I’m not sure I’ll be able to help much. I also don’t have rev engineering skills, I usually just compile existing fixes together into an user friendly package. Maybe I’ll look into it one day, but can’t promise anything…

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      1. Ok, thanks for answer. I thought bytes changed from $400 offset and in PE header are your own modification in game executable.

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    1. I’ve just tested the installer and it works perfectly fine. It must be on your end. Could be antivirus that you’re using that is corrupting the download (especially if it is scanning HTTPS/HTTPS connections, some do that). Try disabling just the connection scanning (but not the normal file scanning).

      Also clear the browser cache before you download the files again.

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  25. I downloaded and installed the software, but whenever I start the program, I get the same error as a previous person had posted regarding the FEDATA folder. I looked through it, but I do not see a Stats folder, only Saves and Speed.Any ideas?

    Thanks1

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    1. Stats folder? Saves folder is needed, otherwise it won’t store any settings, but where would the stats folder fit in? I haven’t experienced any other issues with the game after I’ve fixed this. Hm…

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  26. Hi, Cool effort! Loved it!. But I still cant see the In Car cam. ( Win 8 ASUS-PC, 2 GB NVIDIA GeForce)
    I tried all settings( dgVoodoo,DX6,DX8 etc.)
    Any fix?

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    1. I’m working on a newer patch with someone else and it’s A LOT better than my current patch. It includes several rendering modes with extra goodies like special effects (fog, projected lights) and also working dashboards. I currently had no time for it, but I think next week I’ll be able to finish it.

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      2. I’m working on better patch with 4K support, better effects, better compatibility, but I’m very short on time right now so things move slower than expected.

        The patch will also include this:
        http://www.indirectsound.com

        It’s an DirectSound3D emulator, similar to ALchemy, but it works with any soundcard. You may want to try this one and see if it helps.

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  27. Great job, works perfectly!!!
    Finally my game runs again in Windows 8.1 Update 1, no need for virtualization anymore. Best of all is DirectX 6 and widescreen support! 🙂
    And thanks for the manuals, too. (I do have an original CD but it didn’t include them).

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  28. When I try to install it, it asks me to insert disk #1 to complete installation. Does anyone have any ideas? I tried to find the file I got from the website but it doesn’t show up. Thanks.

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    1. Never mind, it’s sorted itself out. It now won’t let me start it. the screen goes black and back to the desktop. I restarted my computer and re-installed it. Sorry if this is really obvious and I’m just inept

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  29. Hi, I’m running Windows 10 and have found that the game will crash during the race load screen. I’m wondering if the patch will be updated to run the game on Windows 10. Thanks.

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  31. hi, i am using windows 10.
    i installed your patch when i run the game it gives error :savefileadr – OPEN FAILED FOR FILE’.fedata\state\records.dat’.
    is it becouse of incompitablity with windows 10?

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  32. Help! I can’t get the installer to verify the disc. I have an original copy of the game inserted, but it is saying that I don’t have the disc inserted. Help!

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  33. Hi Rejzor!

    I’ve tried your patch, and the installation works fine, but the game just crashes. It crashes so that the only way the get windows back is with Ctrl+Alt+Del, and in the low resolution just control the task manager with keyboard; for even the mouse stops functioning though the cursor itself is visible. Without any error it goes totally black before the Electronic Arts video or before anything could happen. And yes, my NFS3 is genuine or authentic.
    I have a Windows 7 SP1.
    And my other problem is that it did not install the video mode selector. I mean that 3D setup or whatever it was called where you could choose from D3D, Glide or Software. Maybe with that, one could help on him/herself.

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  34. Hey RejZoR,

    I’ve got that annoying error with less than 1 MB free space, so no progress is saved.

    The error occurs with und without your patch (the game even works completely without the patch).

    I’ve got an idea, that maybe the save-file only changes some entries from boolean “false” to “true” and maybe saving would be possible as soon as there is an existing save-file.

    tl;dr: It would be nice if you could upload some save-file (just without any progress or just one race) so i could give it a try.

    Many thanks in advance!;-)

    Stouki

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    1. “(the game even works completely without the patch).”

      Forget that one, just mixed up some versions.
      And thanks for your efforts for that patch 😉

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    1. I am using his core patch. But I also offer other goodies like DirectSound3D emulation and traffic cars to drive. I don’t provide the game because that’s still considered as piracy and I don’t want any problems with that.

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  37. I installed the game fine but I’m getting an error when launching the game – isndloaddll – couldn’t load/find eacsnd.dll. This should be in the same directory as the game. (Win 7 64 bit)

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  38. Hey Rejzor, how do we enable the traffic cars? I clicked the check mark for the player and the AI to have them in the installation but I don’t see the traffic cars. I am using the Next Gen installer. The only thing that I changed was that I applied Veg’s Modern Patch 1.6.0 over the installed files. Would this make it not work?

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    2. Hey Joe, I’ve just updated my NextGen patch to Evgeny’s latest version of patch (1.6). Try it again, it should work now. If not, drop me a comment again and I’ll look into it. It looks fine on my end, but things can always go wrong hehe

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      1. I used the 3rd Option to patch it. But it didn’t work, no traffic cars. I will do a full re-install with your Next Gen installer and report back.

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      2. Even when I did a full install, there still aren’t any traffic cars in the car list for AI or Player. I picked the second option in the installer. Player + Ai have traffic cars. Is there anything I have to do special to have them appear? Thanks.

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  40. I just figured it out! If you just select the option for Player + AI the Traffic Patch will not work! You must select the first option to add Traffic Cars for the player only.

    Somehow it adds the option for the player to have traffic cars and the AI. Wierd! You may want to fix that. Everything else works fine, as well as the new indirect sound. Thanks for updating this to 1.6.0.

    I will test what happens on a whole new reinstall and see if the Player only option does indeed add the traffic cars to the AI as well. Because it could have been just because I patched it twice.

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    1. I think that’s the reason. The installer doesn’t take into account that you’ve already patched it before with a different option for traffic cars. Thanks for pointing it out, I’ll look into to it, if I can do something about it so that installer would be aware what was selected before. Can’t promise anything, but you certainly gave me an idea.

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  41. I did a full re-install from scratch from my CD using your installer and Picked the first option (Player Only), but it actually installed the traffic cars correctly for both the A.I and the Player! So you must have accidentally added the settings for both the Player and the A.I on the first option.

    The second option (Player + A.I) just like last time, doesn’t do anything. It fails to add the traffic cars for the Player or the A.I, very strange. I haven’t tested what happens if you pick both options. But I assume from your note in the installer that it just selects the first option by default. and the second option doesn’t do anything at all. You might want to investigate this and fix it as soon as possible, as more people will be confused.

    The traffic cars are so fun to drive, and the computer is hilarious when it drives the traffic cars. Thanks for making this very useful installer, as I said before everything else works great!!! 🙂

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    1. That’s odd. I’ve tested it and it doesn’t seem to accept the flag inside car.viv file. It used to work before, but now even if the flag is there (or isn’t) for Ai to drive the car, it just picks it randomly still. Not sure why. Maybe modified cars clash with highly rewritten game. Very strange. I’ll probably just update the installer for now so it’ll only offer one option till I figure this out somehow.

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      1. Modern Patch doesn’t change anything according it (except the removed limitation for the Mercedes and Ferrari). So, if there are some flags are ignored, it’s a bug. Please check it on the Modern Patch (the latest version or previous ones) and on the original version of the game, and if there is some unexpected difference, tell me about it.

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  42. Alrighty! But I can confirm that I didn’t have any addon cars in my game directory when I installed it. I did a clean re-install, unless you mean the cars modified by the Modern Patch.

    But again if you pick the first option (Player only) it works perfectly for the A.I and the Player, so I guess it is the two options that mess it up. Maybe you could incorporate the traffic cars inside the .ini file somehow, like make a new setting.

    That way there would be only one option and then players could enable the A.I manually inside the .ini file. At any rate I wish you good luck in finding out what is causing this weird bug.

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      2. Actually you could post it as an ISO. ISO Zone does and they have been around for 10+ years and respond if a company tells them to pull something off. There is no way the company cannot know that ISO Zone is doing it as it is on the top choice list of people doing older software games.

        When you buy the game used the company no longer makes any money off of it PERIOD. It goes directly to the seller so if you buy NFS3 from Pinkies’s Closet (an actual seller on Ebay) then EA games won’t get a dime from her as they no longer support the game nor any help. Your on your own buddy. :p

        In fact when the PS4 first came out they wanted to make it so you CAN’T run used games on it only downloaded games and it (for obvious reasons) made a lot of gamers REALLY upset and they responded in kind so that practice ended quickly.

        Both Xboxone and PS4 were going to do this. Xbox idiots were too stupid to say much but eventually the message got to Microsoft and they too abandoned that attempt and now Xboxone is compatible with most 360 games AND original Xbox just a year or so ago.

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      3. Before it wasn’t compatible with nuttin instead they were pushing for Windows 10 with it and I think most users went YUCK and they aren’t doing it so heavily since 10 is more like a phone on a desktop and nobody likes their app store not even the employees.
        As a result most developers didn’t write for it except things for phones so pretty much people said why upgrade. If their software works on 7 it likely won’t be compatible with 10. Only exception is Forza Horizon 3 so only a few snobby gamers will do it with their daddy’s wallet and deck out with an Alienware glow in the dark,can wash the car,sing and dance gaming rig.

        A lot of software that works on 7 won’t run on 8 or higher no matter what you fiddle with. A common problem is not recognizing CD’s and Win 7 and Vista have a work around which I think works on 8 too.

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  44. Thanks for continuously publishing. I enjoy your articles and believe that they add a lot of actual worth. I found this Spotify playlist the other day and think it suits posts that you have published. http://spoti.fi/2v7a0MA really hope the community listen to it!

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  45. Actually you could as when you buy the game the company no longer makes any money off of it. In fact when the PS4 first came out they wanted to make it so you CAN’T run used games on it only downloaded games and it (for obvious reasons) made a lot of gamers REALLY upset and they responded in kind so that practice ended quickly.

    Both Xboxone and PS4 were going to do this. Xbox idiots were too stupid to say much but eventually the message got to Microsoft and they too abandoned that attempt and now Xboxone is compatible with most 360 games AND original Xbox just a year or so ago.

    Before it wasn’t compatible with nuttin instead they were pushing for Windows 10 with it and I think most users went YUCK! Since 10 is more like a phone on a desktop. As a result most developers didn’t write for it so pretty much people said why upgrade. If their software works on 7 it likely won’t be compatible with 10.

    A lot of software that works on 7 won’t run on 8 or higher no matter what you fiddle with.

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  46. They were pushing for STREAM YOUR GAMES WITH TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN! YOU’L LOVE IT BECAUSE WE SAY SO!

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  48. Hello there. I like to see that old games like this get updated by fellow fans for everyone’s joy. I myself tried this one, but for some reason… well, the menu items got all mixed up. Am I the only one who clicks on a big button labelled “options”, but clicking it initiates a race?

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  49. When I run the game without the patch I. D3D6 mode, I get 16 bit colors but it has hardware acceleration. In this patch I find 32 bit colors with native resolution support. Can you please confirm IF ORGINIAL GAME CONTAINED BOTH 16 AND 32 BIT COLOR. Or if I am facing any issues with my D3D card

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