"Catch Up" AI is totally ruining my gaming experie

2005 Need for Speed Most Wanted
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Post by DarrenR21373 »

I know I've mentioned this before, but I have also found that tuning your car helps a hell of a lot.

I tend to run the Audi TT for racing, with full downforce, minimum ride height and a bit of extra steering. OK, it kills the top speed, but it handles like a dream (it's also the car I've found it easiest to beat Earl in, who is still the hardest of the Black Listers IMHO). I then upgrade to the Lotus Elise ASAP, which has even better handling.

Just my 2p's worth.
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Re: "Catch Up" AI is totally ruining my gaming exp

Post by evilmegamonkey »

selenev wrote:Has anyone figured out how to disable the "catch up" or "rubberbanding" AI? I'm playing Most Wanted.

Every race, it just feels soooo fake...I hate it so much. It makes me feel like I'm playing a game, instead of really racing[?i]...and that sucks.

If there is no way to disable it, is there a way to play that minimizes the effect? I know this is a 'arcade' racer, but the rubberbanding is just so artificial.

Is there a racer on the PC that doesn't have this $#**$* rubberbanding?


:roll:
And there is a way. It takes a long time though. When you are about to do a race find the track name. After that go to custom race. Turn off what ever you want, like Catch Up, then race it. Go back to career and do the same race. What ever you chose on the Custom race is in the career race. Like no traffic, catch up, e.t.c
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Post by H3ll$pawn »

I'm tinkering with a few programs to open the .BIN - .BUN & .lzc files to find where exactly this catch-up feature is, if it's a file, it should be just a matter of deleting it. Problem is, I just don't know where te begin with my search.....
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Post by darknight788 »

you might want to start in the in the savegame or the .exe file
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Post by H3ll$pawn »

darknight788 wrote:you might want to start in the in the savegame or the .exe file
You mean the personal save game file?I'll give it a try....

Update: No go, the save is just a "file", it has no extension.Plus you mentioned the exe-file, how do you edit a .exe file?
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Post by prince1142003 »

you use a hex editor. google for it, you'll find plenty. but be warned: unless you know what you're looking for, it's going to be really really really hard. i cannot stress just how hard.
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Post by GT3x24x7 »

Good luck reverse-engineering compiled code by eye if you have to ask how to edit an EXE file. You're gonna need bags of it.
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Post by H3ll$pawn »

GT3x24x7 wrote:Good luck reverse-engineering compiled code by eye if you have to ask how to edit an EXE file. You're gonna need bags of it.
I know how to edit a "shortcut" kinda .exe-file,would the answer lie in this file, you think?
My honest guess is that its a file somewhere "hidden" in a file cabinet-file.
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Post by GT3x24x7 »

Err, yeah. Like I said.. good luck.
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Post by arushan »

Steps to disable Catch Up
Majorly untested.. it might work or might not work.
You need some knowledge of hex editing to do this.

First make a backup of GLOBAL\gameplay.bin and GLOBAL\gameplay.lzc incase you mess up anything.

1. Open gameplay.bin with a hex editor...
2. Go to offset 0x16ED48, change the value "01" to "00" (Disable catch up for the majority of races)
3. Go to offset 0x18CA50, change the value "01" to "00" (Disables catch up for sprint race #1.2.3)
4. Go to offset 0x1A5FA0, change the value "01" to "00" (Disables catch up for circuit race #4.1.1)
5. Go to offset 0x1E5FE8, change the value "01" to "00" (Disables catch up for circuit race #15.1.1 reversed)
6. Save gameplay.bin

Not sure if the following steps are needed, but to be proper, do them anyway:

1. Create a copy of the new gameplay.bin and save it as gameplay.lzc (overwrite existing)
2. Open gameplay.lzc
3. Insert the following bytes at the start of the file:
(If it's overwriting and not inserting, try pressing the INS key on your keyboard)
52 41 57 57 01 10 00 00 80 1F 20 00 90 1F 20 00
4. Save and check to make sure that final size of gameplay.lzc is 2,105,232 bytes (if its 2,105,216 bytes, you overwrote and did not insert the bytes!).

I am only posting the instructions here instead of the complete files since redistribution of EA's files would be a serious violation of copyrights.
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Post by prince1142003 »

ah hah! step 3 was what you forgot to mention to me last time you told me to replace gameplay.lzc! now i gotta try this. if it works, thanks arushan!
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Post by darknight788 »

:shock: i also got to try this. i will beat razor by over 2 miles :lol:
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Post by prince1142003 »

wohooo! the header part is what i was missing all along! now comes the NO LICENSE PLATE MOD (if i can get it to work, lol)
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Post by darknight788 »

did you get it to work prince
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Post by prince1142003 »

i havent tested the catchup portion yet, but i did get the game to load now. previously, when i would overwrite the LZC files, the game would refuse to load. now i know why: the LZC files have a custom header.

i'm currently working on replacing the license plate, i'll let you know how that turns up. after that, i plan on making a tutorial for the license plate replacement, among other things.
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Post by darknight788 »

sweet i think im gonna try the catch-up portion here in a couple minutes
huh when i try to edit it it says operation prohibited the file is red only i opened up the file properties and unchecked read only and it still doesn't work. help
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Re: "Catch Up" AI is totally ruining my gaming exp

Post by evilmegamonkey »

evilmegamonkey wrote:
selenev wrote:Has anyone figured out how to disable the "catch up" or "rubberbanding" AI? I'm playing Most Wanted.

Every race, it just feels soooo fake...I hate it so much. It makes me feel like I'm playing a game, instead of really racing[?i]...and that sucks.

If there is no way to disable it, is there a way to play that minimizes the effect? I know this is a 'arcade' racer, but the rubberbanding is just so artificial.

Is there a racer on the PC that doesn't have this $#**$* rubberbanding?


:roll:
And there is a way. It takes a long time though. When you are about to do a race find the track name. After that go to custom race. Turn off what ever you want, like Catch Up, then race it. Go back to career and do the same race. What ever you chose on the Custom race is in the career race. Like no traffic, catch up, e.t.c
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Post by arushan »

prince1142003 wrote:ah hah! step 3 was what you forgot to mention to me last time you told me to replace gameplay.lzc! now i gotta try this. if it works, thanks arushan!
I believe you only need the custom header on gameplay.lzc... for the other files (global, frontend), it shouldn't really matter. That's why I never mentioned it :)
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Post by prince1142003 »

ok, but i have another question. you suggested that i rename GlobalMemoryFile.BIN and replace it with FrontEndMemoryFile.BIN in another thread, for another purpose. the purpose was custom textures in GLOBALB.LZC and GLOBALB.BUN. replacing GlobalMemoryFile.BIN causes a CTD. any idea how to prevent that?
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Post by DarrenR21373 »

I've hex edited the game files as suggested to cancel AI Catch Up. Currently undergoing testing, but so far at least the AI racers aren't exceeding my top speed by 30 MPH as they were before, and I'm beating better cars by about 3.5 seconds a race (at Black List #4 level). Also just won a race by 12 seconds and approx 3,000ft.

Looking promising. Thanks, Arushan!
Last edited by DarrenR21373 on 26 Jul 2006, 00:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by arushan »

prince1142003 wrote:ok, but i have another question. you suggested that i rename GlobalMemoryFile.BIN and replace it with FrontEndMemoryFile.BIN in another thread, for another purpose. the purpose was custom textures in GLOBALB.LZC and GLOBALB.BUN. replacing GlobalMemoryFile.BIN causes a CTD. any idea how to prevent that?
Umm.. that just means that some file which is inside GlobalMemoryFile could not be found outside it in the GLOBAL folder.

The game works like this... when a file is requested.
- It checks if the file is in GlobalMemoryFile.bin, if it is.. it gets loaded.
- If not, it checks to see if the file can be found in the game directory (under global)
- If its still not found, crash.

FrontEndMemoryFile.bin is an "empty" file without any files inside it. By replacing GlobalMemoryFile with a copy of FrontEndMemoryFile, the game is forced to load all files from the game directories.
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Post by prince1142003 »

how do i find out what file is missing? do you know what files are in the GlobalMemoryFile?
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Post by arushan »

This is how: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Filemon.html
Set the filter to include only speed.exe
And when a file pops up as "File Not Found" while monitoring, or if you simply look at the last few files that the game has loaded before the crash, you should know which one the culprit is.
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Post by darknight788 »

ok i ran into a brick wall here. i edited the gameplay.bin as said. then i copied the new gameplay.bin and renamed it to gameplay.LZC and put 52 41 57 57 01 10 00 00 80 1F 20 00 90 1F 20 00 at the beginning of the new gameplay.LZC file i save everyhting and the new gameplay.LZC file is the size it should be. when i start the game it refuses to load. any ideas as to what is going or what am i missing here. please help
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Post by prince1142003 »

i tried sysinternals only to find the game is loading GLOBALA.BUN, then GlobalMemoryFile.bin, and crashing. any help, arushan?
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