Good racing games for Vista

I am looking at exploring the gaming abilities of my new laptop plus have a little bit of fun. I would like to invite suggestions for Racing games that are compatible with Vista. Apparently NFS Underground 2, Most wanted and Carbon are not compatible with Vista. I did not like Pro Street. Any other suggestions? Specifications are provided in my signature.

Thanks and Regards.

 

Ive heard that Test Drive Unlimited is a nice racing gAME. Also DiRT ive heard is good.

 

Live For Speed S2. Best racing simulation game ever! The demo is free with unlimited usage, but you are limited to 3 tracks and cars. Multiplayer also works, but only limited to the demo servers. The full S2 license gives you all cars and tracks, but it costs around $50.

 

Would it be good on my Laptop as well? One more reason why I did not like Pro Street is because it came down very hard on my Graphics card raising its temperatures to 101 degrees C.

 

I've played NFS: Carbon on Vista, runs beautifully.

 

I've played both NFS Most Wanted and NFS Carbon on Vista... no problems at all! Are you getting any errors ? Maybe try patching the game..

 

DiRT is pretty awesome, but i've heard it's quite demanding on pc

 

No I did go around googling to check out if it would work or not. The answers seemed to be negative saying there were compatibilty issues. If what you say is right, should I try playing NFS Most Wanted as I liked it the last time I played it? And what about the performance on my system? Plus are those temperatures that I recorded normal? Thanks for the really really quick replies folks.

 

I've read that NFSMW and NFSC are compatible with vista, if not you can try setting the compatibility mode to XP (right click the .exe file and click properties, then the compatibility tab, check the compatibility mode box and select the Windows XP (Service Pack 2) box)
hope it helps

 

101 is way too hot my frnd.. but thats also probably becoz of the size of ur laptop..

 

Yeah I think that too arjunned. But then of course that game is just too much for a beautiful piece of machinery like this. It really is too cute to handle a beast like that. Man that thing took about 7 GBs of disk space even when it showed just 3.62 in the Control Panel!

@ Zorginator:- I too think that should work but apparently people on the internet do not think the same way. Just a bit more of confirmation and I am surely going to try NFS MW!

 

well, it's worked for alot of programs on my sisters vista laptop, i'd try it out for you but she's got an intergrated graphics card

 

Thanks a lot. I will give it a try soon and let others know as well.

 

You should really look into Live For Speed (LFS). It isn't super tough on your graphics card, but is a bit tough on your CPU because it is a simulation. You can tweak the settings pretty well on this game too, so if you laptop is really slow, it will still play with horrible graphics. The game can also have a lot of eye candy like NFS:MW, DiRT and all the other arcade games. It's just a matter of how you set graphics.

 

if your laptop will be able to handle it, this will be very interesting:
http://www.racedrivergrid.com/?territory=EnglishUK#/movies/

 

NFS MW and Carbon run in vista without any problems

 

rFactor is pretty good as well or GTR 2, the latter has some issues with Vista according to some people but I've had it running ok. Dunno about rFactor but they're both great games if your look for less of an arcade/console racing game and more of a proper racing game/sim.

 

i play most wanted at 800x600 medium graphics, 2xAA. and underground 2 1024x768(highest in game res) at high 2xAA. get from 30-60 fps on MW, vsynched at 30 for U2...cant stand the tearing.

 

I am downloading (trying to download) Trackmania from Fileplanet.. its a FREE Game.

although Stupid FF 2.0.0.12 crashed as usual & entire download ruined.. i am downloading again

 

I'm enjoying SimBin's GTR 2 (Works under Vista for me). I have to turn down the graphic options bit to run smoothly but the game is sooooo addictive!

I picked it up for ~$10 locally.

Check out the add ons (tracks, cars, sound files, etc) here.

 

Try Trackmania Nations - it's free, so no harm if you don't like it. It also scales very well to hardware - runs fine on my 2002 GeForce 4 MX440.

The only downside is that its copy protection is not compatible with Vista. Why they put copy-protection software on a free game I don't know, but they do. To get it to run in Vista you'll have to update the StarForce Protection driver to the most recent version (findable on Google).

101 seems really hot for GPU, btw. I'm pretty sure that's above the supported operating temperature range.

 

I second the GTR2 suggestion, but only if you are looking for a realistic racing simulation which is nothing like what you'll get with the NFS series. If you do go for a sim, I'd recommend getting a force feedback racing wheel and pedals to properly enjoy the racing. I have vista on my laptop and GTR2 runs fine, though coincidentally I copied it directly from the HD of my old XP laptop on which I installed it to this one with Vista and it works fine. There are tons of great tracks and mods for this game too, my personal favorite is the prototype pack that adds all of the Le Mans, ALMS, and LMS prototype cars from the last 8 years to the game.

 

Ive played all of those on my vista system with no tweaking or hacking... just install and play...

yeah... me neither, i think EA really messed up with pro street

 

all of the need for speeds series since hot pursuit 2 runs on vista

 

DiRT!

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