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SpeedBreaker v0.2.2 for Windows (beta 5)

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@ProjectUgarte ProjectUgarte released this 04 Nov 19:28
v0.2.2-windows-beta.5
496451a

SpeedBreaker v0.2.2 for Windows: beta 5

This is a beta. It's the same v0.2.2 as the Mac and SteamOS downloads, with the shadow saving
Windows beta 4 brought. Please try it and tell us how it runs, especially if
you have an AMD or NVIDIA graphics card.

Download

SpeedBreaker-0.2.2-windows-x64-beta.zip, below, with its .sha256 checksum file.

What's new since beta 4

v0.2.2's changes (the game shows them once, under "What's new", the first time it starts):

  • AMD Radeon RX 6000: no more black grass on the far roadside verges (#67, #54). On AMD's own
    Windows driver, pixel shaders now keep the Xbox 360's registers as separate variables, which that
    driver compiles correctly. Other graphics cards and drivers run the same shaders as before (the log
    says [renderer] shader registers: array there).
  • The sun's shadows reach the edges of the picture, at 16:9 too (#81). The game fitted its shadow
    map to a narrower view than the one it draws, so the picture's sides, near the camera, came out
    unshadowed (the Xbox 360 did that too). The shadow map now covers the whole view, so its shadows are
    a little softer than on the 360; Settings > Graphics > Shadow Resolution 1.5x or 2x sharpens them.
  • HDR: with HDR Output on, the game seen through the settings overlay looks as it does in SDR.
  • Cheaper sun shadows, as in beta 4: now part of the release itself.

On our test laptop (Intel UHD Graphics 620, Core i5-10210U), in the same session as beta 4: the
same frame rate in the main menu (36.7 vs 36.9 fps) and in a busy race (29.1 vs 28.9 fps), the same
CPU use, power and temperature. Drawing the shadow map over the whole view costs the graphics chip
about 0.7 ms per frame in a race on that laptop (within run-to-run spread). The shadow saving was
checked again texel for texel (no difference).

NVIDIA and AMD cards aren't measured here. That's what we'd like your help with.

If something looks or runs worse

Each change can be turned off without going back to beta 4. Open a Command Prompt in the game's
folder, set one of these, then run SpeedBreaker.exe from the same window:

set NFSMW_SHADOW_FIT=game      (the shadow map's old, narrower fit)
set NFSMW_SHADOW_DEFER=0       (shadows drawn as in beta 3)
set NFSMW_SCALAR_REGS=0        (AMD's driver only: the shaders as in beta 4)

If one of them fixes it, please tell us which (see below).

Updating from beta 4

Extract the new zip into a new folder and run SpeedBreaker.exe from there: the installed game, your
saves and your settings in %LOCALAPPDATA%\SpeedBreaker carry over (no disc image needed). Then delete
the old folder. In portable mode, move your portable.txt and the data and cache folders next to the
new SpeedBreaker.exe. The game shows "Updated to v0.2.2" once.

What's been tested, and what hasn't

Tested on a laptop with Intel UHD Graphics 620 (Core i5-10210U, Windows 11 25H2) and a 60 Hz screen,
against beta 4 in the same session: the main menu and a race (frame rate, frame pacing, GPU time, CPU,
power and temperature), the picture (the shadow-map check, and screenshots), race loads including pausing
and resuming, a bug report, What's new, and the unit tests.

Not tested yet: AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards here (the AMD fix was tested by the players who reported
#67), desktop PCs, 120 and 144 Hz monitors, HDR output on Windows, recent Intel Arc graphics, and Windows 10.

What you need

  • Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
  • A CPU with AVX2: Intel Haswell (2013) or newer, or any AMD Ryzen. Without it the game says so
    and closes.
  • A graphics card with Vulkan 1.2 and a current driver.
  • Your own backup of your own Xbox 360 disc of Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005), the USA
    (NTSC-U)     or the European (PAL) Spanish one: an .iso, or the extracted disc files. No
    game files come with SpeedBreaker.
  • About 7.5 GB of free space. A controller is recommended; the keyboard works too.

Install

  1. Download the zip, right-click it, choose Extract All, and open the extracted folder.
  2. Double-click SpeedBreaker.exe.
  3. SpeedBreaker isn't signed, so Windows may show "Windows protected your PC" (Microsoft
    Defender SmartScreen doesn't recognize the app yet). Click More info, then Run anyway.
    You can check the download first: put the .sha256 file next to the zip and run
    certutil -hashfile SpeedBreaker-0.2.2-windows-x64-beta.zip SHA256 in a Command Prompt; the
    hash must match the file's. If Windows blocks it with no "Run anyway" (Smart App Control does),
    it can't be started on that PC for now.
  4. The installer looks for your .iso in your user folder, Downloads, Desktop, Documents and Games
    and on your other drives, or you browse for it (or for an extracted disc folder). It checks the
    game, says which disc it is, and shows where the game will go (Internal storage, another drive,
    or Choose a folder...). It copies and verifies every file (a few minutes). Then Start the
    game    .

Saves, settings, logs and the installed game go in %LOCALAPPDATA%\SpeedBreaker. Check for
Updates isn't available on Windows yet; watch the Releases page. README.txt in the zip has
controls, portable mode and uninstalling.

Reporting a problem

  1. In the game, open the settings (F1, or Back + Start on a controller), go to
    Advanced, and choose Save Bug Report. A zip appears on your Desktop.
  2. Open an issue with
    "Windows beta" in the title: your graphics card, CPU and monitor (and its refresh rate), what you
    did and what happened, and attach that zip. Your Windows user name is left out of it.

If the game freezes, wait about 20 seconds before closing it: it then writes a hang-....txt file into
%LOCALAPPDATA%\SpeedBreaker\logs, which tells us where it stopped. Please attach it. If the game doesn't
start at all, attach the newest files from that folder and a screenshot of any message.

Unofficial Windows builds made by others (for example from forks) aren't supported here:
we can't tell how they differ from this one. If you used one, please try this beta and report
with it.

Thanks

Thanks to siddharthkuradia, agustinlopez9 and ZeroDarlingxx for the #67 reports, RenderDoc captures and
testing; to Nelson340 and krittinen for #81; and to rafidwayne, whose Windows port (pull request #39) fixed
how the audio thread waits on Windows (in since beta 1).

Source code

This build is commit 496451a,
v0.2.2; the first line of the game's log, and Settings > Advanced, say
SpeedBreaker v0.2.2 Windows beta 2026-11-03 (496451a). The source of the LGPL code by others in it (FFmpeg
and libmspack, and how FFmpeg was configured for Windows) is
SpeedBreaker-0.2.2-windows-third-party-source.tar.xz, below (the same as beta 4's; only its README names
this version and commit).

Checksums

File SHA-256
SpeedBreaker-0.2.2-windows-x64-beta.zip 8b7b5b6955a4765b3d2c1063d127c81fcaf051161a2c3666bc3830df5dbcb0ed
SpeedBreaker-0.2.2-windows-third-party-source.tar.xz d85a2885aa36920ffc6f119ba43dbab4e4beffa8a269fdb70bf2b07604343697
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