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Cars

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Cars
Cars cover
Developers
Rainbow Studios
Windows Beenox Shift
macOS (OS X) Beenox Shift
Publishers
THQ
Russia Noviy Disk
Digital Disney Interactive Studios
Release dates
Windows June 6, 2006
macOS (OS X) June 6, 2006
Reception
Metacritic 73
IGDB 65
Taxonomy
Genres Racing
Series Cars
Cars on HowLongToBeat
Cars on IGDB
Cars guide on StrategyWiki
Cars on MobyGames
Cars on Wikipedia
Cars
Subseries of Pixar
Cars 2006
Cars: Radiator Springs Adventures 2006
Cars Mater-National Championship 2007
The World of Cars Online 2008
Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales 2010
Cars 2 2011
Disney Planes 2013
Cars: Fast as Lightning 2014

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

Key points

Port of the Xbox version. PC version does not include the graphical improvements from the Xbox 360 or Wii release.
The Steam version doesn't support Intel integrated graphics, only AMD or NVIDIA GPUs. Playing with Intel graphics crashes the game; see Game crashes when starting Story Mode for fixes.

General information

World of Cars Wiki
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM v7.21.0012 DRM 2 CDs For the USA release whale the UK and the version included in the "Action Pack 3 Games In 1" bundle with Ratatouille & The Incredibles is 1 DVD.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Movie clips are not present in the Steam version. But licensed music/songs is present.
Windows
A demo is available, containing the first race of Story Mode.[Note 1]

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Delete video files[1]

Delete the folder <path-to-game>\Data\AppStart.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\THQ\Cars\Settings\
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/331160/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\THQ\Cars\Save\
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/331160/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
The HUD stretches and the camera zooms in a little closer than the original fullscreen ratio (4:3).
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
Playing the game at certain ratios other than 16:9 or 4:3 may stretch/condense the 3D render
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Up to 4x MSAA.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
On by default. Can be forced off through the graphics card control panel.
60 FPS
Frame rate is capped at 30 FPS. Can be increased to 60 with this hack in the retail version, though this can cause physics problems.
Video tutorial.
120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
The cursor is a wrench that turns when clicked. The higher the game resolution, the smaller the cursor is.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Analogue input only applies to steering and camera; acceleration and braking are digital only.
Controller Y-axis inversion
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Only uses generic prompts (ex: "button 2: confirm")
Impulse Trigger vibration
DualShock 4 controllers
Generic/other controllers
Generic DirectInput controllers are supported.
Button prompts Input settings icon - Generic Controller.svg
Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
No haptic feedback on the Steam version
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Master, Music, Effects, Engine, Voice
Surround sound
Up to 7.0 output with DirectSound3D restoration software.
Subtitles
They only appear in cutscenes and can't be toggled.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
DirectSound3D.
Royalty free audio
All tracks can be enabled/disabled in the options menu, Including the licensed tracks.

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Italian
Korean
Local retail only.[2]
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Local retail only.
Brazilian Portuguese
Local retail only.
Russian
Local retail only. Use this patch for Steam version.
Spanish
Swedish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
2 Versus
Split-screen. Graphical fidelity is reduced.
LAN play
Online play

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
G3D
User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Issues unresolved

These issues are known to occur on the Steam version of the game.

Visual bugs

There are harmless visual issues, such as menu icons being in the wrong layer order, and numerous instances of Z-fighting, including Mack's eyelids and DJ's stereo system. This also occurs on the Xbox version.

Profile Corrupted

Profile here being "damaged".
Profile here being "damaged".
Some users have reported that their profile either keeps getting corrupted, or crashes when attempting to load the profile after relaunching the game again. The reason of causing it is unknown and as of yet there are no main solutions for it.
Change the Compatibility to Windows XP Service Pack 2 and run it as Administrator
Change the Compatibility to Windows 98/ME, and don't run it as Administrator[3]

Issues fixed

Game crashes when starting Story Mode

This is a bug that occurs when playing the game with Intel graphics cards because they aren't supported by the Steam version.

Change anti-aliasing to 4x[4]
Use replacement Scenes.pak[5]

Movies unwatchable

In the Steam version, the unlockable movie clips cannot be viewed, this is due to the Steam version not including the "Movies" folder that the Retail version has.
Download the Movies folder
  1. Download the archive from here, this includes the folder, as well as a NoDVD exe, which you need, as it doesn't work with the Steam executable.
  2. Copy Cars.exe to <path-to-game> and the Movies folder to <path-to-game>\Data
  3. Start the game, select the Bonus Content option from the main menu, go to Videos, then to either Deleted scenes, Movie clips or Extras, and buy one of the clips, or use the cheat code WATCHIT to unlock them all.

Camera auto-center bug

This is a cross-platform bug where doing tractor tipping causes an unfixable bug. This bug disables camera auto-centre even if the option for it in the settings is on, and the save file is permanently stuck with that bug.

Create and use a new profile

This bug only affects the save file that tractor tipping was played on, so creating a new save file will not have the bug in it.

Never play tractor tipping

This is an optional minigame and the game can still be finished without ever playing it.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9
ExecutablePPC 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Intel support requires an update. Still 32-bit only.

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink Video Logos, Deleted scenes, and Movie clips only.

Higher difficulty

When creating a profile, set the name of a profile to CHMPION[6][7]

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000, ME
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium III 800 MHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 500 MB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 2
ATI Radeon 7500
32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Sound (audio device) DirectX 9.0c compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.3
Processor (CPU) PowerPC G4 1.2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1.2 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 2
ATI Radeon 7500
32 MB of VRAM


Notes

  1. The demo does not let you adjust any configuration settings, such as controls or resolution.
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/331160/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (331160) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. Verified by User:Tecc on 2021-05-27
  2. Verified by User:Notthejohn on 2023-07-19
    Verified with personally owned copy.
  3. [Solved] Game crashes when trying to load (damaged) saved profile (PC) :: Cars General Discussions, post #4
  4. Why Cars does not work on computers (TESTED) :: Cars General Discussions, post #32 - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  5. Cars TVG Keeps Crashing for you?, Well click here for the fix problem. :: Cars General Discussions - last accessed on May 2023
  6. AICN Games: Monki interviews CARS game designer, Rainbow Studios' Jordan Itkowitz!!! - last accessed on January 25, 2019
    "Jordan (developer): Well, given that we were trying to go as mass-market as possible with Cars (our core demo for the game is 6-12, but we think Pixar has the ability to jump that generation gap), we had to give the game a gentler default difficulty level than we’re used to shipping. We still want a challenge, though, and so we added a more difficult version of the Story Mode, where the races are much more competitive. Players can create a new profile (at the start of the game, or via the Options section of the front-end) and call it CHMPION."
  7. Disney's surprisingly impressive Cars tie-in game - last accessed on January 25, 2019