Screamer 4X4 'Off Road Simulator'

[Journeyman 0]

Screamer 4x4 was an unfortunate title as it was far removed from the previous ‘Screamer’ titles being an ‘off road simulator’ rather than just another arcade racing game. Developed by Clevers and released by Virgin Interactive both of who no longer exist! It made its appearance in early 2001 and to this day has not been surpassed in its ability to fully simulate off road driving. From the effects of different tyre pressures and tread patterns to the way that differentials work especially that of the lockable centre diff on the Land Rover Defender, but all the different diffs and their lockers have the correct affect on traction and handling. No Traction Control here just basic hardcore off roading. The realism is remarkable and the physics speak for themselves as seen in my replay video clips.

Short Clip (Defender) (40mb) (Right click & Save target as).

Long Clip (Several Cars) (142mb) (Right click & Save target as).

The game was far from perfect and there were plenty of things that could have been done better such as a realistic damage model, better voice acting and possibly more accurate details on some of the vehicles, but to be honest none of these things impact that much on the sheer accuracy of the driving experience. I played this game constantly for about two years after its launch and being an off road enthusiast myself, and the owner of two Land Rovers I fully enjoy the feel of the game and the way it properly simulates traction and vehicle behaviour under various conditions.

The fact that the damage model is not visible and that it can be disengaged is probably its biggest flaw, as this feature would have forced players to drive more realistically in order to take more care of the vehicle under hard terrain. However, it still is optional to have the mechanical damage model active so sim nuts like myself can drive realistically at least for fun anyhow! The graphics are pretty good for the time (Better than Flashpoint! and you have 6 large terrain areas to drive on (about 1km sq each) with 10 vehicles in all.

So why the thread? ……

Well I stumbled across the CD again and though I’d give it another bash on the latest hardware on my current gaming machine. Blast! Flickering textures everywhere and clipping problems galore! ….. Here,   here   and   here!

So I installed it on an old gaming machine that I now only use for work and it works fine! The only main differences between the two PC’s are shader 2 versus shader 3 graphics cards and dual core versus single core CPU. Drivers are the same for both cards and both have the latest DX9c. Specs as follows:

Gaming machine: Pentium 4 3.2gig, Dual core, 2gig RAM, Win XP Home, GeForce 6800GS 256mb.

Work machine: Pentium 4 2.0gig, single core, 1gig RAM, Win XP Home, GeForce FX 5900XT 128mb.

Both have Forceware version 93.71 and DX 9.0c (4.09.0000-0904). So which is it …the graphics card or the dual core? The game is also not ‘Alt Tab’ friendly so I cannot try setting core affinity to test it on a single core. (Some other way?)

The game of course was optimised for Glide and OpenGL (Ah, those were the days! but you have the option to start it under D3D and apart from the lack of some dirt particle effects works fine in D3D as you can see. This is the launcher and I originally played this game on my old Voodo5 card so would run it on Glide. Great dirt effects with that card but not any more!

OK, so I can still play this on my old work machine (minus dirt), but it is a shame that it will no longer run on the latest hardware. The ONLY 4x4 simulator available for PC is no longer PC compatible! Any advise/workarounds would be most welcome. …. Or maybe some developer soon will make an even better PC 4x4 simulator???  

[mr burns 109]

Although it´s not really a 4x4 Sim i´d recommend Richard Burns Rally. Best car physics i´ve seen in a racing game yet, plus realistic damage, etc.

Needed quite some time until i was able to actually keep the cars on track .. and eventually learned it after buying a steering wheel which was really worth it

edit:

Short Clip (Defender) (40mb) (Right click & Save target as).

We need those flexible bushes in ArmA!

Why does this old game simulate "stopping power" of little shrubs better than a brand new game?

[Journeyman 0]

Although it´s not really a 4x4 Sim i´d recommend Richard Burns Rally. Best car physics i´ve seen in a racing game yet, plus realistic damage, etc.

Yep I've wasted many an hour with Richard Burns Rally, and it is an extremely accurate hardcore rally sim! Not a 4x4 sim though like you said.

Any vehicle game where you really need proper peripherals to stay on track is what I like. There just aren’t enough of them around though. Proper simulators are far more rewarding for me than any speedy 'arcade' game.

[4 IN 1 0]

the same thing happened on my new rig when i play OFP in cutscreens, maybe it is the DX8 problem?

[Journeyman 0]

the same thing happened on my new rig when i play OFP in cutscreens, maybe it is the DX8 problem?

Screamer4x4 was a DX7 game but like I said I can play it fine on my GeForce FX 5900XT with DX9c. I guess it must just be a shader3 card compatibility issue with this old game.

Still no workaround yet though for my GeForce 6800GS. And it is a shame that the developers are no longer around to help!  

[4 IN 1 0]

just find out its the PP setting in dxdll causing problem

anyway i got some old DX7 games and it happens to be the same with new cards