Need for Speed: High Stakes
Need for Speed: High Stakes uses an updated version of the engine developed for 1998's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, which supports Direct3D, Glide, and software rendering. High Stakes was a demanding game when it was released, and is only fully playable on fast Windows 98 systems. While its Direct3D and Glide renderers offer similar performance and visual quality, its software renderer lags far behind in both categories and is not recommended.
Need for Speed: High Stakes is playable on most Windows XP systems, but requires several compatibility patches. EA's latest patch (4.50) adds basic Windows XP compatibility, but leaves many issues unresolved.
On most newer systems, Need for Speed: High Stakes suffers from extremely poor performance in Direct3D mode. This problem can be solved by replacing the file D3DA.DLL with a newer version from Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed. D3DA.DLL is located in the High Stakes directory, C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Need for Speed High Stakes by default.
On systems with larger hard drives (80+ GB), Need for Speed: High Stakes displays the warning "Your hard drive has less than 1MB free space" and fails to save configuration data. On dual core systems, the game also crashes intermittently. These problems are solved by unofficial patches.
Need for Speed: High Stakes is playable on most Windows XP systems, but requires several compatibility patches. EA's latest patch (4.50) adds basic Windows XP compatibility, but leaves many issues unresolved.
On most newer systems, Need for Speed: High Stakes suffers from extremely poor performance in Direct3D mode. This problem can be solved by replacing the file D3DA.DLL with a newer version from Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed. D3DA.DLL is located in the High Stakes directory, C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Need for Speed High Stakes by default.
On systems with larger hard drives (80+ GB), Need for Speed: High Stakes displays the warning "Your hard drive has less than 1MB free space" and fails to save configuration data. On dual core systems, the game also crashes intermittently. These problems are solved by unofficial patches.