Discussion for Driver 2: Back on the Streets [EU] / Driver 2: The Wheelman is Back [US] (2000)
By driverretro
Registration Days Posts Posts
#55449
I regret not discovering this forum earlier, because it would have been really fun to discuss these games with plenty of other fans of the series :) :(

Here are some things I've noted in the past at other sites that I don't see here.

-It is possible to lose the cops easily in Rio's survival mode. Turn on invincibility and lure the cops into the beach water beside the start point. Then just bring them to the border (void area) and lure them into the abyss. The music will revert to the quiet, non-pursuit one. But it will be a very scary, creepy atmosphere. You're only safe in the outskirts of the water. Try to get anywhere near shore and you'll notice that cops are swarming the place, spawning like nuts, trying to set the game back into pursuit mode.

-Very rarely in Havana, but more often than in Las Vegas or Chicago, it's possible to lose the cops. But it will be very brief and within the next 2 seconds, you'll be caught by other cops that spawn very quickly. Kind of amusing.

-Also in Havana survival mode, near the start point, there's a building that has a little alcove that you can fit in. Due to the shape of the building, the trees near the alcove and multiple cop cars, you can fit the car into the alcove and the cops cannot charge you aggressively. Turn on invincibility and get in there, watch as the cops hit trees and only hit you lightly.

-Turn on the gameshark code to leave the car anytime and then do so. Watch the mayhem that ensues. Interestingly, the cops still try to drive into you as a pedestrian. You can exploit this cheat to hijack every cop car on-screen to lose the hot pursuit more stably (since all cop cars are on-screen). Then you can run around the city on foot. The moment you get in a car, they'll be hot onto you again.

Do these with invincibility on, preferably.

-In Las Vegas survival mode, right beside you at the start is the Bingo casino (where you get the invincibility secret). You can let the cops charge you into the grassy barrier and you'll end up inside it. It's a safe zone where cops will just keep crashing into the barrier, unable to hit you. But it can get boring within minutes because you can do almost nothing in there.

-In Havana, try to make your way to the church/cemetery (where you start in take a ride mode). In the church complex, get the cops to send you flying over the fence into the grass/graves. It's another safe zone where the cops can't get to you. They'll also be acting very weirdly. Be careful, though, the ground is not complete in most of that area and you can fall through.

-Also in the church area, there's a small pathway in the grass that leads to an enclosed space. If you manage to make it in (simply drive in, the only challenge is the aggressive cops attacking you and preventing you from getting there in the first place), only 1 or 2 cops will follow you in and then strangely, they won't attack you aggressively.

Now some questions I have:

-What causes the music in Take a Ride mode to speed up (not when in pursuit)? Sometimes, the music speeds up slightly.

-In the Rio Undercover mission "Steal a Cop Car", what is the reason we must steal a cop car and bring it to the safe house? Caine says to steal cash going for Vasquez that goes through a limo. Exactly where does stealing a cop car fit into the plot? Why couldn't Tanner just take any car and intercept the limo, hijack it and proceed with the mission? Caine did say to do it whatever way you want, but that doesn't mean it should be a complicated way that makes the mission so much more difficult. Was Tanner just trying to be creative?
By driverretro
Registration Days Posts Posts
#55451
No idea what you mean, lol, I think you're mistaking something I wrote. About the music speeding up, let me elaborate a bit on that:

In TAR mode, sometimes after a cop chases me and I lose him, the regular music returns, but is kind of sped up. After getting another cop to chase me and then I again lose him, the music comes back to normal speed.

Also, has anybody else ever managed to view the hidden catacombs in Havana from the demo/beta? There was a cool video of it up, but now that video has been taken down. It was a video by prototypedriver.
#55452
I think those catacombs were taken out, but existed in the beta version. I never knew that existed, so I honestly have no knowledge towards it. For the music "speeding up" It does sound like the framerate is just jumping about. If what you mean is "The music switches to police pursuit music while not wanted" then that's simply a glitch.
On a side note, it's possible to balance vehicles on their faces and rears.
Here's a few old photos I took back in 2010. I've never managed to pull this off again and don't even remember how I did it.
[youtube]
[/youtube]
-They're located at 5:51.
#55453
driverretro wrote:In TAR mode, sometimes after a cop chases me and I lose him, the regular music returns, but is kind of sped up. After getting another cop to chase me and then I again lose him, the music comes back to normal speed.
The music is generated on the fly, so it's some kind of screw up.
#55455
Thanks, it's about time someone said something about that dam balance. :mrgreen: And it happens to be with the 2nd most thin and long vehicle in the game. Wow, lol. (3rd, counting the Rio limo)
By driverretro
Registration Days Posts Posts
#55456
I once had a disc read issue which caused the game to freeze and one of the car revving sound effects continuously played at a really fast loop, making it sound like a never-ending belch. This is with the PS2; all sorts of funny/weird audio issues occur when I try to play PS1 games on PS2. In the Chase The Train mission (Chicago), when Tobias is supposed to say one of his lines (like "Whoa!" or "Get out of the way!"), the audio glitched up and made a funny uuuUUUUh? sound. I love when stuff like this happens, as long as it isn't permanent.
#55457
My PS2 has never done this, my October 2004 model, or April 2011 Model. Which model do you have? Perhaps the earliest models have this error. I typically play PS1 games on my actual PS1, to get the true experience.
By driverretro
Registration Days Posts Posts
#55458
I'm guessing mine is the October 2004 model; I got it for Christmas of 2004 and it's the Slim PS2. I think there are even sub-variations and how well each one reads different discs; this kind of stuff is usually the interest/passion of hardcore Sony system collectors. But for the average guy, it's just random variations. Not a huge cause for concern, but it's amusing when slight incompatibilities cause funny effects :)
#55459
driverretro wrote:In the Chase The Train mission (Chicago), when Tobias is supposed to say one of his lines (like "Whoa!" or "Get out of the way!"), the audio glitched up and made a funny uuuUUUUh? sound. I love when stuff like this happens, as long as it isn't permanent.
Occurs on my fat PS2, too. Fine on PS1.
By driverretro
Registration Days Posts Posts
#55460
Here are some remarks about missions, other stuff:

HiJACK THE TRUCK:
-God, I hate my memory on this, but this is a really funny glitch. I forget which to do exactly, but try both ways. Either lose/destroy the escort car behind you first and then stop the truck... or stop the truck and get rid of the escort that is chasing you. After doing so, instead of getting into the truck, drive away from it. You'll notice that you don't fail the mission for "losing" the truck, but instead, after driving for a bit, the city stops appearing in front of you and there'll be a complete void ahead! You can either fall in and fail, or go back to get into the truck.
-Also about this mission, it CANNOT be beaten if immunity is activated. When you get into the truck, you'll notice that the black guiding shade does not appear on the map, there is no shining goal and the time limit is strangely short. It is possible to reach the garage, but the mission simply cannot be beaten.

STEAL THE AMBULANCE:
-Similar to Hijack the Truck, if you drive away after doing one of the conditions, the same glitch occurs.
-Same as above, this mission cannot be beaten with Immunity activated.

CHASE THE GUNMAN:
-Times 2:08, 2:09 and 2:14 are the best/easiest times to beat the mission. In these ones, the gunman tends to slow down a lot and just overall driver a lot slower than other time limits. Most of the low 1 minute limits are a complete waste of time; if you get them, just restart the mission, don't bother.
-The claim that the yellow car is faster is a MYTH. I put it to the test numerous times to verify and I'm confident about it: there is NO difference in your chances of beating the mission between the red or yellow cars. If you're familiar with the game's physics/engine, you'd know that these chase missions operate on a similar system to the cops' rubber-band AI. So no matter what car you take, the gunman will always be faster than you by the same amount. Those people who believe that the yellow car is better, they probably got that assumption and belief because they just happened to beat the mission with that car. Maybe they used the yellow car in one of the 2:XX time limits, which further added to the misconception. The handling may be a bit better, but it barely makes a difference.
-The gunman's car is COMPLETELY immune to ramming (without glitching and/or cheating, of course); it has freight train/infinite mass. So absolutely no hit from your vehicle, no matter how fast, will affect its course. Many guides have incorrect information on this. Yergin's guide (which he is so proud of and acts like it's free of incorrect information) as well.

THE FINAL MISSION (IS IT LENNY ESCAPING?):
-The trick to beating this mission easier, without losing due to the chasing Brazilians, is to always have 2 of them on your tail throughout the chase. If you lose the Brazilians too early, more will spawn going against your direction and there's a good chance they'll collide into you.

Other random noteworthy stuff:

-In Las Vegas TAR, get to the house by the lake from the Car Bomb Mission. You can ring the doorbell on this. I remember vaguely that there are a few other doors that have a doorbell sound, but don't know which specifically. Additionally, when you get there, don't ring the doorbell; open the garage door and there will likely be some people sitting in the chairs (under an umbrella... INDOORS, lol). You can actually sit on the empty chair, go into first-person view and look at the creepy, lifeless face of the pedestrian across from you, who's doing nothing. Then press the garage door button multiple times, making it open and close repeatedly. The sound will glitch up and the garage sound will play nonstop until you (I think) drive away; or maybe by turning the sound to 0, then bringing it back up.

-Also in Vegas, notice the small suburbs section at the north-most part of the map? (not Ghost Town) Well, the highway leading to it has a chain-linked fence that stretches along the way. If you start from the start of the chain link fence and drive to that suburbs, all the buildings will be missing; same with the borders of the map; and the frame rate will chug down big time. You can go out of the map bounds and the game will freeze after a bit.

On a side note, does anybody have contact with GamerSin besides on this forum and youtube? He has not been on this forum in over a month, same with his youtube account.
#55481
By the way, what's the maximum vehicle limit to be rendered? Does it very throughout each city? Also, it seems like Vegas has the most framerate issues. While playing survival mode, I was mashed out of the map, and was able to look at all of the cars. I noticed there was more then usual, I actually counted 16 cars including mine. 14 of the vehicles were police cars, (A road block of police cars + a few active cops), one traffic car and me. The police cars take up 250 polygons, each car has almost that much. So, (Vegas Police car) 250 x 14 = 3500, my car has 236 polygons, and the Challenger on the freeway has 248. So. 3500 + 236 + 248 + 2100 (2100 is the amount of polygons I ripped off of Chicago running in real time with no vehicles) = 6048. We aren't done. We still need to add tires. So, one tire consists of 12 faces, so 4 tires = 48 polygons. 48 x 16 = 768. 6816 polygons. Woh, So the game DOES exceed the 6000 polygon limit to run smoothly on a PS1, So this means, the game can run, runs at at times, and will go higher then the ACTUAL polygon count of 6816. Did I just discover what causes D2 to have massive performance issues? Well, here's proof of that many vehicles :
[youtube]
[/youtube]
Hey, there most likely is a memory leak with this game, it does hold around 20- fps during scenes of 3000 polygons. But, actually finding out it DOES exceed 6000 polygons by a mile, is a HUGE discovery. Especially on such a simple console, it WILL have a much bigger impact.
I forgot shadows. 2 x 16 = 32 + 6816+ 2 = 6818 (Hubcap that fell off). This game SHOVES the PS1 far over it's limit. Wow!
I should make a professional video about this. I just now noticed and thought, and made it here. I just remembered, the hubcap has it's own shadow. Dam, this pushes 2 MORE polygons! 6820 Polygons. Holy f*"k
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By SOAP
Registration Days Posts Posts Posts Avatar
#55482
DaRkProDucTioNs00 wrote:This game SHOVES the PS1 far over it's limit. Wow!
I should make a professional video about this. I just now noticed and thought, and made it here. I just remembered, the hubcap has it's own shadow. Dam, this pushes 2 MORE polygons! 6820 Polygons. Holy f*"k
As you can see, rendering the cars and processing physics for them is quite expensive. Driver 2 cars have more polygons than civilian cars in Driver 1. Also much better (than Driver 1 or Driver 2 Demo, and may be more expensive) is triangle Z-sorting algorithm were used for to render polygons in correct order. Viewing distance were been slightly decreased consequently. Also to fill world with more misc objects regions (or sectors) sizes were are reduced, increasing the number of times of access to CD.

Physics for vehicles: collisions were been improved in Driver 2 (you could see with the naked eye how position of car is corrected in Driver 1, and Driver 2 demo has bugs). Generally collision detection includes AABB+OBBvsOBB, testing many heightfield triangles (?) using OBB and 4 line tests for wheels (Driver 1 seems to be used rays that simpler, as proof - the car quickly goes up if you under heightfield), and few more lines for shadows. Also you could see that empty/AI undamaged cars (excepting cops) doesn't collide walls and ground as a way of optimization, but only wheels.

All that I said is very IMO, All these conclusions I made while watching how it works)
#55485
SOAP wrote:
DaRkProDucTioNs00 wrote:This game SHOVES the PS1 far over it's limit. Wow!
I should make a professional video about this. I just now noticed and thought, and made it here. I just remembered, the hubcap has it's own shadow. Dam, this pushes 2 MORE polygons! 6820 Polygons. Holy f*"k
As you can see, rendering the cars and processing physics for them is quite expensive. Driver 2 cars have more polygons than civilian cars in Driver 1. Also much better (than Driver 1 or Driver 2 Demo, and may be more expensive) is triangle Z-sorting algorithm were used for to render polygons in correct order. Viewing distance were been slightly decreased consequently. Also to fill world with more misc objects regions (or sectors) sizes were are reduced, increasing the number of times of access to CD.

Physics for vehicles: collisions were been improved in Driver 2 (you could see with the naked eye how position of car is corrected in Driver 1, and Driver 2 demo has bugs). Generally collision detection includes AABB+OBBvsOBB, testing many heightfield triangles (?) using OBB and 4 line tests for wheels (Driver 1 seems to be used rays that simpler, as proof - the car quickly goes up if you under heightfield), and few more lines for shadows. Also you could see that empty/AI undamaged cars (excepting cops) doesn't collide walls and ground as a way of optimization, but only wheels.

All that I said is very IMO, All these conclusions I made while watching how it works)
Far from "IMO", those are facts. (Y)
Also, I just recently noticed the Las Vegas night vehicles file has a different hubcapless wheel texture.
#55486
SOAP wrote:
All that I said is very IMO, All these conclusions I made while watching how it works)
Even know that was based off of observations and guessing, that was actually pretty dead on. I wonder what the collision bounds look like.. I notice cars can land on surprising angles (like the police car has a somewhat smooth front, the edges of it being closer to the tires) and it is able to collide with that. Either really accurate low polygon collision bounds, or the entire body is counted as collision bounds.
PostalDude wrote: Also, I just recently noticed the Las Vegas night vehicles file has a different hubcapless wheel texture.
I never noticed that. Interesting find :o
Last edited by VAIMAHDO on Sat Aug 30, 2014 3:46 am, edited 2 times in total.
#55488
I never knew Havana's hubcapless wheel texture used to be different. (Y) On a side note, Vegas has the most poor collision detection and positioning out of all three cities. More often then any city, (on survival) I'm mashed through random buildings at ground level, am able to go inside of them at the second floor of buildings, and a lot of walls and things have poor collision detection and or collision bounds. When I get mashed out of the map (not very often) in Chicago, 99% of the time I am able to collide with the ground. While in Vegas, 5% of the time I am able to collide with the ground, I usually end up falling through it and dying.
Crazy Copper Frenzy

https://youtu.be/xAE3QsULyB4

https://youtu.be/AxdGf3F0yIg

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