How To Fix Moto Racer 1 (A Complete TroubleShooting Guide)

It sucks that users on steam have to deal with this poor excuse for a port. But, it doesn't have to be this way...

Oh Nose! This Game is Broken!

The Original MotoRacer was a stellar game in the 90s heralded for it's arcade style racing, high framerate, and mesmirising graphics. They were so ahead of their time, the game was often demoed in tech stores!

Unfortunately, this poor excuse for a port doesn't do this classic racing game justice.

Today, I decided to assemble a guide of my findings on how to give everyone the difinitive edition of Moto Racer 1, running in 60 fps, at 1080p. But first, let's list the problems that will be resolved in this guide...

• The Main Menu's Background is Scrolling at HyperSpeed due to the 700+ FPS
  
• The Load Times are Longer Than they Should Be
  
• This Game isn't in 60 FPS Glory, it's locked at 30 FPS in-game
  
• Random, Spuratic Stuttering (Not Connected to the Framerate)
  
• The Poorest Resolution, only 240p and 360p
  
• The Lack of Options is Ridiculous

To Those of You who don't understand, here's some pictures of the game below, with the framerate in the top left of the screen.

The Standard .exe is Trash, Time to Get a New One

The main reason as to the poor performance of this game is the publisher's hastily made fix for the game. The picture below shows the configuration file and .exe for the steam versions of this game, located scenically in the installation folder.
The .exe is programmed to fix the missing textures and poor translation to Directx. That's why there's three .exes in the installation folder for the original MotoRacer. One is the original game, the other is the D3D version of the game with all the extra maps, and the final .exe pointed to in the picture above is what fixes the game in the unplayable state it's in now.

Now, enough rambling. It's time to inform you all how to fix the majority of these problems, and make the game playable at a stable framerate, with better load times, and a slew of new options to use on computers.

• First, you must locate the steam installation folder. The easiest way is to right click on Moto Racer Collection in your steam library, click Properties in the mouse menu, navigate to the Local Files tab, and click Browse Local Files. Your File Explorer will open up, and display the Moto Racer Collection installation folder. Ignoring the rest of the files and folders, there is a folder titled MotoRacer, enter, or double click, this folder. You've now located, and are inside of, the installation directory for the original MotoRacer. Keep this window open, as you'll need it for the next step.
  
• Next, you must download this zip folder from my onedrive.[1drv.ms] In it, is the two fixed .exes, a .dll file titled winmm.dll a configuration file for the GOG.com version of MotoRacer, a much more stable release of the game. Save the file when prompted to, and extract the files by right clicking the zip folder, and selecting Extract All in the mouse menu. Click Extract to place the newly downloaded files into a folder next to your download. Here's what each file does...
  
  • MotoRacer.exe is the GOG.com version of the Moto Racer launcher, it supplies a much more comprehensive amount of options to use to optimize the playing experience, especially in the manual section.
    
  • winmm.dll is, from what I can tell, is a compatibility troubleshooter. Opening the file in Notepad+, it has several error messages related to the software's compatibility with Windows as a whole. Although i've personally found sucess in this fix without using this .dll on Windows 10, others have reported it as vital to their computer's ability to run the game. So, it is included for all to use.
    
  • game.exe is a fixed version of the steam moto.exe supplied in the GOG.com download. The .exe contains a full fix for the "Illegal Version" error on Dirt Arena during Championship mode.
    
  • motoracer.ini is a configuration file that MotoRacer.exe cannot function properly without as it is where the settings for the launcher is saved. This file also contains the default GOG.com options provided with the download.
• Copy and Paste, or drag and drop, the newly extracted files into the MotoRacer installation folder. Replace the files when Windows asks you what to do with the files of the same name.
  
• Congratulations! You've upgraded your MotoRacer game! Launching the game now will prompt you with a new launcher, as shown below!

This upgraded configuration file, in correlation with the new .exe, should fix alot of problems, but there are still some minor problems here and there to resolve for specific computers. If the game is running too slow, uncheck No Alpha Bending. Uncheck DirectX 3D as well since it causes a error prompt of "Not enough video memory for D3D" in game. =====>


<=====If you click on Manual Settings you will be presented with a text bar, and several phrases seperated by a space and a hyphen. These are Advanced settings, and all the potential options available can be seen by clicking Help directly below it. I have encountered the game not going into fullscreen mode bofore, so for the image below, i've added the "-FullScreen" option to my list amongst the other options. Other options i've included that may help you I included are...

• -Pal16 = Downgrades colors to 16 bit color palettes (gives more VRAM)
  
• -OnlyPrimaryDisplay = Fixes Multi-Monitor issues
  
• -Fullscreen = Forces game to run in fullscreen
  
• -ZBuffer = Use Hardware Z-Buffer to make 3D model polygons less jittery and more solid. In other words, prevents PSX style Z-Fighting on certain systems.
  
• -DoRealLock = Forces DirectDraw Lock. Prevents the game from running until all polygons have their position confirmed. Also prevents PSX style Z-Fighting on certain systems.
  
• -OpaqueBlackLevel3 = Fixes transparency bugs in fonts (levels 1-3 possible)
  
• -TextureSquareOnly = Forces all textures to be square shaped, even transparent particles
  
• -CorrectRatioTextures = Supposedly fixes certain font problems
  
• -NoDither = Replaces certain dithered transparent textures with solid ones (most apparent on dirt puffs coming from bike tires)
  
• -TextureVideoMem268435456 = Use if you encounter a "Not enough video memory for D3D" error. Forces max possible VRAM for game.

Where's the Resolution Options? Why are there Missing Textures?

Yes, the broken .exe fixes the missing textures at the drastic cost of stability. I do, though, have a very powerful fix. DgVooDoo is an open source software designed to emulate the graphics cards orf yore. In doing this, it can not only fix missing textures and broken models, but it can also upscale games to monitor native resolutions, as well as provide v-sync and other technical fixes. Without this fix, your game will perform well, but it will look like this pretty frequently.

Here's how to install it...

• First, you must download the software from this official link.[github.com] Use the most recent release at the top of the page. It should be titled dgVoodoo<some_version_number>.zip. Ignore the one with "dbg" at the end.
  
• Inside the newly extracted folder are some folders (MS, 3Dfx, and doc), a dgVooDooSetup.exe, and some HTML documents. Remember how to get to the installation folder from the last section? Go to the Properties of Moto Racer Collection in steam, and navigate to the Browse Local Files in the Local Files tab, then, enter the folder titled MotoRacer, just in case you forgot.
  
• Copy the dgVooDooSetup.exe as well as the contents of the folder x86 within the folder MS (specifically the files D3D8.dll, D3D9.dll, D3Dlmm.dll, and DDraw.dll) and place them into the MotoRacer installation folder.
  
• More than likely, you installed the MotoRacer game into your Program Files directory. This means that dgVooDoo can't create the new files it needs to run without administrator privileges. To enable this, right click on the dgVoodooSetup.exe, click on Properties in the mouse menu, go to the Compatability tab, and check the box labeled "Run this program as an administrator". This enables the .exe to save any changes to it's settings we make.
  
• Now, it's time to configure Moto Racer. Launch the dgVoodooSetup.exe, and a window will appear. You must now set where the configuration file for dgVoodoo is going to be saved to. If you don't there's the rare chance the settings won't be applied to the Moto Racer game. All you have to do is click the ".\" next to the save location near the top. Here's a picture with the location circled to the right. ===>
  
• Now that the config file has a location inside the MotoRacer installation folder for the settings to be stored, it's time to configure the proper settings the game needs to run in. Ignore the Glide tab, as that's for 3dfx games, which MotoRacer is not. These DirectX settings can vary between computers, but I strongly recommend the following specific settings. If you want to set sidebars or emulate scanlines, go to the Appearance section of General, and set the game to windowed. In the dropdown menu set it to either of the bottom two options respectively (CRT for the scanlines).
  
• Select Go to the DirectX tab, here is where the fun stuff is. I strongly recommend setting the Videocard to ATI Radeon 8500, or else the game will present errors to you at the beginning to each race. Set the resolution to "Max" or "Max ISF". If you didn't wanty side bars in the last step, the game will render in widescreen at the resolution you selected.
  
• Alongside these settings in the DirectX tab are V-Sync and AntiAliasing, removing jagged edges and pixelated textures from the game respectively. These settings do cost system resources though, but most computers should support their max settings fine.
  
• The game will boot up with a watermark advertising the software if you don't uncheck the box at the bottom titled dgVoodoo Watermark. So, uncheck it to remove that annoyance.
  
• Apply any and all changes you make before exiting the window to launch your very much improved game.

The program will intercept your program everytime it launches without running in the background. So you don't have to have a startup program like DxWND would need! Just launch the game like normal, and the difference will be quite clear. If you think that the program isn't working, enable the watermark and see if it's at the bottom right of the screen.

Do you want to see the settings I use for my dgVoodoo client? Here they are below if you need a reference! Click them if you they're too small to read! Some settings I recommend, but aren't required, are below as well!

• It would be best to use your computer's native resolution for the upscaling. As you can see in the right side picture below, i've set mine to "1920x1080." In order to check your computer's native resolution, go to your desktop=>Right Click your Wallpaper=>Display Settings=>Advanced Display Settings=>The numbers under "Resolution". If you have troubles with framerate, you can decrease this to your liking.
  
• Anti Aliasing is the longer version of MSAA, and blurs textures so they look less pixelated, without sacrificing detail, while smoothing jagged edges. I've set that to "8x," also known as the max.
  
• Check "Force V-Sync" if your computer can support it, as it makes the framerate more fluid on most monitors.
  
• Most of the other options I checked below were for personal taste. Tinker with it.

It's working! But The Picture is Stretched...

Not to worry! While some, including myself, prefer the widescreen, others may prefer something more akin to the original resolution so that the menu and game characters aren't stretched. Here's how to do it:

• Open dgVooDoo in Administrator mode.
  
• Next to the "Windowed" selection in the "Appearance" section, click the drop down menu and select either 3 of the choices "Stretched, Keep Aspect Ratio", "Stretched, 4:3 Aspect Ratio", or "Stretched, 4:3 Aspect Ratio, CRT-Like". The last option is for those who want emulated CRT scan lines on their game.
  
• Click the ".\" at the top right of the windfow in your dgVooDoo application to confirm the settings are applied to the correct executable, click apply, and close the window. Your game will now launch with side bars!

Troubleshooting: Make it Double

The GOG version of the MotoRacer.exe might be superior in every way, but it's not as perfect as a actual fix for the game. This section will make an attempt to fix the various issues found in this fix.

Error: 'Audio CD player cannot be used'

Sometimes, you might be greeted to this error above. The original physical release of the game had a DRM check, making sure that the game's disc was in it's drive. Removing this function for the DRM-Free GOG release is impossible, as the function was harcoded into the game. MotoRacer has all of it's audio files installed on the CD, so the game won't run properly without it. Removing the feature entirely bricks the game, preventing it from running properly. Instead, I theorize, the developers found a workaround. I think the game checks for a drive still, but it will verify no matter what it contains. This has led to headaches for users trying to play the game on computers without CD-Drives installed.

Luckily, there's a workaround for this. Daemon Tools Lite is a software that emulates a CD-Drive for computers without one. The program is intended to allow you to run ISO files ripped from discs, without the need to have the actual disc, but for this tutorial's sake, we'll just be needing the virtual CD-Drive to exist.

• First, you have to download the software here.[www.daemon-tools.cc] Be careful, and make sure to get the "free with ads" version to avoid paying for the software.
  
• Run the installation program once it's downloaded, be careful on this to, making sure to click "free Licence with Ads" when downloading through the installer and checking the installation options. Make sure to also uncheck installing the Yahoo Toolbar, it's bloatware.
  
• Once the installation is complete, you might here a system sound play. Check "My Computer." You will now see a virtualized CD-Drive in the menu like the one in the image above, next to the header.
  
• Click finish on the installation window, and you should be set to go. The CD-Check, in theory, will now work properly. Hallelujah!

There's a Low Framerate Still

You can manually set the framerate in the GOG.com launcher for the game. To do this, launch Moto Racer with the fixed .exe, tick "Manual Settings" and add -FrameRateMax0 at the end of the command line. Make sure to separate it with a space, so that the end of the text field looks like the image to the left.

Potential issues with Supersampling (DSR - Factors) feature on high-end GeForce cards

In late January, NVIDIA introduced in tis drivers the Supersampling option. It essentially renders the game in up to quadruple resolution, and scales it back down to your actual resolution. This is a specific anti-aliasing method, rarely implemented in games. It is enabled by default on GTX 980 cards, and optional on others. It has been known to cause launch issues with older games, as it forces them to use an unsupported resolution.

• To disable this option, right-click your desktop and select "NVIDIA Control Panel".
  
• Go to "3D Settings" and find the "DSR - Factors" option.
  
• Un-select all possible settings in the drop down menu and confirm. This should change the setting to "Off".
  
• Apply the changes and check if this resolved the issue.

I have a picture of the control panel on my computer for those who need something more visual to the right.

Potential issues with Virtual Super Resolution feature on high-end AMD (ATI) cards

If you own a high-end AMD card with the latest drivers, and are experiencing with some games - especially older ones - please try disabling AMD Virtual Super Resolution:

• Open AMD Catalyst Control Center,
  
• Go to Preferences to switch to Advanced Mode, if it's not already enabled,
  
• Open the 'My Digital Flat Panels' page,
  
• If 'Enable virtual super resolution' is enabled, please disable it.
  
• Click Apply to save settings.

Here is a picture of the window I pulled from this article online[badrush.com] the the right.

The game still isn't booting up at all.

A user by the name Walmart Whale left a comment on how to fix this problem. Some windows computers have certain legacy components, or programs that are used to run older programs, disabled by default. The one that directly effects Moto Racer is Direct Play. In order to renable Direct Play...

• Press the Start button with the windows icon in it. It's usually at the bottom left of the screen.
  
  
  
• Type Programs and Features. Click the top result. The window looks like the one to the right for Windows 10 users.
  
• Click Turn Windows Features on and off in the left hand column. It's been circled in the image to the right. You will need Administrator privileges to do this.
  
  
  
• Scroll down to Legacy Components once the window loads, and expand it by clicking the plus icon to the left of the folder icon.
  
• Put a tick in the box to the left of the icon of the folder titled Directplay from the now expanded folder. If it is already checked, then Directplay support is not the reason the game isn't launching.
  
• Click the OK button at the bottom of the window.

You can also try reinstalling Directx to see if that fixes the problem as well. While Directx is pre-installed on most Windows systems, and steam is supposed to install it during setup as well, sometimes the installation can get corrupted. In order to fix this, an installer is in the game files for your convienence. Here's how to access it.

• The easiest way is to right click on Moto Racer Collection in your steam library, click Properties in the mouse menu, navigate to the Local Files tab, and click Browse Local Files.
  
• The file explorer will open to your installation folder. Enter the folder titled _Commonredist, then the folder titled DirectX, and then the folder Jun2010.
  
• This folder will contain several files, all you need to do is find the file titled DXSETUP.exe. You can use the search bar near the top right of the window to help find it.
  
• Launch the installation program, and follow the onscreen steps.

Error: "16 bit screen mode required !"

This can happen for several different reasons. The most common forms of this error happening are that the wrong executable was launched (specificaly, game.exe instead of MotoRacer.exe) or if you attempted to use the original physical copy of the game. Make sure that you followed the guide above to a tea before going any further though.

If you have, a user by the name Proto says that the following steps fixed the problem in dgVoodoo

• Launch dgVooDoo in administrator mode like above and go to the "General" tab.
  
• Within the "Appearance" box, select "Windowed"m instead of "Fullscreen".
  
• Navigate to the DirectX tab within the application. Within the "Behavior" box, uncheck both "Application controlled fullscreen/windowed state" and "Disable Alt-Enter to toggle Screen State".
  
• Make sure to reassign the directory by clicking the "./" at the top right before clicking "Apply" to save.

You will have to press Alt + Enter on your keyboard after launching the game to go fullscreen. Please leave a comment if you find a way to remove this inconvienece. It's better than the game not launching at all

Congratulations! You're done!

Yay! If everything works out, you can now play the game with amazing HD visuals! dgVoodoo also works with Moto Racer 2 and 3, so experiment with it and create your own fixes! As proof of my findings, I have included some screenshots of Moto Racer running with the fixes outlined.


As another bonus, I have a custom tile for the Library Grid icons enclosed to the right as well. It's more heavily inspired from the styling of the first two games so you get those nostalgia feels in the heart. If you'd like to use this, here it is. Right click it, save it, right click the game, select Set Custom Image... in the mouse menu, and find the image you downloaded.

You can find mine and others here (please leave a like if you liked any): https://www.steamgriddb.com/game/5502

Here's a video of the changes in action with the sidebars added. Courtesy of user Proto who found the guide helpful, and posted a forum topic on GOG.com for me forwarding some users here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGXECG1YNcA

I hope you've all benefitted from the tedius, in depth guide I typed. If you like this guide, check out my other guide on the game Incoming that came alongside my physical copy of Moto Racer as a kid!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=809292289

Thanks to the user Proto for helping to fix the 16-bit screen error I could never recreate!

To-Do

This guide is always an "in-Progress guide". I have been always checking the comments for this and have answered and solved as many questions as I can, but i'm not perfect, and neither is this solution. Here are some To-Do items that have yet to be solved.

• Textures can load incorrectly underneath the player in dirt bike races. This can range between the puffs of dust appearing as grey boxes or the texture on the ground below the back tire simply becoming invisible at random intervals.
  
• HUD elements can be distorted and slightly corrupted. They're usable, but definitely don't look like they do on real hardware or game consoles. It's possible it's the GPU dgVooDoo is emulating (the game Incoming had that issue with anything but AMD cards for it's HUD and graphics at the time). It could also be just a really uncommon HUD rendering method that works poorly on modern computers. In that case, it might need some more tinkering. I'm interested in seeing how the boot texture commands might effect the look. Here's a list of the known ones I have yet to pour through. https://www.gog.com/forum/moto_racer_series/moto_racer_tweaks
  
• I'm looking to track down an uncompressed source and citation for the boxart photo and could use some help with leads. I was able to determine that it is...
  
  • An edited photo of Mick Doohan riding a Rothmans Honda NSR500 in 1991 (The only year he had the number 3 according to Wikipedia)
    
  • The specific Grand Prix is unknown but the Australian Grand Prix and Le Mans Grand Prix seem to have the most photos online.
    
  • The photo had its metadata stripped and a watermark added. The other photos online appear to be cropped versions of this to remove the watermark.
    
  • An older version is also online watermarking the same website at the bottom left instead of the top. There are no other differences otherwise.
    
  • Here is a link to it's source based on the watermark, which I believe is still working at the time of writing.[www.daidegasforum.com]
  Please reach out if you know anything that can help the search!

If you find a solution to any of the ever evolving list of problems above, please don't hesitate to comment below. I've added user's names to the thank you section above who have fixed evident problems users have approached me for.

[taronishghomavazir]

today moto racer got an update now all 4 are not working in steam deck

[legluondunet]

I already used cnc-draw to run old games. For cdtracks emulation you will need winmm dll. On Linux/Wine, if you use winmm don't forget to override the dll in wineconfig libraries tab, native, builtin. But cnc-draw does not help with direct3D games.

[Con-Rez]

@legluondunet, @taronishghomavazir, @Captain Nathaniel J. Claw Sorry for the delay, College and life have been a pain. Your comments have been helpful however!

Lutris may be the best way forward currently unfortunately from the looks of it. I'll add a section with the steps, but I would like to find something without yet another launcher.

ddrawCompat got an update that fixed the poor performance in MotoRacer so i'll likely switch the guide over to that, but it isn't working yet in Linux even with Proton to my knowledge.

cnc-ddraw works with the proper dll overwrite launch command, but it requires setting the winecfg default to add a CD Drive if you don't have one. This can be somewhat easily done using Protontricks, although i'm still not getting any music even after this fix for some reason? Unsure if its just me encountering this though.

dgVoodoo doesn't seem to work at the moment either from a by hand installation. I'll look at the lutris solution for that eventually.

[legluondunet]

@taronishghomavazir buy MR1 ont GOG, it's today in sale at only 0,59 € . Then install Lutris on your Steamdeck and install MR1 from this page: https://lutris.net/games/moto-racer/ , choose "GOG + dgVoodoo2 version" script installer.

[legluondunet]

@captain NJC: "Is it Steam's launch parameters for Moto Racer that get modified" --> yes
Tell me, could you host a multiplayer party with Steam version? It is not possible with GOG version, with GOG version you can join multiplayer party, but not host one. The CD version + patch 3.22 can host and join multiplayer party. What about MR1 Steam version?

[Captain Nathaniel J. Claw]

P3

Of note, do not follow the instructions listed from either of the newest Lutris ProtonDB posts as they either don't work or entirely break DInput support lol. I would still prefer having it run through Steam Proton instead so it doesn't take up another 1.8GB just to run one game but hey at least it's finally working in all its PC glory!

P.S. let me know if you need more info and screenshots for the Lutris process to update the guide with, I will happily provide them :)

[Captain Nathaniel J. Claw]

P2

One huge thing I should mention though is that saving does not seem to work at all. It will always load the default "DSI" name and default settings no matter what, though for some reason the Time Attack scores do save? As a brute-force workaround I copied my save from my PC which worked but would still show the "DSI" name and didn't have the controls configured correctly, therefore I set everything as it would be for my Deck on my PC ahead of time (thankfully I have a DInput controller so I could assign the buttons on PC as well) then copy the entire 'data' folder over to the Deck. This worked 100% but afaik still won't save any more changes from here.

[Captain Nathaniel J. Claw]

@Con-Rez Looking at the two latest ProtonDB posts ( https://www.protondb.com/app/324110 ) I finally decided to bite the bullet and try it out with the Lutris flatpak from the Discover store and lo-and-behold it actually works!

It does require either having a specific EUR version of the CD or the GOG installer file (which I do have) but there's thankfully two automated install scripts that appear when you search for the game in the installer wizard. By default it installs dgVoodoo2 but still needs to be manually enabled from the 'Runner Options' when configuring the game, as well as adding the `-FrameRateMax60` command to the game's options (even though there's already a command enabled elsewhere that should force it, it was still outputting 30FPS without manually adding the command anyways).

P1

[Captain Nathaniel J. Claw]

@legluondunet Is it Steam's launch parameters for Moto Racer that get modified or for the dgVoodoo.exe?

[Captain Nathaniel J. Claw]

@Con-Rez Finally got a chance to try getting it working again with the custom Proton post you mentioned but still no luck getting past the 16-bit error, even with the newly added info from @legluondunet.

I will note that I'm using ProtonUp-Qt and not the specific "Proton-GE-Custom" from the flatpak install, as running `flatpak install com.valvesoftware.Steam.CompatibilityTool.Proton-GE` gives a prompt to either install for the system or user (which makes me a bit wary of installing it to begin with in case it breaks something) and then upon choosing either it has a message saying it's EoL and they recommend ProtonUp-Qt instead ( https://ibb.co/xSCxNvf ).