Rallisport Challenge 2

Does anyone here know about this game? Probably a long shot but I'll ask anyway.

There are two co-driver voices, one British, one American. Apparently the voice you get depends on either the region version of the game you use, and/or the region you are playing from. Basically I prefer the American voice (which I've heard only in youtube gameplay videos) but I can only get the British voice.

I am using a PAL Xbox which is hardware modded and set to NTSC region (also I'm using a component cable) and outputting at 480p.

I have tried:

The original disc of PAL version - British voice
The downloaded US NTSC ISO - British voice
The original disc of US NTSC version which I imported from the USA - British voice

This leads me to conclude that either there is an option somewhere in the game to switch voices (I've looked everywhere and can't find it) or all region versions of the game contain both voices, and they somehow go by the region of your console hardware and automatically select the voice they deem you should have. In which case I am wondering how I can make the game think my Xbox is American, so I can get the American voice. Why do I care? Well the British voice actor is terrible and the American one is a lot better, and it affects my enjoyment of the game.

Thanks in advance if anyone is able to help. Particularly, if anyone has got the American voice in their game, it might be helpful to know what version of the game you have, and your region etc.

NTSC and PAL versions are one in the same, the only difference is the art, it was a multi language multi regional release with different art/text for the box and disc for each region.

You can make the xbox think it is NTSC with http://www.epforums.org/showthread.php?70786

I don't know if the above will do anything though for that game and the voices, but it does help with other issues running certain NTSC games on a PAL system and also enables higher video modes if you use a component cable (720p and 1080i for a select few games and the dash display)

Warning the above will make it so NTSC Originals will only boot (the exception being the multi regional releases), PAL Originals will stop booting, this also depending on the mod, a soft mod does not bypass that, but some mod chips will, that does not effect what runs from HDD, but if you modded the xbox from an original PAL game, make sure you re-patch back to PAL before making any drastic changes (you know in-case something goes wrong), you can always re-do the NTSC patch after though

The above does not change the region of the DVD drive, that may or may not take effect to the voices used

I have Enigmah installed already and it is set to NTSC. Both NTSC and PAL originals work with it set to this mode, without needing to switch back and forth, and PAL originals run at 480p which surprised me originally because obviously PAL Xboxes don't officially output progressive. I realise it's because the console sets the video mode and not the game. Most PAL games support PAL60 so work fine at 60Hz although the PAL version of R Racing has glitches when forced to run at 60fps but the NTSC version works fine, go figure.

Anyway here's what I was referring to, from an old review of the game:

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you might want to turn down the music in this version because you will want to hear your co-driver, whose accent is now region based so you can better understand him.

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http://www.gamespot.com/rallisport-c...ws/2200-28754/

It occurred to me that the game might check what your console's DVD region is set to. So I set it to forced region 1 and confirmed that this takes effect because then region 2 DVDs refuse to play. But the game still has the British co-driver! I can't think of anything else to try and this may be destined to remain a mystery. I would just hate to think there is some easy setting somewhere which would solve this.

60Hz does not mean the game is running at 60fps.

From what I've read both the English and American voices are boring and monotone so I don't really understand why you would want an American voice myself, especially since you obviously have a PAL region console (so I assume you must be in Europe, Australia or maybe New Zealand).
Given a choice most people from NA would prefer NA accents, elsewhere would prefer European.
What you want seems unusual, unless it's a simple case of you having a PAL console and living someplace in Central or South America? :shrug: Your thread has me wondering...but it's just curiosity, no offence intended.

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Originally Posted by deadlegion

60Hz does not mean the game is running at 60fps.

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Yes I know. I wasn't conflating the two.

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From what I've read both the English and American voices are boring and monotone so I don't really understand why you would want an American voice myself, especially since you obviously have a PAL region console (so I assume you must be in Europe, Australia or maybe New Zealand).
Given a choice most people from NA would prefer NA accents, elsewhere would prefer European.
What you want seems unusual, unless it's a simple case of you having a PAL console and living someplace in Central or South America? :shrug: Your thread has me wondering...but it's just curiosity, no offence intended.

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Preference. I am British, living in Britain. Neither voice is that great, but imo the British one is terrible. He sounds like Prince Charles or something, real people don't speak like this. You don't have to agree with my preference but there is no right or wrong preference here. I find it odd that the game SEEMS not to offer the player the option to switch voices, if indeed both are included on the disc regardless of the region.

US accent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OifelZplnjI


British accent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1tdIrheBGY



German

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaNVfzpjbpU



And I even found this - Japanese accent? English language.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eouDIwPDsAk

Well to me German sounds best but I didn't bother listening to the Japanese one.
Both the English ones are horrible. Can you disable the co-driver audio and just have subs instead?

You can turn his volume down to zero but I don't think you can have subtitles - you do get the little arrows though. In some of the racing modes you don't have a co-driver anyway (hill cimb, rally cross), just a little mini map. But for the rallying proper you are meant to be going so fast that you don't have time to look where you're going and read stuff, so you need to listen to your skilful co-driver who hopefully doesn't sound bored and like he wants to be somewhere else :D

By the way, the manual makes no mention of region or language or anything, as far as I can see. And it obviously isn't going by my Xbox live region because Xbox live is no longer working for original Xboxes. I wonder how it does it.

I have not looked at the files for this game myself but if it contains both English UK and English US sound files then try (dumping the UK ones into a new folder) renaming the US ones to the UK names, so both sets of English sound files are the US version not the UK version

Prince whats his face is not a real person, totally fictional :P

The manual wouldn't mention regional stuff as that side is controlled by the console not the game

Yeah a couple of PAL games do struggle with NTSC modes including PAL60 but that is normal as running anything that is only intended to be ran at 50Hz only, will mess up in some form when forced to run at 60Hz (crashing, stutter & sync issues to name a few), not an issue though as you can run at either though 50Hz tends to be interlaced on the xbox, not a big deal if your TV outputs i displays as good as p displays (with component cables), not so good if it does not,saying that though depending on your dash you can force PAL50, XBMC detects the display and keeps settings per game or you can try and manually set the display type, this however does not work for some NTSC game the other way round from PAL mode (Forcing NTSC modes or PAL 60)

I'm pleased to say that I found the solution to this issue, just in case anyone else has the game and wanted to change the co-driver voice.

It seems that the game reads the video region from the EEPROM to determine which voice to use. I used the Config Magic app and saw that my Video & XBE region was set to NTSC, Region 4. I changed the 4 to a 1, rewrote the EEPROM and then the co-driver's voice was American rather than British - even when using the PAL disc.

(Obviously, don't think about altering your EEPROM unless you know what you are doing.)

Seems odd to me that it was set to Region 4...which is Australia, New Zealand etc.
Britain is Region 2.

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Originally Posted by deadlegion

Seems odd to me that it was set to Region 4...which is Australia, New Zealand etc.
Britain is Region 2.

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Britain is PAL as well. I don't know why mine was set to this odd combination.

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Originally Posted by dirtydog413

Britain is PAL as well. I don't know why mine was set to this odd combination.

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Yes I'm aware of other PAL countries, I've imported plenty of games from the UK plus I have family in Ireland.
I mean the region code was not Europe at all, but it was a PAL code. That seems odd to me.

Yes I was agreeing with you, it is odd on both counts. I mean from a DVD point of view you'd never set it to NTSC yet a PAL region (2/4) presumably - because it's contradictory.

Anyway as it's a modded Xbox I bought used, it's just what a previous owner had set it as, I expect.

I'm happy to have found the answer to this obscure issue which I first encountered over 10 years ago when I originally bought the game and played it on an unmodded Xbox.

I think Japan is also Region 2, but NTSC obviously.

Yeah I wouldn't have thought of the eeprom myself, good job.

There is one US game I know the DVD region number effects and prevents other regional DVD numbers from playing the game at all (I forget the exact one but it was an american football game, not much of a clue as there are tons on the xbox :P, though that game did get a PAL release also it seems)

The DVD region is mostly used for DVD Vids though so still strange for it to effect any game, maybe it causes issues for some of the Jap games also

As it happens I can't seem to mod my DVD region, never got that to work on my brick, changing files round should also work though, unless they protected against that, but can't see it