Best hockey game ever?

SHAR said:
https://www.old-games.ru/game/download/10879.html

or

https://archive.org/details/Nova_NHL2004USA

Chek this link.
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thank you but i already knew about those disc versions. to install them you need additional mounting software which is nowdays full of malware.

what i meant is if you have some clean (without any mod) repack or already preinstalled version (with both cd's merged into installation). but i guess you don't have it since i already searched all the internet.
 
MadbaLL said:
thank you but i already knew about those disc versions. to install them you need additional mounting software which is nowdays full of malware.
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Lol. Like the guy above said, win10 and win11 have mounting features. For other image types, there is always Virtual CloneDrive which definitely has no malware since forever.

You're probably thinking about DaemonTools which has gone the wrong route for a long time now.
 
SHAR said:
Hello everyone! Hockey is a rather rare topic on EvoWeb. Since hockey is quite interesting to me, I'll express my opinion on the best hockey game on PC. NHL 2004 is still the best! Although, it's undeniable that there are very few hockey games on PC. NHL 2004 is something like a hockey equivalent of PES6. NHL 2004 has good gameplay and a fan base capable of creating high-quality modifications.

As a bonus to this post, I suggest you check out the interface for the original NHL 2004 season. It's based on the ESPN interface. I created this adaptation a couple of years ago for myself. I'd be happy to share it with you. Also, give NHL 2004 a try if you haven't played it yet.

https://zippyshare.day/tmIFhclBPmRbZVm/file

1) Install NHL 2004
2) Unzip the files to the game's root folder.
3) Play.
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unfortunately and as i assumed, it doesn't work for me on latest version of win 11.

interface cannot start in full screen mode, i get scrpit errors when choosing teams.

in my case game only works with nhl 2004 rebulit versions of interface and vod's launcher.
 
MadbaLL said:
unfortunately and as i assumed, it doesn't work for me on latest version of win 11.

interface cannot start in full screen mode, i get scrpit errors when choosing teams.

in my case game only works with nhl 2004 rebulit versions of interface and vod's launcher
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Your antivirus is likely quarantining some files from the interface pack. Try unpacking the original season's interface onto a clean NHL2004 installation. Then, launch the game with your antivirus disabled. And yes, if you have a launcher, that's a good solution. In any case, if you want to play in widescreen mode, you won't be able to do without one.
 
Started off my collection with this, I remember 2k being miles ahead of EA when it came to hockey games back when
IMG_20260326_130829.jpg
 
MadbaLL said:
thank you but i already knew about those disc versions. to install them you need additional mounting software which is nowdays full of malware.
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Out of curiosity, is also WinCDEmu affected by this?
I used to use it back in the day (before Windows would include image mounting support via File Explorer) and always been happy with it.
 
*aLe said:
Out of curiosity, is also WinCDEmu affected by this?
I used to use it back in the day (before Windows would include image mounting support via File Explorer) and always been happy with it.
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i don't know, i used windows mounting tool integrated into file explorer.
 
Is it possible to download nhl 04 with the rebuilt mod already applied? I'd like to try the 94 mod and apparently that is the first step

it would be amazing if there was an installer for this game, even just the base version, the magipacks one has disappeared from the internet
 
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Thanks to the info by @sleevel in the other topic regarding recomp of XBOX 360 games I was able to try this NHL Legacy and damn it's awesome.

With Xenia there were always issues and unexpected freezez of the game. So far this runs as PC native for me.

There are some downsides of course, like I can't select resolution.

But with some sliders this is the best ice hockey game you can play across all platforms. Most realistic and most fun :)

https://github.com/puckhead73/nhl-legacy-recomp
 
Martan said:
Thanks to the info by @sleevel in the other topic regarding recomp of XBOX 360 games I was able to try this NHL Legacy and damn it's awesome.

With Xenia there were always issues and unexpected freezez of the game. So far this runs as PC native for me.

There are some downsides of course, like I can't select resolution.

But with some sliders this is the best ice hockey game you can play across all platforms. Most realistic and most fun :)

https://github.com/puckhead73/nhl-legacy-recomp
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I was not the author of this recomp but specific resolution selection is easily implementable. Because there’s no “front-end” to the recomp, it simply launches at whatever resolution they have set as default. It can be set to 4K or whatever resolution you’d like. The best thing is to pull an issue on the GitHub requesting a launcher to modify graphical settings, including resolution.
 
Martan said:
Thanks to the info by @sleevel in the other topic regarding recomp of XBOX 360 games I was able to try this NHL Legacy and damn it's awesome.
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I couldn't run it... I mean, the gui is really bad... I just hope they improve it in the future, and do some "front-end" based stuff for pointing to the folder and to the .iso. (and to think I was pretty much the "DOS guru" some 30 years ago) :\

1788612155680.png

Maybe it's a folder issue, I don't know...

Edit: Yeah, never mind. Folder issue... was able to launch it. Too bad I can't set the resolution up to 4k as @sleevel pointed out. Since it's not even a v1, they'll probably upgrade this a lot in the future.
 
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I could help in a couple days - forking this to have a GUI resolution launcher. In the meantime, you could poke around in the folder and see if there’s any kind of config.ini that sets resolution. There may not be but worth a look.
 
I hope this gets much more attention.

Especially with NHL 27 release which is one of the worst released ever made. Even eFootball looks like a decent game compared to NHL 27.
 
sleevel said:
I could help in a couple days - forking this to have a GUI resolution launcher. In the meantime, you could poke around in the folder and see if there’s any kind of config.ini that sets resolution. There may not be but worth a look.
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There's an empty (1kb) "na.ini" file, but I doubt it influences anything. It's not a big deal, obviously... They'll probably keep making progress. I just hope mod support becomes a real thing... :PRAY:
 
Martan said:
I hope this gets much more attention.

Especially with NHL 27 release which is one of the worst released ever made. Even eFootball looks like a decent game compared to NHL 27.
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I assume there is an NHL forum similar to this? It seems like they specifically made this so you can drag and drop in new assets so I am strongly expecting an “NHL Legacy 27” to be released, like Football Life, at some point.
 
sleevel said:
I assume there is an NHL forum similar to this?
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I ended up (re)finding the discord group... It's called "NHL Legacy Overhaul". I'll hyperlink the thread to Operation Sports forums that have the invite to the group here (not sure if I can post the discord link directly here, so I'll just leave it like this). Here's a screenshot from someone that was able to customize the Dallas Stars adboards.

1788618345366.png

Enjoy fellers! :)
 
It’s similar to running NHL Legacy in Xenia (an Xbox 360 emulator) but instead of the emulator interpreting the code on the fly, the code is recompiled from PowerPC into C++ ahead of time. It’s called a recompilation, it’s one step closer to a native PC port. With a lot of work, it would become one. In the meantime, this should resolve any graphical quirks you might have had running the game on Xenia. Long term, this sets up the game for a complete replacement of assets (like Football Life for PES 2021) and a modification of the graphics renderer to allow 144 Hz refresh rate at 4K, plus max LOD and lighting enhancements.
 
crustcyb said:
I ended up (re)finding the discord group... It's called "NHL Legacy Overhaul". I'll hyperlink the thread to Operation Sports forums that have the invite to the group here (not sure if I can post the discord link directly here, so I'll just leave it like this). Here's a screenshot from someone that was able to customize the Dallas Stars adboards.

View attachment 444616

Enjoy fellers! :)
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Maybe I'm just too old for that but I can't find anything in that Discord 😁 it's so not organised.

There is rosters topic and it's full of some discussions but no rosters for download to be find.

What did you download?

Thanks
 
Martan said:
Maybe I'm just too old for that but I can't find anything in that Discord 😁 it's so not organised.

There is rosters topic and it's full of some discussions but no rosters for download to be find.

What did you download?

Thanks
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I don't think they provided anything for download yet mate... They're just showcasing it, I guess.
 
I remain optimistic that 4K, 144 Hz (actual unique frames) and max LOD are possible with the recomp of NHL Legacy (and all Xbox 360 games). It is a bit more work than simply toggling a few settings but I plan to work on it in the next week or so.
 
Martan said:
If you press F1 you can setup up to 2560p. Unfortunately my crappy Pc can't handle it that well 😁
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I have relatively underpowered hardware as well (Legion Go) but compared to a 2007 Xbox 360, this is several generational leaps, so the issue isn’t a hardware limitation, really, it’s software. The Xbox games were not written for PC, nor were they optimized for this high of resolution, detail or refresh rate. So the work is to optimize the graphical throughput on the software side of the recomp. (I managed to get FIFA 08 on the Xbox recomp in the 120 FPS (actual unique frames), even in my Legion Go.)
 
Martan said:
Well, we are discussing it here so yes :D
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I mean, out of nowhere the letters (intro + menu) started glitching, for whatever reason... I couldn't bring it back to a "normal state". It's obviously still very early and I hope they continue to develop it, especially regarding mod support, of course. But at the current state (AND with my current rig), if I wanna play it, it's just better to run in on the Ps3 emulator (RCPS3) :II
 
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