Naming is hard, eh?
A Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) US 1.3 performance-improvement mod.
Fixes major CPU bottlenecks and adds adaptive car reflections that automatically dial back when your frame rate dips, ramping right back up once there's breathing room. It also includes optional reflection blending to smooth out transitions by crossfading reflections whenever the update rate drops.
Tip
Download latest version from Releases.
Stops a shadow visibility check at the first successful candidate. If none passes, it checks them all. Same result, less work.
When submitting a model for shadow rendering, the game computes a matrix and then computes the same matrix again. This fix reuses the first result within that model submission.
Moves the game's zero-effect threshold check before costly transforms in two rendering paths. Objects that would be discarded skip those calculations.
The game uses maximum X for all three axes of a shadow bounding box, instead of using the actual X, Y and Z values. This fixes those bounds so visibility checks use the right box. Unlike the perf fixes above, it intentionally changes rendering decisions and can increase or decrease shadow work.
Enable [CarReflectionBlending] Enabled = 1 to dissolve an old reflection face into its new image, making the update less abrupt. This works with the game's native mode 1 and with adaptive Weighted single-face updates. Full updates bypass blending.
BlendSteps controls the dissolve length, from 2 to 6 steps. More steps spread the change out longer, which can look smoother but also introduce blur or ghosting. Blending adds rendering work.
Car reflections use a cubemap: six views of the surroundings, one for each face of a cube. Updating those views means more scene rendering and CPU work to prepare it. This mod keeps the game's existing renderer and changes when those faces are updated.
Enable [AdaptiveCarReflections] Enabled = 1 to let it switch between:
- Native full-update: all six cubemap faces update every frame, matching the game's highest car-reflection update setting.
- Weighted single-face: one face updates per frame, similar to the game's lowest enabled reflection setting, but with a custom update sequence that refreshes selected directions more often.
The scheduler measures renderer CPU work and frame cadence against TargetFPS (60 by default).
It reduces reflection work under sustained load and returns to full updates when all six faces are estimated to fit with room to spare.
Note
TargetFPS is a target for these decisions, it does not limit FPS.
Any nonzero in-game car-reflection setting uses the same adaptive policy. Reflections set to off stay off. With adaptive disabled, the game's original update schedule is used.
Use Ultimate ASI Loader with normal startup loading. Copy MWPerfFix.asi and MWPerfFix.ini into the game's scripts/ folder. Settings are read at startup, so restart the game after editing the INI.
Each rendering fix has its own switch under [Fixes]. The reflection features have separate sections and can be enabled independently. TargetFPS accepts 30–1000, BlendSteps accepts 2–6.
Changes show brief in-game messages and settings snapshots in MWPerfFix.log, next to the ASI. Once you find values you like, exit the game, copy them into the INI and disable LiveTuning if you no longer need it. Nothing is saved to the INI automatically.
The log also reports startup status, skipped fixes and failures and is capped at 256 KiB per launch. If a feature is not working, start there. If the log asks for a restart after an incomplete rollback, restart the game.
To uninstall, close the game and remove MWPerfFix.asi, MWPerfFix.ini and MWPerfFix.log from scripts/.
For in-game tuning, enable the features you want to try in the INI, then set [LiveTuning] Enabled = 1 and uncomment the key bindings you want. There are no default bound keys. The examples in the INI use:
| Action | Example key | What it does |
|---|---|---|
ToggleAdaptive |
F8 (0x77) |
Toggles adaptive scheduling. Off restores the game's native schedule. |
TargetFPSDown |
F9 (0x78) |
Lowers the target by 5, down to 30. |
TargetFPSUp |
F10 (0x79) |
Raises the target by 5, up to 1000. |
ToggleBlending |
F11 (0x7A) |
Toggles reflection blending. |
CycleBlendSteps |
F12 (0x7B) |
Cycles 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 6 → 2. |
Bindings take a single Windows virtual-key number, in decimal or hexadecimal. Invalid or duplicate bindings are disabled.
This targets the Windows x86 US 1.3 executable. It checks the executable layout and the instructions each fix needs before patching. Unexpected changes skip the affected feature and get a log entry. Startup checks cannot prevent another mod from overwriting that code later.
Some shared areas have explicit compatibility handling:
- Widescreen Fix: allows its shadow-distance change and preserves its device-reset hook.
- ZPatch: leaves room for its
BorderlessFixesrenderer-entry hook. - HD Reflections v2: leaves its known hook locations untouched, including the
RestoreCarsarea. - Extra Options: keep
DoScreenPrintfoff when using LiveTuning messages, as it can conflict with the game's notification path.
Tip
If you just want to use the mod, you can stop reading here ⛐.
A separate diagnostic build exposes scheduler and blending CPU measurements through ETW. To record those, enable both diagnostics and adaptive reflections in the INI and use Windows Performance Recorder (WPR) with the supplied diagnostics/MWPerfFix.wprp profile. The release build has no ETW provider.
mise run check-diagnostic builds and checks that variant in build/x86-diagnostic/. mise run smoke-etw tests recording with synthetic events.
Implementation details are in docs. Agent guidance is in AGENTS.md.
Install mise, then run these from the project folder on Windows:
mise install
mise run buildmise installs the project's configured build tools. After that, normal builds work offline and do not need game files. Release artifacts, including the ASI and INI, go into build/x86-release/.
After making changes:
mise run fmt
mise run checkcheck builds the release, runs the correctness tests and checks the delivery artifacts. It does not install anything into the game or launch it. mise run benchmark measures synthetic relay overhead.
Set the version in CMake, commit, and run the Release workflow manually on the desired branch. It checks both variants and publishes versioned normal, diagnostic, and symbols ZIPs. Existing version tags are rejected. Development commits can share a version until release.
mise run package checks and creates local archives in build/dist/.
mise run release also tags and publishes through the origin GitHub remote.
Local publishing requires GitHub CLI authentication. Logs and ETW identify the commit and tracked-file dirty state.
MIT. See LICENSE.