Midtown Madness 2 FAQ


 * For other FAQs for the Madness series, see FAQ

This FAQ is based on Midtown Madness 2 eXtreme's FAQ section with a few differences. Credits go to their respective authors.

Why do traffic cars crash behind me?
It is unknown what causes this, although Fireboyd79's MM2Hook mod may solve this problem.

Why are police vehicles chasing me even if I'm driving at 30 mph?
Ditto. MM2Hook introduced a feature where you can adjust what speed cops will start to chase you.

How can I get the Freightliner Century to have a trailer?
You can download a mod by Sajmon14 where it restores the Freightliner Century's trailer here (dead link) from earlier versions of Midtown Madness 2. The trailer is known to glitch, so use at your own risk.

Why can't I get more than 3 cops chase after me?
In Midtown Madness 2, a maximum of 3 cops can chase you at a time, but with MM2Hook, you can increase the amount of cops that will chase you.

Are there cheats for MM2?
There's only 1 cheat in MM2, "blubber". To activate this cheat, start a race, press the Y key to open the chat box, and type in "/blubber". Now, make a jump or crash into a wall, then the car will bounce around. The cheats for Midtown Madness 1 do not work in Midtown Madness 2.

Why when I install more vehicles in the drop down list, only the first few letters show up while others don't show at all?
Click on the up and down arrows next to the car name to scroll through the list. FXANBSS's mm2lang.dll mod may solve this problem.

In Cops and Robbers, why I can't take the gold when I touch the car that has it?
Literally a lot of addon vehicles have this problem of hard gold dropping during a Cops and Robbers round.

How can I get to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco?
It's not possible to get on the Bay Bridge, as it is just a background object, but with Dummiesboy's MM2 Revisited mod, it is possible to drive on it, although there are no traffic cars driving on it. It is located in one of the underground parking lots in SOMA.

How can I adjust the camera angle?
To adjust the camera's angle, press V to switch to a free camera mode. The keys Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down control the zoom and the rotation of the camera. To make it move faster, press the Shift button. There are some limitations, though.

What's Cops and Robbers and how can I be on it?
The Cops and Robbers mode is an online multiplayer gameplay mode. It is based on Capture the Flag, except the flag is replaced with a golden ingot. To play this mode, a minimum of two players are required. This mode can only be played in the MSN Gaming Zone, which no longer exists, but you can download GameRanger to play this mode.

How can I play multiplayer?
Multiplayer can only be played online. Formerly, MSN Gaming Zone was used to play online, but since its shutdown, there are new ways to play MM2 online. The first option is to create a LAN network with the Hamachi program and use it to do TCP/IP multiplayer games. The other option, which is recommended, is to download and use a game multiplayer client like GameRanger.

What types of mods are available?
Getting bored of new cars? Want to change the game environment? There's a distinct variety of mods that are out there, here's a quick run down;
 * Vehicles - not just cars, busses, bikes, planes, trucks, or construction vehicles, there's more obscure and more creative vehicles such as the Godkiller, Santa's sleigh, the Dark Beast, and even a downloadable pig.
 * Tracks - there are a vast selection of tracks to suit your needs, there's even some great conversions from Micro Machines and Gran Turismo.
 * Environmental modifications - these include things such as driving on water mod, mods that add jump trailers across the city, mods that increase/decrease the number of police vehicles across the city, a snow mod, traffic mods, and more.
 * Graphical modifications - such as interface menus, sound mods, smoke textures, building textures, and sky textures.
 * .EXE mods - there aren't many, but there's a useful selection, speedboot is handy if your game is slow to launch, and the fixed EXE included in the third version of the lights trainer by The_Most_Wanted.
 * Race mods - new races, such as blitz, checkpoint, and circuit events.
 * Tools - this includes widescreen tools, draw distance mods, and windowed mode tools.
 * Trainers - such as cop trainers and various other tools to cheat the game.

How can I remove an addon mod I no longer use?
Search for the car's .ar file (i.e. vpqashqai12.ar) in the game's directory, which is usually the car's basename, brand, or model, and move it to the Recycle Bin. If you want to add it back, don't empty it and simply right click on the .ar file and then click "Restore". Be careful, though, if the deleted car was the last car driven, it will show up as Mini Cooper Classic and the game will crash.

For tracks and most mods, the installation procedure is mostly the same, except that the game will not crash if said track was selected as the last track driven.

How can I use nitro?
Only specific cars, like the IRT Panoz GTR-1 and the Mitsubishi Eclipse, are designed for nitrous, often abbreviated as NOS. If your car has nitro, press the spacebar button (handbrake) to activate it. With HQTM Team's MM2 Ultimate Tweaker tool, it is possible to add nitrous on addon vehicles that have an unlocked .ar file. This does not work with vanilla vehicles, though, this can only be done manually by editing the car's .info file.

Is there an addon vehicle with working hazard/warning lights?
Unfortunately, Midtown Madness 2 does not come with this feature, but a few vehicles from HQTM-Team, like their BMW M3 CSL Concept and the Volkswagen Type 1 van, have warning lights when you back up. Recent addon vehicles now have working hazard lights, although they require MM2Hook to work as intended.

Why do I see the back of the car in dashboard view?
It is possible that you have too many vehicles in your installation folder. Removing a few addon vehicles may help. It is unknown what causes this, although it is likely given by conflicting addon vehicles.

How can I install an additional color for an HQTM Team vehicle?
You can download their Car Skin Changer tool and follow the instructions indicated.

Why there are no police cars in New York City?
The first version of New York City for MM2 doesn't include cop cars, however, the improved version includes custom cop cars based on the Ford Mustang Cruiser.

Is there a subway network in New York City?
A subway network was originally planned for Midnight Club: Street Racing, only accessible in beta versions, but it ended up being scrapped, which explains why there are no subways in both the original and the improved version, however there is a mod made by Lex_Luther and IceHole that makes some changes, like adding underground roads and a sewer that can be downloaded here.

How can I get addon cars to work in New York City?
Some addon vehicles, especially high detailed ones, have issues to work on an addon city that has some problems like New York. These issues get fixed in the improved version (although most high-detailed cars can still crash the game). To play with an addon in the original mod, you need to lower the screen resolution.

Can I have the improved and original versions of New York City at the same time?
Probably yes, although untested by the mod makers. The improved version keeps the same file names and structures of the original's, so it is likely that the mod works properly with it.

Why some custom races lag my game?
This apparent lagging may be caused by badly-coded AI. The lagging is only present if MM2Hook is installed with logging enabled. Keep in mind that this can be caused by different factors, though.

How can I add custom opponents into races?
It's easy. Just follow these steps: # Once scrolled down, change one, some, or all of the opponents' cars that will appear on the race. In this case, we'll replace some of the car opponents with some VW New Beetles and New Mini Coopers: #
 * 1) Open the mod's .AR file with 7zip or WinRAR or extract the mm2core.ar file with deAR2.
 * 2) Go to the race folder and select the location's name (i.e. london).
 * 3) Extract the .aimap or .aimap_p file.
 * 4) Once extracted, open the file with your favorite notepad.
 * 5) Once the .aimap file is open, scroll down the .aimap file. You should see something like this (Mini Race's .aimap file for amateur mode is used as an example):
 * 1) Once you're done changing the opponents' cars, save the file.
 * 2) Once done, run the game. Your custom opponent is now participating in the race!
 * Tip: Custom add-on cars can also be used as opponent vehicles, however, you must type the car's correct basename, otherwise it will crash the game once the race is loaded.

Why my graphics look pixelated even though I have a fast system?
Download the latest drivers from your graphics card:
 * Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
 * Intel
 * Nvidia
 * ASUS

How can I make the game run faster?
Download dgVoodoo here and extract all the files inside the x86 subfolder from the MS folder.

I have dgVoodoo installed, and the menus look high-contrasted. Why?
You can solve this problem by opening the dgVoodoo control panel, go to the "DirectX" section, and check on "Fast memory access". The menus will now look as intended.

Where is my game installed?
Once people find out that they can download cars, this is usually the next question to follow.

Simply put, if you've installed your game to the default location, it will be:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Midtown Madness 2

However, if you're using a 64-bit system, it may be installed at:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Midtown Madness 2

The best method to find out where your game is installed is to right click on your Midtown Madness 2 shortcut and click "Properties".

If you cannot find your Midtown Madness 2 shortcut, then you can also find out where your game is located by searching your system for "Midtown2.exe".

How do I use downloads or mods?
One of the most common questions asked by people that are new to the game or community.

Downloads, modifications or mods can be downloaded from many websites, they often come in three major formats;
 * .zip (zipped or compressed folder)
 * .rar (WinRAR archive)
 * .7z (7zip archive)

Once you have downloaded or opened the archive, it should contain an .ar file, an installer, or setup, along with a few various other files, such as a readme text file and maybe an image of the vehicle, track, or mod.

You can download mods from:
 * Midtown Madness 2 eXtreme
 * Midtown Madness 2 France (French)
 * racers.co.kr (Korean)
 * Sajmon's MM2 site (dead link)
 * MidtownMadness2.de (German)
 * Matyii MM2
 * Franch88's MM2 Releases (available in English and Italian)
 * Midtown Madness 2 Riva
 * HQTM-Team's website (available in English and Polish)
 * Teciyoo's blog (Korean)
 * mm2mm1fan's Garage
 * Jelly's Car Conversions
 * MM2 Silent
 * YoshiFan961's Midtown Madness 2 Website
 * Madness Color Team
 * KCP-Team
 * ke2051's blog (Korean)
 * Buses for MM2
 * PCExhaust (also includes mods for Monster Truck Madness 2)
 * MM2 Database
 * Midtown Club Discord Server

How can I take screenshots?
Press the print screen image on your keyboard, close the game, and open a photo editing software like MS Paint, right-click, select paste, and then save the file, although this has been known to not work in newer versions of Windows as it can display a black screen or even the user's desktop.

You can also use the Xbox Game Bar that comes with Windows 10 to take screenshots, or you can also use a video recording software like Bandicam to take screenshots.

Why does my game crash upon turning on the sirens of an addon emergency vehicle?
Because the addonvehtypes.ar file is missing or does not list the car in that file. To use the sirens of an addon emergency car without the game crashing, you must extract the addonvehtypes.ar file into your Midtown Madness 2 installation folder and edit the vehtypes.csv file. You can also use the MM2 Addonvehtypes Builder or the MM2 Game Loader tools from the HQTM Team.

Why other addon vehicles in multiplayer show up as Mini Cooper Classics?
Because you are using an addon vehicle that other players do not have, therefore looking like Mini Cooper Classics. This can also cause the message "You are a cheater" to appear in the chat log in multiplayer and the car will get "stuck".

Why did the game crash with a "Heap Overrun" error?
The Heap Overrun error, or Heap OwOrrun when MM2Hook is installed, is a common error where the game exceeds the heap limit (especially if the car is extremely detailed) or if the player has too many mods installed in their Midtown Madness 2 installation folder.

If this error appears, try to remove some mods, especially unused ones until the game can run properly, and try not to use a detailed vehicle. This error can also be solved if you download The_Most_Wanted and aaro4130's MM2 Lights Trainer V3 & Fixed EXE and MM2Hook.

How to put side indicators in-game?
To get side indicators working in-game, download MM2Hook. Recent addon vehicles now have this feature.