HOW-TO: Extracting the music tracks from NFS: HP2 for PC 1. Introduction Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is a recent version of the popular NFS series of racing games. It's not only a great game, it also features a very good soundtrack. So good, in fact, that I wanted to listen to it outside of the game, too. Apparently, I am not the only one who had that idea, and I've been getting some requests on how to extract the music from the games data files. So I decided to write it down properly once in this HOWTO rather than repeatedly and poorly in emails. 2. Requirements You need an installed copy of NFS: HP2, especially the music subfolder (in my file sytem, that's K:\Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2\audio\music). And then you need the Game Audio Player (http://bim.km.ru/gap/) to play and/or convert those track?.asf files. (This is where experienced users can feel free to stop reading and venture out on their own...) 3. Playing and Converting GAP is a small download, under a megabyte. No install needed, so that's nice, but it's still a bit of a weird program, at least for me: the program window disappears when I click on it. It still works, though, by opening the playlist window via the context menu in the task bar. Use Add File(s)... from the File menu and add all the music files, then play them at your own discretion. You'll probably want to play the music with your standard audio player instead of the GAP. Select all files (or only those you want converted) in the playlist and use Convert File(s) from the File menu. The dialog lets you choose the format the audio files are to be converted to and where to save them. You can also control the file names, however since the *.asf file do not seem to contain any information on titles, that's pretty much pointless. The WAV format requires some additional explanation: you can save the audio files either as uncompressed (PCM, Pulse Code Modulation) WAV files, or you can directly convert them to MP3 and various other compressed formats on-the-fly. Personally, I prefer to save them as uncompressed WAVs and convert them to MP3 using LAME (http://www.mp3dev.org) for a hopefully better quality. 4. Titles The *.asf files don't come with any information on the title or interpret of the songs, however, the file music.ini has all that info. It's a bit of a pain to extract, but it's possible. Here's the list, copy/paste at will: 00 - Bush - The People That We Love.mp3 01 - The Buzzhorn - Ordinary.mp3 02 - Course of Nature - Wall of Shame.mp3 03 - Hot Action Cop - Fever For The Flava.mp3 04 - Hot Action Cop - Going Down On It.mp3 05 - Pulse Ultra - Build Your Cages.mp3 06 - Rush - One Little Victory.mp3 07 - Uncle Kracker - Keep It Coming.mp3 08 - Matt Ragan - Bundle of Clang.mp3 09 - Matt Ragan - Cone Of Silence.mp3 10 - Matt Ragan - Flam Dance.mp3 11 - Humble Brothers - Black Hole.mp3 12 - Humble Brothers - Brakestand.mp3 13 - Humble Brothers - Sphere.mp3 14 - Cykloid - ROM.mp3 15 - Bush - The People That We Love (Instrumental).mp3 16 - The Buzzhorn - Ordinary (Instrumental).mp3 17 - Course of Nature - Wall of Shame (Instrumental).mp3 18 - Hot Action Cop - Fever For The Flava (Instrumental).mp3 19 - Hot Action Cop - Going Down On It (Instrumental).mp3 20 - Pulse Ultra - Build Your Cages (Instrumental).mp3 21 - Rush - One Little Victory (Instrumental).mp3 22 - Uncle Kracker - Keep It Coming (Instrumental).mp3 4. Post Scriptum Hope this was useful to some people. If you have anything to add, or further questions you think I could help you with, feel free to send me a mail (moonbender@t-online.de). 5. Legalese This document be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. Copyright 2004 moonbender