How to run IndyCar Racing 2 (DOS) with Rendition graphics

Rendition rendering allows what looks like higher resolutions but is actually still 640×480 (SVGA) with antialiasing. The software runs at 30 frames per second framerate and has it’s own executable. It will not run in Windows, even in a DOS window.

Real period hardware is recommended for a Rendition IndyCar Racing 2 build and you can actually run up to a Pentium 4 CPU as long as the motherboard has an ISA slot for a soundcard and has DOS support. The Rendition version of ICR2 is likely to crash on any PCI soundcard.

You may also use the real Rendition video card in a modern machine and use Windows 10 Pro’s Hyper-V as long as you can get the Windows 10 host to recognize it as a video card (able to output video using the Microsoft Basic Display Driver). You will obviously need to install a Windows 95 or 98 OS onto the VM client and then use PCI passthrough for the GPU, installing the drivers for the actual video card onto the VM and using Shutdown > Exit to DOS. Note that the lack of an ISA soundcard makes your virtual machine also likely to crash eventually.

ICR2 only recognizes the v1000 Rendition cards by default without patching and will fail on v2x00 cards until it is. Patching for the v2100 or v2200 Rendition cards replaces the SPD3D.UC file, fixing broken mirrors, green lines on the track surface and a see-through cockpit dash. If ICR2 begins to fail to run on your v2x00 card then you will need to run it with the original SPD3D.UC file first in plain DOS mode, exit, then switch in your REND executable again to get it running. This is an old issue and most people setup batch files to automatically copy in the files, doing this each time they wanted to play the sim.