Brian Lara Cricket 99 PC FAQ

Yes! Now you can play BLC on Windows XP. BLC was programmed for Win9x platform, i.e.. Win95/98/ME in mind. But interestingly there are a set of rare BLC .exe files that make it possible to play BLC in XP. Download these files from here and replace your original BLC exe files with them. These files will not work without a game CD in the CDROM drive (either an original or a backup CD).

o No 3D graphics card - software.zip

MGA 200, intel i740, Savage 3D, Rage Pro, Paramedia2 based graphics cards (should work with newer ATI based cards) - d3dhigh.zip
Velocity 128, Riva 128, G100, MGA xx64 - d3dlow.zip
3DFX cards - 3DFX.zip
RivaTNT card (should work with newer nvidia based cards) - d3dtnt.zip

If you are unsure of the graphics card in your computer and it is a fairly new computer, you can try using d3dhigh.zip.Download Winzip or WinRAR to extract these files to the game directory.

PS: There is no other fix or no-cd crack for BLC in Windows XP so don't waste your time if you do not have the CD.

Minimum Specification:
Windows 95 or 98
DirectX 6.0
Intel Pentium 166 Mhz plus 3D card or Intel Pentium 200 Mhz without 3D card (SVGA 4MB card required)
16mb RAM
95mb hard disk space
Direct X 6.0 compatible Soundcard
Recommended Specification:
Windows 95 or 98
DirectX 6.0
Intel Pentium 200 Mhz plus 3D card
32mb RAM
95mb hard disk space
Direct X 6.0 compatible Soundcard
Good News! Work on a new version of Brian Lara Cricket has already started and the game is tentatively schedules to release on PC, Xbox and PS2 in the summer of 2005. Read the complete Codemasters press release here.
The no ball feature (both overstepping and height no ball) is not present in BLC. There is no patch for this.
This happens when the sounds in game are not properly initialized. You can fix this by any of these methods (though fix #d is the easiest and fastest one):

    a) Start BLC, start a World Cup Tournament from Match > World Cup > Select Number of Overs > Select Human Teams > Select Host Nation. Don't bother about choices made because you don't have to play the tournament to fix the problem. Once the tournament starts just Quit it and you will come back to the main screen with all the sounds. Now you can play the game.
    b) Another method you can try is to go to the settings menu from the main menu and turn off the music. Now restart the game and it should work.
    c) Do not press any button in the main menu. When you leave the game runnig as it is without interferin for some time, the computer will start playing a demo game. As soon as that game starts hit enter to return to main menu and you will have sound in the game.
    d) When BLC loads, there appears a photo of Brian Lara, just before the Main Menu appears. Here press the direction keys on your keyboard a few times and you will hear the buzzing sound. Now press Enter and you will have the Main Menu with sounds and music.
Install Intel Indeo 5 Video Codec from the BLC CD-ROM.
Kits are stored in BLC as .TIM files .Download the TIM Editor from BLC Online to edit .TIM files.
Commentary files are stored as .bnk and .wav files in BLC pcsound folder. The player names are stored in .wav format. There are two ways to make new player name file:

Copy Paste Method:

Use a sound editing software like Goldwave which allows you to copy, cut, paste and save .wav files. Copy a part of name sound from one file, another part from another file and so on. Paste them together.
Open a .wav file already present in BLC pcsound folder. Copy a portion of name sound from this wave file. Paste it as a new wave file. Copy the other portion of name sound from another preexisting wave file. Paste it in the newly created wave file. e.g. if you want to make commentary for S. S. Das. There is .wav for David in Australia and Vaas in Sri Lanka. Open David in sound editor, copy 'Da' sound. Paste it as a new file. Now open Vaas. Copy 'aas' sound. paste it after 'Da' and you get something like 'Daa...aas'.
TIP: The team editing software, BLC Editor has a help file which lists the available commentary files in BLC. This maybe helpful in finding a required sound from the preexisting names. Save the file in the same format as BLC default .wav files, i.e. .wav PCM,22,050 Hz, 16 Bit, Mono.

Text to Speech Method:

There are various text to speech synthesizers which read out what you type e.g. Advanced Text To Speech, ATTS. Use the speech engine to speak out the name and save the sound as PCM,22,050 Hz, 16 Bit, Mono wave file. You may modify the speech pattern. pitch etc. if the speech engine allows, to make a sound resembling that of the default BLC commentator, Jonathan Agnew.

BLC is commercial software which is not available for free. You can download a demo of the game from the game developer's site www.codemasters.com.
BLC Online is the most happening one (or rather it used to be till EA Cricket 2004). For more sites, visit Cricket Games.
View the readme.txt, key.hlp and BLC.hlp files in the main BLC folder. Bowling Controls Move the circle about the pitch which indicates the initial impact point and press a fire button to bowl. There are four main bowler types in BLC and the fire button issues a different ball for each type.

*Key*	*Bowler type*
*Key*	*General*	*Fast / Medium Fast*	*Off Spin/Left Arm Spin*	*Leg Spin/Slow Left Chinaman*	*Swing*
Return (Enter)	Standard	Normal delivery	Off spin	Leg spin	Outswing
Right Control (Ctrl)	Special 1	Slower delivery	Arm ball	Googly	Inswing
Right Shift	Special 2	-	-	Flipper	Quicker ball
0 Ins (Numpad 0)	Boost	Boost (hit during runup)	Vary ball's flight & speed	Vary ball's flight & speed	Swing boost

12.

Enter the cheat code in the passwords space in the Classic Matches screen for the corresponding result.
CATSDOGS - Always rains during Test Matches.
CMBRLARA - Super batsman.
COPYCATS - 7th Classic match.
FASTCHAT - All speech is speeded up.
FILTERED - All pitch and grass textures are filtered.
FINISHED - 10th Classic match.
GRABSHOT - Press 'G' to grab a screenshot.
HALFLIFE - 8th Classic match.
MEDICINE - A big ball.
NITEOWLS - 9th Classic match.
NONOTOUT - Unbreakable stumps.
OLDTIMER - World XI team
SETMOUSE - Gives free and complete camera movement. Use the two mouse buttons plus ALT or LCTRL.
SILLYBOY - 6th Classic match.
SLIPPERY - Makes the fielders drop catches.
SLOWCHAT - All speech is slow.
SUNSHINE - Beach Party.
TAKEAWAY - 2nd Classic match.
TIMELINE - 4th Classic match.
TIMEWARP - Super fast game.
WIPEOUTS - 3rd Classic match.
You should have the CD-ROM in your CD Drive to play the game. If you are having problems with the drive not recognizing the copy protection, contact Codemasters support for a workaround. Apparently a no-cd patch for software mode is available at www.megagames.com
If you can hear some sounds but not others, do a full install of the game. If you unable to do a full install refer 15.
If the install program always crashes at the same % install, most probably the CD is damaged or data in the CD-ROM is corrupted and you need to replace the CD-ROM.
Download the BLC Editor by Secret Software from http://www.cricketgames.com/games/commercial/blc99/download.htm.
Download BLC Field Editor from BLC Online.
Download BLC Stroke Editor from BLC Online.
There are both official (from Codemasters) and unofficial patches for BLC. The official patch can be downloaded from www.codemasters.com. It is supposed to fix the problem of umpires not signalling wides. This patch will not work with the sold out version of the game.
Unofficial patches are made by various fans of BLC using tools already mentioned, e.g. Team Editor, TIM Editor, Stroke Editor and Field Editor. You can download them from BLC Online. Instructions for using the patches are included with the downloads itself.
The instructions for installing a downloaded patch can be found in .txt/.wri/.doc files in the compressed file itself, generally named readme/help etc.
These programs require the VB runtime dll files, usually the VB6 runtimes. The requirement is specified in the readme/help file with the program. The files are commonly available on the internet.
Click on the intro photo to begin the program!
The music being played in BLC is stored as the file 30.wav in the folder X: (your driver letter) / <your blc directory> / pcsound / spool / waffle. Backup this file (rename it to something else). Place your music file here and rename it to 30.wav. Your music file should be in the format 44KHz,16bit,Stereo .wav. (Source: BLC Online forums, posted by Undertaker on Feb. 25 2002).
You have to save the sound file as PCM,22,050 Hz, 16 Bit, Mono wave file or else the game will crash. Also, sound files made using Microsoft Sound Recorder (soundrec.exe) may cause this problem
Turn off the "slog mode" option in Settings menu!
All of the downloads have a fair amount of hard work behind them and most of them are great. But in my opinion, do check out these:

1. BLC Edit: Let's you edit player stats, commentary, classic matches etc.

2. http://blc.sports-gaming.com/misc.html

Test and ODI Fields Update.
CPU Stroke ODI and Test Batting Update .
Variable 5 Day Test Match Enhancement Patch
Shaved heads patch for Hoggard and Gibbs
Helmet without Grill v2

3. All the kits at BLC Online.

4. Commentary files at BLC Online.

The most popular one at the moment is EA Sports Cricket 2004. You can get more info from www.cricketgames.com which is the most comprehensive site on all the Cricket sims.

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