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Comment by popcar2 | Hacker News Reader

Been playing it the last few days along with a few races with friends, it's pretty wild that this is even possible. The only downside is that this website isn't legal and now that it's popular it's probably getting a takedown soon.

But NFSU2 is abandonware that isn't available anymore so I hope they just leave it alone.

Also FYI for people on Linux, you need to enable unsafe WebGPU features for this to work. I use this command to make it work on Chromium:

chromium --enable-unsafe-webgpu --ozone-platform=x11 --use-angle=vulkan --enable-features=Vulkan,VulkanFromANGLE

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Was able to get webGPU working without losing the sandbox (Sandboxed=true on chrome://gpu) by doing (agent output below):

1. Copy NVIDIA’s Vulkan manifest to a filename Chrome’s sandbox permits:

   sudo install -D -m 644 \
  /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.x86_64.json \
  /etc/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json

2. Launch Chrome with NVIDIA-only Vulkan enumeration and forced WebGPU interop:

   VK_DRIVER_FILES=/etc/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json \
   google-chrome-stable \
  --ozone-platform=wayland \
  --enable-features=ForceEnableWebGpuInterop

And then now I just have my chrome launcher store that environment variable with the feature set via chrome://flags/#force-enable-webgpu-interop

(Note: running proprietary RPMFusion Nvidia drivers on Fedora KDE Wayland)

When you go to enable "Unsafe WebGPU Support" it says the following:

"Convenience flag for WebGPU development. Enables best-effort WebGPU support on unsupported configurations and more! Note that this flag could expose security issues to websites so only use it for your own development."

Can someone who knows about this stuff please guide us in terms of what sort of security risk we would would be exposing ourselves to?

Thanks.

I was gonna respond with the generic large swath of unverified code running on your machine, but I realized your question is more specific and more interesting. If anyone knows, I would love to hear an answer on this as well.

Being new, largely untested code paths in the browser, it's very possible for it to have buffer overflow defects that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code on your system. So, basically, literally anything could happen.

> Also FYI for people on Linux, you need to enable unsafe WebGPU features for this to work.

Browsers on macOS do not require you to enable this feature. Does it mean it's on by default?!

I think the most nefarious thing they can do with this is use it to further fingerprint your browser.

Oops, meant to reply to the GP.

Linux support for WebGPU is incomplete. Other platforms have received more priority and have it enabled by default. Even on platforms where Chrome does support it, the tech isn't available on other browsers necessarily.

>But NFSU2 is abandonware that isn't available anymore so I hope they just leave it alone.

There is a concept in US law: a trademark can be considered abandoned if the owner does not want to get into legal fights over its use. I am not a lawyer, but I guess something like this can be said about NFS trademark and the game's copyright in general - even if EA doesn't want to fight over this, they should, otherwise they risk losing/diminishing the value of IP. For a company which has IP as its main asset, it'd be bad.

Every time this is brought up I always think why can't the company setup a simple website where you pay 1 dollar and get a license?

Games are bundles of licenses themselves. That music costs money, as do other assets and sometimes engines. And over time some of those licenses can expire or require renegotiation. Sometimes it's easier to just stop selling something than figure all that out.

Because this is a billion dollar corporation and those typically hire cutthroat teams that negotiate with other cutthroat companies. I recently tried licensing a 50-year-old unaired raw video from a news corporation. It's in the range of $5-10k. We're talking b-roll with dead air and such.. big companies aren't interested in this stuff

Massive issue with a game like NFSU2 is all the licensed music. I just watched a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGdLZTgMDd4&t=735s) of an EA producer working on bringing back old games, and he said it took them over a year just to get the music licenses for a 30 year old game. And that's if they can get the licenses. Famously, no one really knows who owns the game No One Lives Forever, and the supposed rights holders aren't particularly interested in digging through their pre-digital legal archives to try to find the required documents that assert those rights.

Need for Speed is trademarked, and they do actively continue to publish and sell games under that trademark. They don't sell some particular older games, but they definitely do make and distribute videogames games bearing the trademark "Need for Speed".

https://www.ea.com/games/need-for-speed/need-for-speed-unbou...

This same failure to defend concept doesn't apply to copyright, at all.

>But NFSU2 is abandonware that isn't available anymore so I hope they just leave it alone.

First song that played (for me?) was Snoop Dogg feat. The Doors. Absolutely zero chance. There's a reason they won't/can't rerelease the game.

When I opened the game I was waiting for this song, it was ingrained in my memory. It was famously the opening song for the game, and as you put it there is zero chance they will license even that one song just to bring back this game.

I guess the real solution is to make an almost-identical look-a-like version with a new name, thus avoiding enough of the trademark and copyright issues for the publishers to leave well alone.

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