About
Need for Speed: Underground is the seventh entry in EA's long-running Need for Speed series and the first to center on the import/tuner street-racing scene rather than exotics. It introduced a story-driven career mode (Underground Mode) along with deep car customization, plus drag and drift events as new race types alongside circuit and sprint racing. Built by EA Black Box on the studio's in-house engine, it featured 20 licensed tuner cars and a neon-soaked night-time aesthetic. A major critical and commercial success, it sold around 15 million units; it has since been delisted and is no longer sold.
Identity
Launch
- Binary
- speed.exe
- Needs files
- none beyond the binary
Proton
- Version
- GE-Proton
- Winetricks
- —
- ProtonDB
- ProtonDB Pending not enough reports yet
⚙ Setup notes
Install: 2003 EA Black Box racer (delisted — bring your own legally-owned copy).
Proton: Old DirectX 8 engine; runs well on Deck under GE-Proton (proton_experimental also fine).
Display: For modern displays drop ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix (dinput8.dll + scripts/ folder into the game dir, set resolution in the INI) plus SilentPatch and the ExOpts/Extra Options + HD Reflections add-ons.
Fix: If you hit rendering glitches on AMD, dgVoodoo2 (d3d8 wrapper) cleans them up.
Controller: This is a 2003 DirectInput-era title, not XInput — base pad support is dated. On Deck, run the game through Steam Input (map a gamepad/keyboard layout) and/or enable ImproveGamepadSupport in ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix INI for tighter, drift-friendly steering. Don't assume the pad "just works" untouched.
DRM: No EA launcher or online check on this era, but the retail disc uses SafeDisc (secdrv.sys). SafeDisc's driver is blocked on Windows 10/11 and therefore won't satisfy the disc check under Proton/Wine, so the unpatched speed.exe typically fails to boot. The standard community fix is the official US v1.4 patch plus a community disc-check-free speed.exe; SilentPatch is then applied over that. Bring your own legally-owned copy.
The one thing to know
Supply your own copy: Delisted EA title; deckport describes configuration only and links nothing.
Proton: DirectX 8 game — launch with GE-Proton; if the 4:3 stretch or rendering artifacts bother you, add ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix (and dgVoodoo2 as a d3d8 wrapper for any AMD glitches).
Controller: Not native XInput — it's a DirectInput-era game. Use Steam Input on Deck and/or the Widescreen Fix's ImproveGamepadSupport option; expect to do some mapping.
DRM: Retail disc uses SafeDisc (secdrv.sys), which is blocked on Windows 10/11 and so won't pass under Proton/Wine — apply the official US v1.4 patch and a community disc-check-free speed.exe (then SilentPatch) to boot.
ProtonDB: Never released on Steam, so there is no ProtonDB tier — unknown. Compatibility is community/Wine-reported only; treat as untested until you run it.
Display: Set in-game resolution to the Deck's 1280x800 (or your widescreen res) on first run.
Community guides
Write-ups and threads from people who got this (or a similar) game running. deckport links to them — it doesn't reproduce them.
Get the artwork
deckport never hosts game images. Open this game on SteamGridDB, pick
the cover / hero / logo / icon you like, and drop them into the
game folder under .deckport-art/ before you push it to the
Deck. The importer files them under the right names automatically.
Run it on your Deck
Two files: the one-time importer (deckport.py) in your
Deck's home folder, and this game's install helper. Copy the game
into ~/Games and run the helper with Steam closed — it
writes the recipe (binary, launch options, Proton version)
and registers the shortcut with artwork.