PerryRhodan wrote on 2022-06-27, 19:57:

Hello BEEN_Nath_58, 1080p would be great. :) I've been messing about with the Enhanced D3D version for the last 4 hours, changin […]
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Hello BEEN_Nath_58, 1080p would be great. 😀 I've been messing about with the Enhanced D3D version for the last 4 hours, changing various video settings in DXWind & dgVoodoo 2 with some success. I managed to get the game running a few times, but the game would crash after a minute, but if I used exactly the same settings to relaunch the game again it would no longer work at all which is weird. I noticed this version has so much better sound & music than the other versions Here's hoping you can get this version working under Windows 8.1. 😀 I'll keep messing about with the settings and also try what you suggested.

Thanks!

Here's a video of the Enhanced D3D Edition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOWtW5orUmw

Yes I tested the game now and it seems to be using the same engine as Titanium Edition. That's a good news meaning there isn't much to change, but the game just freezes while loading with DxWnd DirectX, and using the Windows DirectX gives the infamous "Attempting to shutdown from an unknown error". Probably I will load up Titanium Edition and compare both's D3D renderer and how they behave. I will continue on it tomorrow, it is late here now...

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-06-27, 20:14:

PerryRhodan wrote on 2022-06-27, 19:57:

Hello BEEN_Nath_58, 1080p would be great. :) I've been messing about with the Enhanced D3D version for the last 4 hours, changin […]
Show full quote

Hello BEEN_Nath_58, 1080p would be great. 😀 I've been messing about with the Enhanced D3D version for the last 4 hours, changing various video settings in DXWind & dgVoodoo 2 with some success. I managed to get the game running a few times, but the game would crash after a minute, but if I used exactly the same settings to relaunch the game again it would no longer work at all which is weird. I noticed this version has so much better sound & music than the other versions Here's hoping you can get this version working under Windows 8.1. 😀 I'll keep messing about with the settings and also try what you suggested.

Thanks!

Here's a video of the Enhanced D3D Edition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOWtW5orUmw

Yes I tested the game now and it seems to be using the same engine as Titanium Edition. That's a good news meaning there isn't much to change, but the game just freezes while loading with DxWnd DirectX, and using the Windows DirectX gives the infamous "Attempting to shutdown from an unknown error". Probably I will load up Titanium Edition and compare both's D3D renderer and how they behave. I will continue on it tomorrow, it is late here now...

I did some further testing of Titanium Edition and I noticed the Titanium Edition's 3Dfx mode didn't work with nGlide. It worked with dgVoodoo2 but it crashes on exiting a mission. So I tried dgVoodoo1 now and it seems to work fine. Can you have a look at that? You need to go to the Options -> Video Options and change Renderer to 3Dfx. Also you will need glide2x.dll of dgVoodoo 1.50 Beta 2 in the game folder. I am sending you another profile for Titanium Edition, try that. You will need the mech2titpatching.sdb installed as well as the renamed executable file, and DxWnd v2.85.

Done! Here's the profiles for Pentium Ed and Merc D3D at 1080p. Note that in PE, the menu after exiting mission will get stuck to a corner because I couldn't stretch the screen, it is possible to stretch the menus as well, but we will have to talk on it first.

I uploaded the profile for MercsD3D as well

Thanks for all your hard work, BEEN_Nath_58. I really appreciate it and shall try those new profiles. 😀

PerryRhodan wrote on 2022-06-29, 17:43:

Thanks for all your hard work, BEEN_Nath_58. I really appreciate it and shall try those new profiles. 😀

I appreciate it. Tell me when you have the results 😀

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58, the latest profile (mercsd3d1080p) I can't get to work as it crashes when starting a mission. The profile I uploaded below works, but it's still running too fast.

Thanks!

PerryRhodan wrote on 2022-07-01, 19:31:

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58, the latest profile (mercsd3d1080p) I can't get to work as it crashes when starting a mission. The profile I uploaded below works, but it's still running too fast.

Thanks!

For the Mercenaries, please reinstall the game, install the .sdb by executing the .bat file and use the given profile. You will find two profiles, one is for HW and another for SW emulation. If the HW one crashes, use the SW profile and let me know.

I am quite confused with the Titanium Edition. For Titanium Edition, I uploaded another set of profile. Again do a quick reinstall according to the article I linked earlier, rename the executable to mw2tit.exe, install the .sdb through .bat file and use the given .dxw profile.

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58. The MechWarrior 2 Mercenaries 3D (HW) profile nearly works, speed is now fixed, but for some reason, the speech is now missing and I also get this error when I die or exit a mission (See below). The MechWarrior 2 31st Century Combat Titanium Edition profile still crashes (Black Screen) when entering a mission.

Thanks!

PerryRhodan wrote on 2022-07-02, 10:12:

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58. The MechWarrior 2 Mercenaries 3D (HW) profile nearly works, speed is now fixed, but for some reason, the speech is now missing and I also get this error when I die or exit a mission (See below). The MechWarrior 2 31st Century Combat Titanium Edition profile still crashes (Black Screen) when entering a mission.

Thanks!

Probably you'll have to do some things yourself.

Opening DxWnd, go to the Options in the Menu Bar and enable Expert Mode. Right click the Mercenaries 3D, go to Compat. tab and enable that probably says "Set last core affinity". It's the 3rd option in the left section of the Compat. tab.

Another thing you can do, put dgVoodoo2 in the game folder. But I can't say it will work.

Yet another thing to do is to put the IndirectSound files in the game folder. Additionally putting dplay.dll (from game CD, use the Search function of File Explorer to find it) may help, but it's chances of being the problem is still unlikely.

Regarding Titanium Edition, can you try the 3Dfx 3D device, you'll need to install nGlide or dgVoodoo1 Beta 2's glide.dll first. Then opening the application, take the cursor to the top of screen, go the option which is next to Clan (Video Options?) and click the last option from the drop down menu, it should open the 3d device page (I am not home so I can't remember the options name).

Also if possible it may be useful to specify your OS, GPU, CPU and other specs, I may need to try it there as well.

Update: Mercs problem is related to sound as well as the error relates to DS3D.cpp. Looks like IndirectSound or DSOAL should fix it. The Compat. tab option "Block process priority class" may help as well (it helped in Jane's F-15). If these don't work, let me know again, I have a separate special dsound.dll that I had to use during this game's debugging.

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58 , I'll continue to mess about with the expert settings and see if I can get it working properly. It's nearly there, just missing the in-game speech which seems to be caused by the tweak: slowdown exceptions. If I remove it the speech returns, but then the game is back to being too fast. I have an X-Fi sound card and use Creative Alchemy, so I've already tried dsound.dll in the game directory which made no difference. I'll try some other sound wrappers and see if they work and also the other fixes you suggested. Thanks!

My Specs
Windows 8.1
RTX 2070 Graphics Card
CPU: I7 3770K
Sound Card: X-FI Platinum
Mem:16GB
Crucial 1TB SSD
HD: WD 6TB

PerryRhodan wrote on 2022-07-02, 12:58:

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58 , I'll continue to mess about with the expert settings and see if I can get it working properly. It's nearly t […]
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Hi, BEEN_Nath_58 , I'll continue to mess about with the expert settings and see if I can get it working properly. It's nearly there, just missing the in-game speech which seems to be caused by the tweak: slowdown exceptions. If I remove it the speech returns, but then the game is back to being too fast. I have an X-Fi sound card and use Creative Alchemy, so I've already tried dsound.dll in the game directory which made no difference. I'll try some other sound wrappers and see if they work and also the other fixes you suggested. Thanks!

My Specs
Windows 8.1
RTX 2070 Graphics Card
CPU: I7 3770K
Sound Card: X-FI Platinum
Mem:16GB
Crucial 1TB SSD
HD: WD 6TB

The slow down exceptions was made for Windows 8+ OS, where some winmm.dll code was made illegal. The Handle Exceptions flag ignores them, but the problem caused by the exception is a broken game brake. Thus the speed gets virtually emulated using SlowDownExceptions.

The only thing down here is limit the rendered frames, so it's puzzling as to why the sound is crashing. I only have one suspect, Creative Alchemy and X-Fi drivers. If you don't mind, can you try running the game without any sound drivers? Creative's sound drivers are buggy, this is not my observation but a long known fact; there's probably a better driver pack made by user Daniel_K. You may try the latter at your own risk or see if the game plays without drivers.

At least this trick worked for one game, The Need for Speed Special Edition which crashes with my official C-Media drivers but works with MS drivers.

You may report it to the DxWnd SourceForge forums, but it's a long process and the forum is already busy currently so you'll have to wait.

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58, I switched to my onboard Realtek sound and it's the same result, still no speech during the game, but if I remove tweak: slowdown exceptions, the speech returns but the game runs too fast. Is there no other setting that slows the game down? If not I'll just have to keep experimenting with different wrappers and DXWind settings or just settle for the 3dfx version.

Thanks!

PerryRhodan wrote on 2022-07-03, 13:05:

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58, I switched to my onboard Realtek sound and it's the same result, still no speech during the game, but if I remove tweak: slowdown exceptions, the speech returns but the game runs too fast. Is there no other setting that slows the game down? If not I'll just have to keep experimenting with different wrappers and DXWind settings or just settle for the 3dfx version.

Thanks!

After or without installing the Creative drivers?

I think at this point it is more useful to contact the DxWnd developer about, the one who made this tweak. You could go to the DxWnd SourceForge forums and create a new separate thread explaining this obscure problem. Please attached the latest profiles and sdb file's zip there as well.

And are we talking about Mercenaries here? How's things with Titanium Edition?

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58, I tried after uninstalling the Creative X-Fi drivers, but still not working properly with onboard Realtek Audio. The Titanium 3dfx Edition is working more or less perfectly with dgVoodoo 1, and I also tried the latest dgVoodoo 2 version 2.79 that is now showing the HUD, but it has a weird flashing effect which is a shame as the game looks much better with Anti-Aliasing applied. I'll try the DXWind forum and do as you suggested. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries D3D enhanced audio version working perfectly, as it's definitely the best version in my opinion. Thanks for all your help! 😀

PerryRhodan wrote on 2022-07-03, 15:55:

Hi, BEEN_Nath_58, I tried after uninstalling the Creative X-Fi drivers, but still not working properly with onboard Realtek Audio. The Titanium 3dfx Edition is working more or less perfectly with dgVoodoo 1, and I also tried the latest dgVoodoo 2 version 2.79 that is now showing the HUD, but it has a weird flashing effect which is a shame as the game looks much better with Anti-Aliasing applied. I'll try the DXWind forum and do as you suggested. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries D3D enhanced audio version working perfectly, as it's definitely the best version in my opinion. Thanks for all your help! 😀

There may be some confusion. In the other thread where you wrote about having flashing HUD, the game is MechWarrior 2 3Dfx Edition, it is based on edited assets of the Pentium Edition game to run on 3Dfx cards.

Titanium Edition is made on the Enhanced Mercenaries engine, and the game's 3Dfx mode will behave differently as well. So the problem you said with dgVoodoo2 is happening with Titanium and not for the game where you mentioned