I'm trying to get this running on my Tandy 1000SX. The first game runs flawlessly but the second simply causes the machine to hang as soon as I try to launch it. Might and Magic I came with GRAPHSET.EXE which allowed me to select TGA but the GOG version of MM2 has no such setup executable so I'm wondering if that is the issue? TGA.DRV is included and is in the directory so it is not as if it isn't supported. Is there some kind of -parameter I can use on the MM2.exe to direct it to the TGA.DRV or does someone have the original disks that they can share the setup.exe?
Thank you. Sadly this doesn't appear to be the issue. I have tried both "mm2 t" and "mm2 c" (for CGA) and both just hang there. It's a good install since I've copied it directly over from my Socket 7 machine which runs the game (downclocked/caches disabled) so I'm not sure why it isn't loading up here. Could it be that this game does not like MS-DOS 5.00 ? (Despite MM1 running fine)
This game is a weird one. I can't get it to run on DOSBOX, it always tells me to free up more memory. I'm wondering if having too much conventional RAM might be part of the problem. I'm not really sure. I'll post more if I have more time to look into it.
On my Windows 7 PC, If I simply open DOSBOX, Mount C ".." and try and run MM2 from the prompt I will get the...
"MM2: Not enough memory for the 16 color version.
Release TSRs and retry."
(Or any other version I try)
However, if I just use the MM2 Shortcut that GOG provides it runs without a hitch. So I decided to have a look at the single.conf...
"[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
@ECHO OFF
mount C ".."
c:
cls
loadfix -4 mm2.exe
exit"
Loadfix is what allows the game to run in DOSBOX without any issue. This is not needed in real DOS on my Pentium machine and, sadly, does not prevent the hanging on the Tandy machine.
It runs on my Pentium 90 with DOS 7.1 and on my IBM PC AT 5170 with DOS 6.22. I don't have a Tandy to do any testing on locally unfortunately. Anything is worth a try at this point, try running it with a DOS 3.3 bootdisk...
The machine has a HDD installed -- I plan to just wipe it and start with a fresh Tandy DOS 3.2 but is there anything special I need to know about reformatting these old drives ?
Nothing special that I know of...I might try a boot disk before I go through with the format, but if you've got nothing on there then go for it. Just make sure you transfer the system to the C drive when you format or you wont be able to boot from the drive.
I just realized Might and Magic 2 requires 512k RAM, you haven't specified if you've upgraded the Tandy 1000SX from its default 384k. Maybe that's something that could have been overlooked? MM1 only requires 256k.
The machine was upgraded at some point to its max 640K and 'mem /c' currently shows 550K available. Dragon Wars even runs well on this machine without any issue. I don't have a boot disk for the machine -- no software came with it when I purchased it off ebay.
Well, after all the trouble to wipe, reformat and replace MS-DOS 5.0 with MS-DOS 3.2 the game hangs just the same. Pretty infuriating -- more 'demanding' games run fine as does MM1. I thought maybe the process of copying the data to 720KB disks corrupted in in some way but if I then copy it back to my 98SE Dell machine into a fresh directory the game runs fine in Windows on that machine. I've even tried "MM2 C" to see if it would run in CGA mode but no.
Does anyone have a physical disks for this game in the 3.5" format? I'm curious if the file lists match up, and how many disks it is on. Mobygames shows the 5.25" screenshot as disk 1/3 but they do not show any distinction for the single 3.5" screenshot. I know, however, that all of the files that are installed from the GOG version cannot fit on a single 720KB disk -- even with the GOG specific files stripped out.
I managed to find images of an older version than the one I bought on GOG and through using the .4 and .16 files from GOG and the .OVLs/.EXE of the older version I am able to get the game to launch and play -- however this older version requires a "Player Disk" to save so it is still unplayable in that respect.
It seems as though there is something about the 3.5" release that makes it unplayable on this XT configuration?
Also, I thought this was interesting -- while EGA and TGA modes have purple skinned humans (bar/innkeeper, smith, amazon warriors, etc) they have a proper skin color when using MCGA mode, only. So this game is best played on a MCGA/VGA system, actually.
I got it to work in DOSBox!
I initiated LoadFix and set it 64kb and it launched flawlessly. Before it wouldn't even start.
So not sure how that would translate to real hardware. Maybe something to due with memory management?