[Bug 16389] Mechwarrior 2 fails to start

[WineHQ Bugzilla]

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16389

Anastasius Focht <focht at gmx.net> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |focht at gmx.net
                 OS|other                       |Linux
           Hardware|Other                       |x86

--- Comment #26 from Anastasius Focht <focht at gmx.net> ---
Hello folks,

be aware that each MW2 flavour mentioned here has multiple _different_ issues.

I've looked into the "The Titanium Trilogy" from comment #24

--- quote ---
Titanium version (as declared in comment 0) can be found here:

https://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?id=2068&fic=liens
--- quote ---

Created snapshot via Internet Archive here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200410072831/https://tele500.abandonware-france.org/fichiers/jeux/1996/jeu-01260-Mechwarrior_2_Mercenaries_Titanium_Edition-PCWin.7z

This is *not* the same MW2 Titanium Trilogy edition from comment #0 (Alistar).

---

Most of the flavours don't run on modern Windows XP/7+. The game relies on
broken/deprecated Win95 behaviour in graphics (ddraw), heap manager and
filesystem API. There is not much Wine can do here. There are online resources,
describing how to get the different flavours somewhat running. Many of the
"solutions" require patching of the game executables and/or the use
wrappers/hookers that apply fixups at runtime.

http://www.mech2.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=806

https://www.warp13.co.uk/mech2

https://github.com/retropc/mw2hook

---

To be able to debug the flavour mentioned in comment #24 I had to:

* unwrap the original 'mercswin.exe' executable (custom compressor) to be able
to patch it

* patch out cd-check (convenience, I don't want to have image mounted in cdemu)

* patch app main window creation to change WS_POPUP+fullscreen to
WS_OVERLAPPED+smaller window

* patch ddraw SetCooperativeLevel DDSCL_FULLSCREEN DDSCL_ALLOWMODEX
DDSCL_EXCLUSIVE to DDSCL_NORMAL

* patch out ddraw SetDisplayMode

It turns out the ddraw game does check for various device caps (bpp), refresh
rate/mode etc. which causes it to terminate without much trace to the actual
problem. The checks are very tight (ex: 8bpp only). You are basically forced to
run https://wiki.winehq.org/256_Color_Mode but even then it's not enough.

Tidbit: Any MIDI/winmm fixmes on console are harmless and not the cause of
exit.

Anyway, it's pointless to discuss any further details here. It would just mess
up the ticket further as there is a number of issues on each MW2 flavour.

Regards

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