MechWarrior 2: Resource Forum

Hey all!! First I want to say that after years of torture not being able to play Mechwarrior 2 on WinXP, I decided to install it via Dosbox and it WORKS!! WOOT!! Thanks to whoever made the guide and the video!

Now I have a couple of questions regarding the DOS version:

Does the dos version have music during mission briefing, the mechlab, and when selecting the level in ToG? Or is that some feature that only the win95 version has?

Second question is, I'm running the game on 1024*768 res and sometime on the mechs i see that their texture changes. What I mean is, for example, the Summoner's circular thing sometimes goes from being circular to a square with no details. Is this due to the resolution?

ANd lastly, Jump jets seem to recharge kinda slowly. I heard it has to do with having more than 1 core ( I have a quad core heh). Anyway i can fix that? I read to use a certain program but idk how to use it and such.

I hope someone can answer these questions for me, so thanks in advance!

P.S: i was just playing the game and it seems that when playing ToG, I keep spawning on top of my allies. lol The ai seems to do the same.

Alucard256 wrote: Does the dos version have music during mission briefing, the mechlab, and when selecting the level in ToG? Or is that some feature that only the win95 version has?

My DOS 1.1 CD version doesn't have music there. I remember reading people mentioning this MIDI music in the game and thought "I've never heard this..." until I bought a Win95 version.

Alucard256 wrote:Second question is, I'm running the game on 1024*768 res and sometime on the mechs i see that their texture changes. What I mean is, for example, the Summoner's circular thing sometimes goes from being circular to a square with no details. Is this due to the resolution?

That's a LOD popping effect. It's due to the number of polygons in the scene, if I understand correctly. It won't happen in the same way if there isn't complicated terrain (for instance) on the screen at the same time. See this screenshot --

Here are two Timberwolves close up at high(ish) LOD, and it happened possibly due to fact I was looking up into the sky and really the only things rendered are the two mechs (and part of the cockpit frame). The closest one is at the highest LOD and the further away one is (maybe) a step down or so (I think).

You can more easily see two different LODs in this screenshot --

Note the "square" arms on the Timberwolf further away, and the "rounder" cockpit/"nose" on the one closer.

Alucard256 wrote:ANd lastly, Jump jets seem to recharge kinda slowly. I heard it has to do with having more than 1 core ( I have a quad core heh). Anyway i can fix that? I read to use a certain program but idk how to use it and such.

Scroll down to the "Issues" section of this post. In particular, this may possibly be useful if you're on Vista. I don't have this problem myself, having an older CPU.

Alucard256 wrote:P.S: i was just playing the game and it seems that when playing ToG, I keep spawning on top of my allies. lol The ai seems to do the same.

I don't recall ever having seen this myself, but maybe someone else has...

The first question:
The Softkey version of MW2 comes with the win95 versions AND the DOS versions of MW2 and Netmech, with meks being perfectly interchangeable, etc... so the version guide doesn't do justice... anyway... back to my answer. LOORD I WAS BOORN A RAMBLIN' MAAAAAANN
In the DOS version, I had MIDI music in the briefing rooms, menus, training mechbay, etc.. In the Win95 version, I have non-midi music in those rooms (i.e. as if it were CD audio).
Second question: DOS version is very quirky with LOD's... the win95 and 3Dfx versions are not... that is all.
Third question: What npsbre said

Thanks for the answers!! Enzo you said you had the midi playing in the DOS version?? how'd you do that? And yea I have the softkey version. I bought that yeaars ago. Never knew it had music till just recently. Also, I'm on WinXP SP3. I'm gunan try that cpugrab thing and see wat happens.

1) I have MIDI in DOS because I actually went and set up my sound options correctly, lol (in music, keep going up until it says "General MIDI"... OR ELSE!!!)
However, this is only in the menus, not ingame. You must put the cd tracks onto the CD with something like Nero or imgburn (I used imgburn and it works), but... well, see below.
2) I lied when I said that the Win95 version's menu music wasn't MIDI. It is indeed MIDI. I guess that's just how awesome my MIDI is on my older computer (some parts better than the actual CD track, though that's rare with MIDI even on that card)!... I played the MIDI title track on my laptop here, and it sounds very... archaic, like something from... ...yeah, '94. Nobody likes MIDI anymore.

With the CPU grab thing, you're better off playing the DOS version in DOSBOX, especially if your computer has multiple cores (if it doesn't, cpugrab will work great if you can find the magic number!). You will need to make an image of the CD in order to play it on DOSBOX. If you did what I did above (make sure it's on a different CD, not your original), you may not be able to make an image out of it.

If you REALLY REALLY REALLY want music on the DOS version, your best bet is to get a CD for the DOS version.
Also, if you REALLY REALLY REALLY wanna play Netmech DOS, well...

...
...lol, just grab the build in the forum announcements/sticky/whatever.

Well I am running the game through DOSBOX. I do have Music. I just don't have Menu music. Where did you go to configure your midi music? Was it the Sound Configuration in the mech2 folder? or was it a setting in Dosbox?


nvm got the menu sounds working! Thanks a bunch. now if i can only figure out a way to not have my guys all spawn on top of each other. Otehr than that i got a working game!! sweeeet!