Titanium is borderline impossible to get running from what I remember. It was a rushed remake with broken... uh, everything. Broken graphics (wrong textures used for almost every level), broken gameplay (the weapons were unintentionally overpowered), and tons of bugs. That's also not mentioning the inherent compatibility issues with every Windows version of MechWarrior 2, such as the crashes, misfiring missiles, mechlab not working, and some other issues.

I'm sorry if this isn't much help, but just play the DOS version with DOSBox or try to get the 3DFX version working with nGlide. I was able to get that running before on Windows 7, although it was super buggy and I ended up just playing the DOS version.

Thanks for your reply!

Unfortunately, the Win95 version doesn't work on Windows 10. Even not with MechVM.

Is there a way to play MechWarrior 2 with its expansion packs in DOSBox and 3dfx?

I believe the 3dfx version is based on the W95 port as well.

gdjacobs wrote:

I believe the 3dfx version is based on the W95 port as well.

It is. It works a bit better than the normal Win95 version of the game, but you still have to contend with a bunch of weird bugs including the MechLab glitch and the missions randomly refusing to play (as soon as you press start it will go straight to the mission success screen, which seems to be a weird fail-safe for when the game can't start the sim portion)

If you insist on running the windows vers of MechWarrior 2 then it runs decently in pcem v12 if you have a fast computer.

If too slow for pcem then you can load up Windows XP in a Vmware VM, install the additions and try either dgvoodoo1 or nglide.

Is there any smart coder out there that knows why Mech2 Windows version does not work?

Some smart people made WinXP/Vista/Win7 work fine by using MechVM. Why can't the same smart people do the same with Win10?

Mech2 via MechVM was basically held together by duct tape and shoe strings; there were a couple of hacks being applied to the game (MW2hook and something else) and even then it was really unstable on Windows 7. Win10 has worse compatibility from what I remember, so I'm guessing it broke a very specific thing needed to get MW2 working. You're best off playing in DOSBox, and if you really want to play a Windows release, using a virtual machine, or using PCem if you have a fast enough rig.

SpeedySPCFan wrote:

...so I'm guessing it broke a very specific thing needed to get MW2 working. You're best off playing in DOSBox, and if you really want to play a Windows release, using a virtual machine, or using PCem if you have a fast enough rig.

Yup, don't know a soul that can run it in win10.

Dos version of Mercenaries does not have Dynamic Salvage (which is exactly what to use). I'm running through emulators but not a single one is doing very well; its either too poor performance wise or has several graphic glitches.

There has to be a programmer or coder smart enough out there to know what the frustrating issue is with win10 and Mech2 Win9x.

Wonder why GoG.com hasn't jumped on this game?

Edit:grammer

Destroy wrote:

Wonder why GoG.com hasn't jumped on this game?

Licensing. Battletech (which MW is based on) belongs to FASA, but the rights to make MechWarrior games belongs to Pirhana and they're pretty brutal about the license, but MechWarrior 2 was made by Activision. I don't know about this one for sure, but I remember hearing that Microsoft owns the rights to publish MechWarrior games for Windows.

Still testing things out.
https://imgur.com/6XYHSDX

Not sure if you're still interested in this topic.
Mechwarrior 2 Merceneries Titanium edition running in DOSBox/Win98SE with 3Dfx acceleration on Windows 10.
I can also get Mechwarrior 2 original 3Dfx version to run as well within DOSBox.

No need to use MechVM.

System is AMD FX8300.

@kjliew Nice! How exactly did you get it working?

DOSBox SVN + Kekko 3Dfx patch + my own bigmem_384M patch and a disk image of Win98SE. Install Diamond Monster 3D drivers for 3Dfx voodoo1, and you are ready to go. DOSBox supports mounting 2 disk images. You can use the 2nd image mount to store the ripped games CD images. Use Daemon tools or MagicDisc to mount CD image during game play.

It is not very straight forward, but you can search the forum to gather all the details on how to do that. Unfortunately, the official DOSBox does not support running Win98.

Thank you! I'll give it a try.

Native WIN64 QEMU with 3Dfx Glide pass-through in action, running Mechwarrior 2 31st 3Dfx enhanced version and Titanium Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries, using dgVoodoo2 64-bit in Windows 10 Pro build 1803.

!!! 3Dfx Glide lives on !!!

Nice, although I still prefer the PowerVR version!

gdjacobs wrote:

Nice, although I still prefer the PowerVR version!

True, but 3Dfx left over the legacy that lives on, thanks to its dominant position of propriety 3D API and the abundant of undertakings trying to wrap Glide APIs over OpenGL and Direct3D. Now, such efforts have made significant contribution to the preservation of 3Dfx accelerated games. They will live on.

kjliew wrote:

Native WIN64 QEMU with 3Dfx Glide pass-through in action, running Mechwarrior 2 31st 3Dfx enhanced version and Titanium Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries, using dgVoodoo2 64-bit in Windows 10 Pro build 1803.

!!! 3Dfx Glide lives on !!!
<snip images>

Mind if I ask a few questions on specifics....

Are you running a Win10 x64 virtual machine on Linux?
How is the frame rate?
Any mouse or visual glitches?
Are you able to run MW2 in larger than the games native resolutions?
Are you able to use anti-aliasing?

Thanks for any feedback.

Destroy wrote:

[Are you running a Win10 x64 virtual machine on Linux?

No. QEMU runs Win98SE as guest OS. Host can be Linux or Windows 10.

Destroy wrote:

How is the frame rate?

Without WHPX/KVM acceleration, 45~55-ish FPS, no targeting and no object in line of sight. FPS can drop in 10-ish range with targeting, particle trails and chunky explosion.
With WHPX/KVM acceleration, FPS will mostly stay at 60FPS or more, with occasional high 30-ish during intense action, 2 or more mechs in line of sight, explosions etc. Jump-jets recharge rate slowed at high 50FPS.

Destroy wrote:

Any mouse or visual glitches?
Are you able to run MW2 in larger than the games native resolutions?
Are you able to use anti-aliasing?

Mouse behaves as normal. It can be used for point targeting and firing. The visual aspects are mostly the job of the Glide wrappers. For dgVoodoo2, it is perfect, I would say. PsVoodoo gets the job done pretty well, too, nothing that I would complain. OpenGlide has issue with fogs, but can be worked around by disabling fog in OpenGlide.ini or keeping the realistic HUD all the time. Yes, you can scale the game native resolution (which is 640x480) to any 4:3 resolution. PsVoodoo can only do simple image stretching, so some stuffs will get zeggy unless you had forced anti-aliasing at the driver. DgVoodoo2 has more native controls on scaling including anti-aliasing. OpenGlide can only scale perfectly at exact integer ratio such as 1280x960, otherwise there are artifacts on the texts and lines on the HUD.

The above is for Titanium version because the game uses Glide2x 2.4, and that gives you 3 options of Glide wrappers to choose from. For Mech2 31st, since it is Glide 2.1.1, only dgVoodoo2 works. And, dgVoodoo2 only works natively in Windows 10.