Apply Grayface patch to MM7-Rel.exe?

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
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Apply Grayface patch to MM7-Rel.exe?

Unread postby blobber » 13 Jan 2013, 19:47

I just recently bought MM7 from GOG.com. I'm actually still playing through 6 at the moment, but I just wanted to make sure 7 would work alright, as some people on the GOG forums were having various issues, so I fired it up.

The game worked great as long as I used MM7-Rel.exe. Otherwise, if I ran MM7.exe, I would get really distracting cracking/popping in the audio at times, no matter how I tinkered with the settings (tried disabling 3D sound in the registry, etc.). I suspect this is entirely due to GOG enforcing Windows 95 Compatibility Mode on MM7.exe, which they do not do with MM7-Rel.exe. Interestingly, I get the exact same sound problems if I use Win95 compatibility with MM6, but they are completely absent if I run the game normally.

So I thought, fine, I'll just use MM7-Rel.exe. But then I installed Grayface's patch, and it occurred to me that it's only the MM7.exe that he's modifying, and I'm not going to see any of the bug fixes if I use MM7-Rel.exe. Sure enough, based on the much sharper sprites that I see when I run MM7.exe, this appears to be the case.

Do I really have to choose between an unpatched but working game vs Grayface's fixes but awful, glitchy sound? Does anybody know of a way around this?

Thanks in advance for any help.

(Running WinXP SP3)

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Unread postby Variol » 13 Jan 2013, 22:16

I never had a problem playing MM& in XP. I'm now playing it on Win 7 with no problems either. I do have an actual copy though; not a download. I installed the Grayface patch on both OS's.

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Unread postby blobber » 14 Jan 2013, 01:16

Thanks for the reply, Variol. This definitely has to do with the GOG release of MM7. If I move the exe out of the game folder, then it's no longer forced into compatibility mode. As soon as I put it back in, Win95 mode is reapplied and I can't change it... and I get the sound issues.

Like I said, the MM7-Rel exe works just fine because it isn't forced into Win95 mode. But then I don't get any of the Grayface fixes. It's really frustrating! I've posted on the GOG forum too. Hopefully somebody can identify what's going on (could it be a script?) and explain how to get rid of it. Maybe it's just a file that needs to be deleted. I know other people have this same problem.

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Unread postby GrayFace » 14 Jan 2013, 15:52

Just open options of mm7.exe (from right click menu) and compatibility mode would be one of the last tabs there. Disabling it there should work perhaps. Or rename mm7.exe into anything else.
My patches: MM6 MM7 MM8. MMExtension. Tools. Also, I love Knytt Stories and Knytt Underground. I'm also known as sergroj.

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Unread postby blobber » 15 Jan 2013, 00:59

Hey, it is Mr. GrayFace himself! Thanks for stopping by my thread. You're probably used to hearing this, but I just want to say thanks so much for the great work you've done. It's probably been about 20 years since I've played a Might and Magic game, and it's amazing to return to see talented people still working to fix and improve the games.

Anyway, the problem was that any attempt to remove or change the compatibility mode would not stick; as soon as you closed the compatibility tab, the EXE would revert back to Win95 mode right away. After noticing that the compatibility mode was no longer forced if I moved the EXE to a different folder, I did try renaming it and that worked. However, I thought that was a messy solution and I was still curious about what GOG was doing. Should have known it was a setting in the registry: "HKLM \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft\Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ AppCompatFlags \ Layers" , to be precise.

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Unread postby Variol » 15 Jan 2013, 10:04

Weird, I just went to have a game of acromage and the game did it's usual crash. I restated it and now the music "on" even though I have it turned all the way down. Has anyone had that happen?

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Unread postby blobber » 15 Jan 2013, 12:22

I haven't played very far at all in MM7 yet (haven't even tried Arcomage), but, no, I haven't had anything like that happen so far.

Maybe adjusting the music volume control up and then back off will cause it to be reapplied... ? Did you look in the INI to see if anything changed there?

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Unread postby GrayFace » 15 Jan 2013, 12:41

You're welcome.
Variol wrote:Weird, I just went to have a game of acromage and the game did it's usual crash.
Never had it with Arcomage. ErrorLog.txt would be handy.
My patches: MM6 MM7 MM8. MMExtension. Tools. Also, I love Knytt Stories and Knytt Underground. I'm also known as sergroj.

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Unread postby Variol » 15 Jan 2013, 20:24

Yeah, I tried the slider, but no dice.

I can not even remove the audio file, 'cos the game won't load. Any other suggestions? A reload would not take too long I suppose.

..anybody have a great MM8n mod floating around???

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Unread postby GrayFace » 15 Jan 2013, 22:10

The music is on CD or in Music folder as MP3s.
My patches: MM6 MM7 MM8. MMExtension. Tools. Also, I love Knytt Stories and Knytt Underground. I'm also known as sergroj.

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Unread postby Variol » 15 Jan 2013, 22:47

Variol wrote:Yeah, I tried the slider, but no dice.

I can not even remove the audio file, 'cos the game won't load. Any other suggestions? A reload would not take too long I suppose.

..anybody have a great MM8 mod floating around???
Darn; I hit "quote" instead of "edit" again. :disagree:

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Unread postby Flodarien » 16 Jan 2013, 02:56

I thought that the GoG versions of MM6 through 8 had the Greyface patch with them already? Why would you need another one?

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 16 Jan 2013, 16:18

Grayface's patches are ever-evolving. The one that comes with GOG is outdated now, as far as I have seen.

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Unread postby Flodarien » 16 Jan 2013, 23:58

But at least, it's a better patch than the vanilla game.


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