Might and Magic 6, 7, 8 merge based on mm8 engine. [upd. 05.11.2023]

[eilacomeva]

Did anyone have any success running this on the original Italian version under windows 10?
It DOES work on wine(*), but I'm trying to get it to work for my brother who hates linux

[..]

So-long as it's run elevated it will run natively without issue on Windows 10, albeit at a signicant performance hit irrespective of GrayFace's patch being installed.

I gather from reading your posts, the exact problem is that it's hanging at the point of beginning a new game, after selecting a continent and character creation?

Can you confirm that standard game (ie., not the "merge") works as expected?
(snip)

Fook no.
I was sure it did, because I have the savegames (the ones I played on this computer on windows span august-november 2015), but when I tried reinstalling and applying the latest grayface patch mm8.exe complained that "some" (unspecified) files were missing, while using mm8setup.exe or running mm8.exe as admin worked.

Iirc summer 2015 is when people were offered a free win8=>win10 upgrade, meaning it worked on windows 8 and/or some early version of windows 10 without requiring admin privileges (of this I'm sure).

I still have mm8_eng_xp.exe from 2009, if THAT makes vanilla mm8 work I guess I'll try binary searching to see when it stopped working.

The merge instead does NOT run from mm8setup.exe or running mm8.exe as admin - creating a new game or loading an existing one brings up a lua exception.

[Templayer]

I thought it worked by either having some filesystem attribute, or maybe by recording in the installed program list "installed something here" - please tell me that you're joking about it searching for the string "program files"...

I've never tried windows pre 95, windows 95 only in a vm for some reason (program compatibility?), and I'm lucky enough that I've never touched windows me, but your picture is missing windows 2000 - the BESTEST windows!

As far as I know it actually is searching for a string in the path. That way it goes off in both Program Files and Program Files (x86). Stupid, right?

And it wasn't my picture. Anyway.

1. Because that's the way it's supposed to work, and because I like the idea of the virtualstore to keep old games working;
also, I'm using wine myself, my brother is the windows guy.

Well, the virtual store UAC employs to "protect" users does the exact opposite of that - it breaks old games.

What basically happens if you turn the UAC off (in a non-hackish way) is that some of its "protection mechanisms" will still apply on any file that has the string of "Program Files" in its path. And if you have UAC turned ON, then those mechanisms work EVERYWHERE. If I remember correctly, it has been a few years since I had to deal with that (and I have dealt with that permanently).

On Win 7 turning off UAC turns off everything, it becomes like XP in that sense. Pretty sure in terms of files UAC on Win 7 only covers special folders. Files aren't the only thing that UAC effects BTW, it also restricts use of hooks API. So, legitimate programs have a harder time, while viruses can easily elevate themselves. See "uacme" for a completely public set of ways to do it.

I was pretty sure that Program Files was among the special folders for Win7 UAC.
And I see you are starting to understand why I hate UAC and Microsoft in general.

Ok so, there is no wiki, etc to help with this. Can someone tell me if/how you can raise dark elf / vampire ability (expert, master, etc) in Enroth / Antagarich?

I have already told you about the Tracker, and also that you will have to go to Jadame to do it, and that info about that can be found on the tracker, an spoiler section included! Please read what I have written to you. The Tracker currently IS our wiki.

Ok so, there is no wiki, etc to help with this. Can someone tell me if/how you can raise dark elf / vampire ability (expert, master, etc) in Enroth / Antagarich?

Definitly you must go to Jedame. Where u got a darkelf and vampire in Enroth?

THE UNLOCKER.

Was my post a few days ago lost or what?

Definitly you must go to Jedame. Where u got a darkelf and vampire in Enroth?

Character unlock mod. I thought I remembered some post where trainers, etc were placed in other continents to help options like this. It would be rather fun if that were true. I was not very fond of MM8, but I like a couple of the character options.

THE TRACKER. ARGH.
IT HAS OVER 100 PAGES!

The merge instead does NOT run from mm8setup.exe or running mm8.exe as admin - creating a new game or loading an existing one brings up a lua exception.

You could copy paste that lua exception for us. And put it inside the Code tags.




LINK TO THE TRACKER IS IN MY SIGNATURE

[alekssandros]

Little question: the town hall with my adventurers reserve inside, will reset with free haven in 24 months?

Another: is there ID monster E,M,GM trainer in Enroth?

[Emjayen]

Do you mean it runs slower on Win 10 than on Win 7? My patch introduces extra performance hit on high resolutions, because it scales UI in software in single thread. Flexible UI is less demanding, because less of the screen is covered by UI.

As in compared to the performance that would be exhibited on hardware the game was written against at the time. This is primarily due to fundamental video hardware architectural changes with drastically different performance characteristics that the MM6..8 engine/old D3D API is designed for, exacerbated by the emulation layer that has to emulate correct (API-level) behaviour on this hardware (not to mention the game is just poorly written in general)

Profiling shows, as expected, frequent stalls due to CPU/GPU synchronization resulting in up to a whole frame worth of delay (halving the frame-rate, minimally). GPU work isn't fed efficiently at all; small batches due to constant state changes; GPU spends most of it's time either idle or doing non-useful work tasks, even driver rename pools for resources are exhausted occasionally due to the pathological modify-read-write pattern, etc.

Rendering the UI in software is of negligible performance concern and is a primitive matter of being memory-bandwidth bound (or, should be), however it's the sort of workload that video hardware is designed for and would benefit it.

tldr; average frame rate is about 22fps on modern commodity hardware during scenes of typical complexity.

Already done.

Where? I only saw the stack trace/error log the game usually generates.

Fook no.
I was sure it did, because I have the savegames (the ones I played on this computer on windows span august-november 2015), but when I tried reinstalling and applying the latest grayface patch mm8.exe complained that "some" (unspecified) files were missing, while using mm8setup.exe or running mm8.exe as admin worked.

[..]

Right so you reinstalled the game, installed GrayFace's patch, encountered what is likely a permissions issue the game reported misleadingly as "missing", then ran it elevated and it worked? That sounds about right, although I'm a bit confused as it seems you're suggesting otherwise.

Regarding the present issue (with the Merge version) -- have you followed the steps listed?

Well, the virtual store UAC employs to "protect" users does the exact opposite of that - it breaks old games.

--

I was pretty sure that Program Files was among the special folders for Win7 UAC.
And I see you are starting to understand why I hate UAC and Microsoft in general.

Again, not related to UAC -- see my previous response.

File-system virtualization (and registry virtualization) which is what you're referring are nothing more than mechanisms to aid in compatibility for legacy (pre-Vista) software which frequently assumed they'd be run with full administrative privileges.

Only software that does some pretty esoteric things (e.g, the redirection is implemented in UM, thus it's possible to inadvertently circumvent it) will be affected.

[Chokk]

- Sometimes when I get inside a house, I crash with the following console :
Seems to happen only in teachers house, and maybe only after I just train levels and spend skill points.

Should be fixed now, tell me if it is not.

No way to make it crash again, so I guess it's a fix
@Templayer : you can remove all my reporting from May 30th except de line for the gatekeeper NPC.
Question : how do you manage the bug tracker ? Some bugs are old and possibly solved. Do we need to test it for you to remove them ?

Some seemed confused by the promotions in the merge and I agree it is not easy to figure out all the paths possible. For exemple you can promote your cleric to priest in Enroth or Antagarich or get a priest in your starting party at Jadame. If you want him to be GM Dark Magic, you have to promote him in MM7, for GM Light Magic it's MM7 and MM8, and you get no GM promoting him in Enroth. It's an important thing to note building your party.

I'll try to do something visual about it, but someone can explain to me if "Dark Arch Mage" and "Master Wizard" are something possible in the merge, and how, or are there just present in the Data but not in the game (yet?). And what about the peasant, can we promote him ?

[EstelRandir]

Was my post a few days ago lost or what?

When I refreshed the thread - before posting, your previous responses did not show up. They do now. Might have been an issue with my browser cache. It happens sometimes with YouTube.

[Templayer]

- Sometimes when I get inside a house, I crash with the following console :
Seems to happen only in teachers house, and maybe only after I just train levels and spend skill points.

Should be fixed now, tell me if it is not.

No way to make it crash again, so I guess it's a fix
@Templayer : you can remove all my reporting from May 30th except de line for the gatekeeper NPC.
Question : how do you manage the bug tracker ? Some bugs are old and possibly solved. Do we need to test it for you to remove them ?

Some seemed confused by the promotions in the merge and I agree it is not easy to figure out all the paths possible. For exemple you can promote your cleric to priest in Enroth or Antagarich or get a priest in your starting party at Jadame. If you want him to be GM Dark Magic, you have to promote him in MM7, for GM Light Magic it's MM7 and MM8, and you get no GM promoting him in Enroth. It's an important thing to note building your party.

I'll try to do something visual about it, but someone can explain to me if "Dark Arch Mage" and "Master Wizard" are something possible in the merge, and how, or are there just present in the Data but not in the game (yet?). And what about the peasant, can we promote him ?

The way the Bug Tracker works that I put what people report there, and to remove stuff, Rodril tells me what was fixed / not a bug / etc. I then proceed to make a post with all the removed stuff inside a code tag.

Yeah, the new promoting paths should be tutoriarized somewhere, but aren't. If anybody writes it down, I will put it on the Tracker.

Dark Arch Mage and Master Wizard originally were in the Merge, but I believe those were removed. At least Dark Arch Mage was. And I thought there was going to be (or is) a Master Necromancer for those that do not wish to become Liches to get GM Dark Magic (Archibald teaches GM Dark Magic and yet is not a Lich. He is a Master Necromancer ), but I cannot seem to find any trace of that in the tables.

Yes, you can promote the Peasant class to pretty much all the standard classes.

Was my post a few days ago lost or what?

When I refreshed the thread - before posting, your previous responses did not show up. They do now. Might have been an issue with my browser cache. It happens sometimes with YouTube.

 

[Chokk]

Here a draft of a visual guide for promotions. Please tell me if there is some mistake or something I misunderstood

[KankiBoldman]

Here a draft of a visual guide for promotions. Please tell me if there is some mistake or something I misunderstood

What is Thaumaturge? the promotion should be Sniper like Battle mage should be warrior mage but its nitpicking from me, i'm sorry about that... but does Thaumaturge mean sniper in some language? tried to check from translator but they only talked about some magician?

[justl]

Here a draft of a visual guide for promotions. Please tell me if there is some mistake or something I misunderstood

What is Thaumaturge? the promotion should be Sniper like Battle mage should be warrior mage but its nitpicking from me, i'm sorry about that... but does Thaumaturge mean sniper in some language? tried to check from translator but they only talked about some magician?

this is where the merge mixes with path of exile

[Chokk]

Here a draft of a visual guide for promotions. Please tell me if there is some mistake or something I misunderstood

What is Thaumaturge? the promotion should be Sniper like Battle mage should be warrior mage but its nitpicking from me, i'm sorry about that... but does Thaumaturge mean sniper in some language? tried to check from translator but they only talked about some magician?

Woops ! Seems that I mixed up a bit. I did that on memory and only check part of it after that.
FI, Thaumaturge is in French, but it makes no sense for an Archer to me. It's a mystery for me why the translation team chose this word.

The new visual (also add Master Wizard, the Arch Mage for MM6)

[Templayer]

Here a draft of a visual guide for promotions. Please tell me if there is some mistake or something I misunderstood

What is Thaumaturge? the promotion should be Sniper like Battle mage should be warrior mage but its nitpicking from me, i'm sorry about that... but does Thaumaturge mean sniper in some language? tried to check from translator but they only talked about some magician?

Woops ! Seems that I mixed up a bit. I did that on memory and only check part of it after that.
FI, Thaumaturge is in French, but it makes no sense for an Archer to me. It's a mystery for me why the translation team chose this word.

The new visual (also add Master Wizard, the Arch Mage for MM6)

I presume Calavier is french too?
After you fix that, I will add it to the Tracker under Tutorials.

[GrayFace]

Rendering the UI in software is of negligible performance concern and is a primitive matter of being memory-bandwidth bound (or, should be), however it's the sort of workload that video hardware is designed for and would benefit it.

Can't remember the numbers, but it can easily become the bottle neck on 4K+.

tldr; average frame rate is about 22fps on modern commodity hardware during scenes of typical complexity

WHAT??? Is that on Intel GPUs? I only tried on Nvidia, soon gonna try on AMD. It has to run at 60fps.

Already done.

Where? I only saw the stack trace/error log the game usually generates.

Yes, it was enough to locate the issue.

The new visual (also add Master Wizard, the Arch Mage for MM6)

Great chart!

[Chokk]

Woops ! Seems that I mixed up a bit. I did that on memory and only check part of it after that.
FI, Thaumaturge is in French, but it makes no sense for an Archer to me. It's a mystery for me why the translation team chose this word.

The new visual (also add Master Wizard, the Arch Mage for MM6)

I presume Calavier is french too?
After you fix that, I will add it to the Tracker under Tutorials.

This time, it's more a problem with my fingers than with my brain

New version here :

[Xfing]

There's one more thing: The Light and Dark masters in Enroth let you switch your class in the following pattern: Master Wizard > Archmage (one-way), Master Wizard > Master Necromancer (one-way), Master Necromancer <=> Archmage (repeatable). You can do it at will basically, the only exception currently being that a Master Wizard can't be recovered once they choose to specialize. You could include this in your guide too.

[SpectralDragon]

There's one more thing: The Light and Dark masters in Enroth let you switch your class in the following pattern: Master Wizard > Archmage (one-way), Master Wizard > Master Necromancer (one-way), Master Necromancer <=> Archmage (repeatable). You can do it at will basically, the only exception currently being that a Master Wizard can't be recovered once they choose to specialize. You could include this in your guide too.

... Why can't Necromancers from MM8 be turned into Master Necromancers (one-way) as well instead of just becoming Liches?

[Chokk]

There's one more thing: The Light and Dark masters in Enroth let you switch your class in the following pattern: Master Wizard > Archmage (one-way), Master Wizard > Master Necromancer (one-way), Master Necromancer <=> Archmage (repeatable). You can do it at will basically, the only exception currently being that a Master Wizard can't be recovered once they choose to specialize. You could include this in your guide too.

Very interesting info ! I thought it was bad that you can't get GM Light and Dark in Enroth.
Does it apply to High Priest/6 of the Light/Priest of the Dark as well ?
Do we agree "Master necromancer" is what is called "Dark Arch Mage" in the skill table ?
I have a party to make those test tonight anyway.

[Templayer]

Woops ! Seems that I mixed up a bit. I did that on memory and only check part of it after that.
FI, Thaumaturge is in French, but it makes no sense for an Archer to me. It's a mystery for me why the translation team chose this word.

The new visual (also add Master Wizard, the Arch Mage for MM6)

I presume Calavier is french too?
After you fix that, I will add it to the Tracker under Tutorials.

This time, it's more a problem with my fingers than with my brain

New version here :

Added to the Tutorial Tracker. Also for the purposes of the Tracker document, wouldn't you mind sending me that picture splitted into three parts upon update? (I presume there is going to be an update with the Master Necromancer (Dark Archmage internally)). You can see the way that I have split the picture to fit onto pages on the Tracker, check the index and check the Tutorials section.

Also I made a new section in the Credits Tracker, and you are in it. Enjoy.

[Xfing]

Very interesting info ! I thought it was bad that you can't get GM Light and Dark in Enroth.
Does it apply to High Priest/6 of the Light/Priest of the Dark as well ?

Correct, it does! Thanks for reminding me. The rules are the same as with the sorcerer.

Do we agree "Master necromancer" is what is called "Dark Arch Mage" in the skill table ?
I have a party to make those test tonight anyway.

Yes, that's the same class. The name change was after a suggestion to keep it more lore friendly, since there I've never heard talk of "dark archmages" in this universe

A Master Necro can still be promoted to a Lich, though of course it's a one-way ticket, and the benefits are only access to the Regeneration skill and those Mind/Body immunities, I believe.

... Why can't Necromancers from MM8 be turned into Master Necromancers (one-way) as well instead of just becoming Liches?

I believe I asked this very question on more than one occasion in this thread By now it's most likely in the the suggestion tracker already. And it's a rather serious request, since the Jadamean necromancers have those heavily stylized portraits that we'd have more interest in keeping than the generic ones from the other two continents. Devlin Arcanus for example is considered to be one of the more awesome characters, so being able to keep his portrait after promotion would be quite nice.

[Maslyonok]

If I want to improve Russian localization, can someone tell me how to get text files? (I mean, it would be nice to translate those pieces of text that were added to the original game with the MMMerge).