MM2 runs FAST in Win 8.1 and 10 now

There is a patch for the broken Directdraw function

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BIGzee
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Postby BIGzee » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:57 pm

oh sorry.. Mine is a Hybrid CrossfireX. Didn't know that until today, lolzz. Crossfire is actually AMD's circus lion trick that simply alternates between Dedicated graf-mem (which MM2 mostly uses) and Integrated graf-mem (eg. while in the game menu). It's not even that intellegent in organizing which one should be active and when, and Nothing stops it from being in control. Which is also the reason I get more fps in Rivals than in MM2. But with adding D3DImm.dll it is on-par with every high end racing game I've ever played. Derpy fact: I get a constantly flickery 59-60 fps in GRID 2! Yes, in High settings, not Ultra

So Crossfire has incompatibility issues, hence I mentioned not to focus on my fps readings. They are supposed to be low with MM2, like they ever have been. Probably cuz Crossfire and/or AMD catalyst decides what's best for me and those setups are not user moddable. I've also kept an eye out for a modded AMD Catalyst
software that allows me to set which individual executable uses which graf-card.

But this patch gives me some hope, so I'll try workarounds in the meanwhile. I didn't check/select any 'Forced' option in the dgvoodoo software (the executable in the archive). Or I could write here what parameters I set in the executable before I pressed the 'Apply' button. 'As of now' facts : I never got any flickering or tint thingies; D3DImm.dll only works and it successfully increased my minimum fps to 25-30 frames (aand I'm happy already); DDraw.dll still asks for "DirectX 7 and above". Could be Win 8, or it being a 64 bit.
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Postby FXANBSS » Tue Dec 01, 2015 8:07 pm

Note: MM2 doesn't use AMD crossfire or a second graphic card, always uses a single graphic card.
Also it doesn't use all the power of the graphic card, it uses %1 approx. Duh.

WARNING: Crossfire maybe cause problems to MM2. (Since i remember i have tested some games, not mm2, almost all of them are slower than before, only a few games have run better, that's why i don't use crossfire, i don't know about MM2 but since it's a old game... Yeah.)

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Postby BIGzee » Wed Dec 02, 2015 4:15 pm

Agreed! But why does it render only the menu at 60 frames, or am I not alone ? Also, reminding that my catalyst doesn't let me specify which card I could use and also I've the "Hybrid" one, of all Crossfires. Wai.. wat - 1% ? You're implying that mm2 on mine uses only 41mb of physical mem :lol: (of the theoretically available '4096') ?
WARNING: Crossfire maybe cause problems to MM2. (Since i remember i have tested some games, not mm2, almost all of them are slower than before, only a few games have run better, that's why i don't use crossfire, i don't know about MM2 but since it's a old game... Yeah.)
YAS! Like I sai... here -
So Crossfire has incompatibility issues, hence I mentioned not to focus on my fps readings
Only games since '12 work and the rest loiter murkily. And I'm still getting the "Requires DirectX 7 and above" no matter what. My sole consent now is to get JimvanDam's discovery to work on mine, wholly and fault-free.

EDIT: @JimvanDam, now I got what you meant. I am using the ddraw.dll (and all other files from the previous ddraw patch) from the old patch with the D3DImm.dll (the only file from the new patch). Cuz, without the ddraw.dll file completely, I get the horrendous 5fps like you said. I guess it's incompatible with win 8 or it being a 64bit. If what I'm asking isn't wrong/illegal... could you post here the two addon files that you put in your directory ? That and, are you using these 2 files with the previous patch's files, combined ?
Last edited by BIGzee on Thu Dec 03, 2015 8:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby JimvanDam » Wed Dec 02, 2015 7:41 pm

This might be a stupid question, but do you have the NoCD-patch? I have the v3 edition, and I would like to upload mine, but don't know how to put files in this post/send files to someone... :(
I got myself a fresh install from the MM2 cd and the game instantly crashed when I clicked "Jetzt spielen" (play now). After I installed the NoCD-patch and copied the ddraw and d3dlmm.dll files to the installation folder (for me C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft games\Midtown Madness2), MM2 ran fine again.

I use the directdraw.dll and D3DImm.dll from this version https://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2_45.zip
They are both in the MS folder. I don't have multiple patches installed. I tried that once with MM1, and failed horribly.

For the menu running at 60 fps, I saw in my fraps recordings that the menu looked different from what is see on the screen. I see the menu widescreen, but fraps records it as a square (because the menu is low-resolution I think)... I think, this way the pc has less trouble showing high fps the menu. Also, it doesn't have to continously load a map bacause you're not driving yet.


What you could try, is DriverBooster to auto-update all your drivers (it's free) (BUT PLEASE BACKUP THE OLD DRIVERS WHICH CAN SIMPLY BE DONE BY CREATING A WINDOWS RESTORE POINT!) https://download.cnet.com/Driver-Booster ... tag=button
Maybe there has been an update from AMD that fixes this issue.

I have a pc here which also has an AMD card, it's not the one you have, but this way I can test Catalyst and it's drivers and all. I just have to upgrade the pc to Windows 8.0 (64 bit).

EDIT: I also have 64 bit, so I think that's not the issue, but when I installed Windows 8.0, that was the most derpiest, not-doing-what-I-demand version of Windows, so I moved straight to 8.1, which works a lot smoother (but also has it's little irritating problems).
Last edited by JimvanDam on Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby Jet5195 » Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:24 pm

If anyone is still having problems with flickering, for me the opposite of the posted solution worked. Sorry I wasn't clear enough in my original post!

"Jet5195 provided a solution:

Go into graphics settings,
select "Hardware rederer with T&...." as default renderer (I don't know exactly what the rest is)"

But in fact it's the opposite (for me at least). I selected "Hardware Renderer" instead of "Hardware rederer with T&..." which fixed the problem.

Also the game isn't running at all on my desktop (plays intro music but can't display) for some reason (AMD Radeon r9 290/ Windows 10) but just fine on my laptop, anyone have any experience with this? It did run once in Compatibility Mode in 640 x 480 resolution, but not since.

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Postby JimvanDam » Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:49 pm

If anyone is still having problems with flickering, for me the opposite of the posted solution worked. Sorry I wasn't clear enough in my original post!

"Jet5195 provided a solution:

Go into graphics settings,
select "Hardware rederer with T&...." as default renderer (I don't know exactly what the rest is)"

But in fact it's the opposite (for me at least). I selected "Hardware Renderer" instead of "Hardware rederer with T&..." which fixed the problem.

Also the game isn't running at all on my desktop (plays intro music but can't display) for some reason (AMD Radeon r9 290/ Windows 10) but just fine on my laptop, anyone have any experience with this? It did run once in Compatibility Mode in 640 x 480 resolution, but not since.
It looks like AMD can't handle MM2 very well. You and BIGZee both have issues with playing the game.
I will soon test my desktop, which also has an AMD radeon (don't know what version yet, I have to check).


Jet5195: You could try
-going into dgVoodooSetup.exe (Run as administrator)
-going to the directx tab
-setting the resolution to anything higher than 640x480 (something like 1600x900 for example)
-hitting apply
-running the game in compatibility mode again (I would recommend XP-compatiility mode, but choose which one works for you, if Vista-mode works better, use that one.

Also the game isn't running at all on my desktop (plays intro music but can't display) for some reason (AMD Radeon r9 290/ Windows 10) but just fine on my laptop, anyone have any experience with this?
if anyone has experience with it, please post

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Postby FXANBSS » Wed Dec 02, 2015 11:23 pm

Uh, i noticed AMD hate old games! But they are the best cards! (For new games, duh.)
This is the end of the world.
I just play old games, NVIDIA IS MORE EXPENSIVE.
Now they are going to steal my money later.


EDIT: Note: Graphic card Driver Version MIGHT affect the perfomance too, as happened with Nvidia. (1 fps in MM2.)
A word of warning to anyone with an Nvidia gpu. Avoid the latest driver for now [355.98], it causes massive performance drops with MM1 and MM2 related to directdraw.

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Postby JimvanDam » Thu Dec 03, 2015 7:20 pm

Uh, i noticed AMD hate old games! But they are the best cards! (For new games, duh.)
This is the end of the world.
I just play old games, NVIDIA IS MORE EXPENSIVE.
Now they are going to steal my money later.


EDIT: Note: Graphic card Driver Version MIGHT affect the perfomance too, as happened with Nvidia. (1 fps in MM2.)
A word of warning to anyone with an Nvidia gpu. Avoid the latest driver for now [355.98], it causes massive performance drops with MM1 and MM2 related to directdraw.

That's why I warned to create a Windows restore point/backup before attempting to change anything. I have had many issues with the latest drivers for my pc and other devices.

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Postby BIGzee » Fri Dec 04, 2015 1:28 pm

AMD is incompatible with anything that came before this decade. Rest runs perfect in mine, anything post 2012 to be exact.

So your PC has an AMD and you'll try updating it to win 8 64bit and see if it works ? You do that. Nothing better than first person experience 8). Yea, I have Driverbooster and all the drivers are updated. AMD catalyst isn't the latest one but for my chipset, I've been limited to v2014.0417.2226.38446 . You could use Mediafire for file hosting. And the No-CD patches that even I use. They're safe as far as I've tried. I use the 1.0 one, the only one compatible for me. Which patch are you using ? XP compatibility patch or the speedboot one ?

A li'l as-of-now summary of what I currently have and is the only way the new patch works:
  • Files from previous patch:
  • d3d8.dll
  • d3d9.dll
  • d3d10.dll
  • d3d10core.dll
  • ddraw.dll
  • dplayerx.dll
  • drvmgt.dll
  • dxgi.dll
  • libwine.dll
  • wined3d.dll

    Files from the new patch (dgvoodoo):
  • D3DImm.dll
And a Midtown2.exe v1.0, cuz only this works.

If I try without the previous patch's files and only the new patch's .dll duo, I get only software renderer and mm2 crashes at car select menu. Guess it's AMD endgame for mm2 :cry:.
Last edited by BIGzee on Fri Dec 04, 2015 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby JimvanDam » Fri Dec 04, 2015 4:17 pm

The No-CD launcher was from mmarchive, which I believe is the speedboot one. There was no xp-patch included in that version... If I install any xp-patch, MM2 just refuses and I get "MM2 isn't working anymore" error (something like that, I have the Dutch version of Windows 8.1. After that, I have to manually copy and paste the No-CD launcher in the MM2 install folder again, after that, it works again.

I'm going to create a MediaFire account. Shall I just upload the whole game in a password-encrypted zip-file or just upload the files I use to make the game working for me (including No-CD launcher)?

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Postby BIGzee » Fri Dec 04, 2015 6:03 pm

A'ight. I'll try the mmarchive speedboot one. Also I don't have any XP patch installed on mine due to the same reason. All odds point to my AMD laptop. Guess, it's simply an AMD incompatibility snag.
Shall I just upload the whole game in a password-encrypted zip-file or just upload the files I use to make the game working for me (including No-CD launcher)?
Just the 2 working .dll files will be enough. If these work, these could be added to the 1st post as an archive-mod so n00bs like me could add this to our archives, simple as that. But that's only if it works, else you could confirm that this patch isn't 100% compatible on AMDs :vsad:
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Postby Jet5195 » Fri Dec 04, 2015 6:47 pm

I set the resolution to 1920 x 1080 via VooDoo and Midtown Madness now runs on my AMD setup! So that tip foprovided earlier may work. Unfortunately the highest resolution MM2 allows me to select is 1600 x 900 but that's not that much of a problem!

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Postby BIGzee » Fri Dec 04, 2015 7:18 pm

Forced Res works ? Will try.

EDIT: No luck.
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Postby JimvanDam » Sun Apr 24, 2016 3:20 pm

I tried installing Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 (64-bit) on the computer with the AMD graphics card. It refuses to load any of them.

I uploaded the dll files i use to get MM2 to work, in addition to that I uploaded my version of the game in a password protected zip-file, for anyone who wants to test:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=4 ... lder%2cdll


The dll's are in the folder called "The dll's",
To install:

-create a backup of the MM2 install folder!

-go to the link above

-download everything in the folder called "The dll's"

-if a zip-file is downloaded, extract that FIRST! Do not put that zip-file inside your MM2 folder, that won't work!

-put the 2 dll files into the folder where you have MM2 installed

-try to run the game

-if this doesn't work, try to download my edition of the game using the guide below



My version of the game is in the other folder, called "My entire MM2 game (German version)", to get that to work:


-download the zip-file called "Midtown Madness 2.zip" from the link above (It's inside the "My entire MM2 game (German version)" folder)

-extract the zip file, you should get a prompt to enter a password, if no prompt is shown:
try installing 7-zip or WinRAR and extract using one of those programs. (I prefer 7-zip, because it's free and can also extract .rar files, but if you already have WinRAR installed, use that one)

-enter the password (MidtownMadness)

-after the zip file is extracted, go into the created "Midtown Madness 2" folder

-run midtown2.exe to start the game

-If this version does not run well on AMD computers, I sadly have to confirm that they might not be compatible and I will update the post


EDIT: using the [ url ] tags seems to delete my message for some reason, so you have to copy and paste the onedrive link in your browsers.

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Postby KingAndy » Tue May 24, 2016 6:43 pm

My game forces 640x480 screen resolution. I change it and it changes back when I run the game? What am I doing wrong?
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