MechWarrior 2: Resource Forum

Hi all,
I have been installing the MW2 series on a Windows XP (SP3) 32-bit Virtual Machine.
I installed the Win95 versions of Mechwarrior 2, GBL, and Mercenaries.
I ran MW2Hook's Setup, which created hooks for all three.
The hooks for MW2 and GBL work fine, I can run them and get into combat.
With Mercenaries, it doesn't work well. Once I launch Combat, I get "Synchronizing Neural Interface", and then it crashes with error:
MW2.EXE - fatal error : ran0scn1 ID -1:
You must insert the Mercenaries CD into your CD-ROM drive
(Of course the CD is already in the drive).
I am running with Patch 1.1.

Help please?
In general, I would like to try to install the best non-buggy version with good graphics. I've tried Titanium Trilogy, but haven't been able to make it work.
Any recommendation for the best versions to use?

Thanks,
Vandervecken

I should note that I'm only interested in single player campaign play on all these titles, so if you're going to advise me on which version to try, please feel free to ignore Netmech and its brethren.

Also, I do have access to a Windows 98SE Virtual Machine too, though I haven't had too much luck with it either.

Thanks,
Vandervecken

Umm, I can only get Mercenaries to behave using DosBox (on a XP sp3 machine) with the original DOS release. From what I've been reading here I honestly think Mercs will only run on a proper Win95 machine otherwise its hit or miss.

I thought the Titanium version worked on Win98 but I believe you have to set it to Win95 compatibility mode - and have to watch out for those early accelerated graphics options - might have to switch them off?

If you turn off those hardware acceleration options in Titanium, what benefits does Titanium have over DOS?

DOS versions of all games are the least buggy out of the bunch. Any 95 version unless you are on a real 98 computer will be buggy to some extent sadly.

If you happen to be one of the lucky few to have both DOS and Titanium then yeah it's not your first choice. Otherwise it seems you need to ensure you have as close as virtual machine as possible to make it work in Windows environment.

You might have to do a dual boot and install windows XP raw no service packs (or 98 with some tweaks to get it to accept the higher RAM and CPU I think?) and maybe try that?? Since you're using VM ware I don't see the point since its pretty accurate.

By the way, DosBox has some scaler options that enhance the low resolution displays somewhat if your machine is fast enough.