A) How many verisons were made? Not counting the packaging variations, there were a total of six 3D Enhanced versions of MechWarrior 2 released during 1996-1997. Of these six, five were PC/Win95 versions and included ports for the ATI 3D Rage, Matrox Mystique, S3 ViRGE, 3Dfx Voodoo, & PowerVR. A single Macintosh/MacOS version using Quickdraw 3D RAVE was released in 1997 as well. All the PC/Win95 versions have native 3D API support and you will need a videocard with a specific chipset to be able to run them [with one of two exceptions]. The Macintosh QD3D RAVE version may be able to be run on several differnt Mac videocards, because it uses a broader 3D API, but that would depend on how well the game gets along with your videocard's RAVE drivers. While it seem like it would have been a hell of a lot easier if they made just a single D3D or OpenGL port, realize these games are a product of a time when D3D performance was very weak and OpenGL support was very rare, so the best 3D performance available [by far] was achieved by using a chipset's native 3D API.

B) What's so great about them? While the original DOS/Win95/Mac MechWarrior 2's gameplay, storyline, multiplayer, sounds, and music all still hold up very well all these years later, the one area that looks most dated is the software rendered version's graphics. As you can see from viewing the screenshots on the gallery pages, the 3D Enhanced versions may not be up to the new 2001 game standards, but in their own way, they still look damn good. In many ways they look better than the Titanium series, plus many versions run faster and have higher resolutions than Titanium as well. Another great thing about the 3D Enhanced editions [for PC/Win95] is that they also include a 3D accelerated version of Netmech which is fully compatible with the regular Pentium/Win95 versions of Netmech. This now means less than it used to with the decline of Netmech leagues, but it compatibility used to mean a hell of a lot because there were huge numbers of people playing the non-Titanium Win95 Netmech online and you were able to join and host games with them, unlike those playing Titanium Netmech. Titanium also wasn't available until 1998, a point where the leagues where beginning to enter the twilight period of their popularity. Unfortunately, the Mac RAVE version does not include a 3D accelerated version of Netmech.

If you are looking to buy a PC version, my recommendations [when considering performance appearance, resolutions, & availability] are 1) the 3Dfx Voodoo Edition as the best, followed by 2) the PowerVR version (when used on a PCX2 based card). They both look great and run pretty fast, but the Voodoo is much easier to find, offers 800x600 resolution, and runs the fastest on most systems. The PowerVR version has really nice fog, 640x480, and it seems to suffer the least from polygon pop-up, but it is a bit harder to find. As far as the other versions: The ATI 3D Rage version only does 512x384, but is relatively easy to find and can be a option if you have a Rage Pro powered latop/notebook (Rage II, II+, IIc will work, but may be too slow on a laptop to give you acceptable fps). The ViRGE version looks nice and offers higher resolutions, but is just too damn slow even on the fastest system w/ the fastest ViRGE/GX2 card and despite being available as OEM and retail, it is somewhat hard to find. The Matrox Mystique version [when originally released] offered the highest framerate of the MW2 versions made for the 2D/3D cards, but it suffers from pixilation (a result of lacking bilinear filtering) and is really not worthwhile anymore unless you are running an older system and you have no other option or you are a very big Matrox Mystique fan.

Macintosh users are limited to the Quickdraw 3D RAVE version. I have seen several sites list the version that came with the TeckWorks Power3D as the *only* RAVE version available/made, but the "Accelerated for the 6500" version that was included with the PowerMac 6500 series is the same thing! I've noticed on eBay, people often bid really high the Power3D version, while at the same time a 6500 version will go unsold or won for almost nothing. Arm yourself with knowledge and you'll be twice as likely to find a RAVE edition up for auction and you may also save some money!

C) Where can I buy them? As mentioned above, these games were used as a tool by videocard makers to convince customers that they needed to buy their new 2D/3D or 3D videocards. Activision and several card manufacturers made exclusive deals that limited the release of these MW2 versions to the software bundles that came with certain videocards and computer systems. The only version available for retail purchase was the S3 ViRGE Edition, which could be purchased directly from Activision, but this has long since been discountinued. All of the videocards including these games have also long been discontinued, though you may occasionally find them collecting dust in the corner of a computer or software store. The result is that you are left searching used software stores/outlets, garage sales, etc. or online auction sites like eBay, game trading websites, and even USENET where you may see a for-sale ad or place a "wanted" post. It's really not too hard to find most of them and since MW2 is considered by many to be one of the all-time great computer games, and Netmech one of the all time great multiplayer games, they are definetly worth picking up IMO. If you are running an OS like NT, 2K, or XP, and you have a spare PCI slot and some extra hard drive space, you could make with a Win9x partition, and pick up a Voodoo or PowerVR card and version of the game.

Different Size Files (using the 3Dfx Voodoo vs. the Pentium v1.0/v1.1):

• MW2.DLL (707kb) - App DLL that contains the Glide SST, PowerSGL, etc. 3D specific rendering instructions. This file must be included for Pentium to 3D Enhanced conversion. (Pentium v1.0 MW2.DLL: 722kb, Pentium v1.1 MW2.DLL: 808kb)

• MW2.PRJ (41.4mb) - The master data file. This file must be included for Pentium to 3D Enhanced conversion. (Pentium v1.1 MW2.PRJ: 20.8mb)

• MW2SHELL.DLL (531kb) - (Pentium v1.0 MW2SHELL.DLL: 505kb, Pentium v1.1 533kb) - As the name suggests, this file is for the game's shell interface screen (2D screens prior to entering the SIM itself).

New files:

• mw2.mip (8.33mb) - MIP mapping file for objects & terrain features in the game. The coversion will run without this, but you'll see some visual anomalies if you don't include it. I'm not really sure what the status is of this file with the Pentium Edition. When I first compared these versions, I had a 216kb mw2.mip file in the Pentium edition's directory, but when i recently installed again to recheck, it did not have a mw2.mip file at all (before/after patched and running the sim). I'm not sure why that is, but I do have three different Pentium version CD's lying around, some being OEM's and maybe one is a little different than the others (???). The PowerVR version does not include a mw2.mip file, which is probably due to its use of a non-traditional 3D rendering process.

• skygnd.par (4.49kb) - This lists [by mission] sky and ground texture tile rates along with sky animation rates. This file is not needed to convert the Pentium version to the 3D Enhanced. It appears to be more for tweaking and actually the skies in the both the original 3Dfx version and Pentium-to-3Dfx conversion ran at a more normal rate when this file was not present.

All the 3D acclerated editions should have unique versions of the above four files. (The same 52kb MECH2.EXE seen in the Pentium/Win95 edition appears to be reused in all the different 3D versions).

The results of the tests I've done have shown that by [minmally] changing the MW2.DLL and MW2.PRJ you should be able to convert a Pentium version into a 3D enhanced one (or 3D enahnced into a Pentium). It would be best to also replace/add the other files above as well to insure best performance and stability.

Without getting into coding and creating an *.EXE that would update and create files, the one way to create a 3D Enhanced version patch for the regular Pentium/Win95 version would be to put the five above listed files (six, if you include the tech.hlp) into a *.ZIP archive to be extracted into the installation directory of the Pentium/Win95 version. You'd be looking at creating Winzip patches that are somewhere in the realm of 40-50mb (25-30mb zipped) for each 3D Enhanced edition. I have tested this process using 3Dfx Voodoo and PowerVR patches on the Pentium Edition and from what I saw, it worked fine.

For those wondering, "Can I drop these files in a Pentium/Win95 GBL folder and create a 3DFx Glide (ATI 3D Rage, etc.) version of GBL......." You are on to something there, but it's not that easy otherwise it would have been done long ago. There are additional many additional objects/models in GBL and even if they are already in the original MW2.PRJ from the MW2, you would still have much to do. The major undertaking would be in having to attribute mip mapping to all the new objects. Much easier, but still time consuming would be modifying the skygnd.par file, which would involve choosing terrain and sky tiles rates (sizes) and the sky scrolling/animation rates. At least you can read and understand the skygnd.par in a text editor and see what you need to change, but the mw2.mip file is coded and has to be understood for attributing mip mapping (textures) for objects. You don't have a guide to refer to when looking at the mw2.mip file (or the MW2.PRJ for that matter) and when using a hex editor, all you'll see is a hell of a lot of "y's." I could go on about this, but this subject is much more of Maerlyn's field of expertise. Of course having the source code would make all this much easier, but Activision is really not the type of company that would ever do such a thing [I hope they prove me wrong], but I'm sure they will continue to repackage the game yet again, probably in "classic" and "antique" editions in an attempt to squeeze out a few more dollars.

It would be nice to create a GLMechWarrior 2 and a GLGBL that runs [at least] at 800x600, adds fogging like the PowerVR version, and maybe a few more features. Depending on the capabilites of the MW2 "engine", maybe one could add bitmap horizon features (ala Titanium) to create the appearence of forests, ice bergs, mountains, etc. in the distance that could fill out thegame world nicely. Also the view distance should be increased to at least 1000m and perhaps the object pop-up problems could be reduced or eliminated. If *carefully* done, something quite nice could be created, that makes the game more visually appealing in this day and age, yet remains faithful to what made the original game so great. Some would say "why bother? It's too old!" I would answer that it is obvious that this game is very different than MW3 and MW4, and we're not just talking visually. The feel of the game may not be pure 100% Battletech, but it sure has a style and feel all its own AND *it is fun* As long as a game continues to be fun, it is not obsolete and worth a look. I guess I've rambled (or ranted?) enough on this subject, so I'll stop here....

As far as the original 3D Enhanced versions go, the answer is - no -, there was no "VMechWarrior 2."

Rendition Verite (V1000) based cards* were released just before the original Voodoo Graphics cards came out and were a pretty good 3D performers [for a 2D/3D board], though not up to the Voodoo level. Some probable reasons for the lack of a Rendition port of MW2:

1) Rendition had a hardware accelerated version of Quake ("VQuake") to include with their new cards, something no one else could claim ( not even 3Dfx**). Quake was a huge hit among gamers and if you wanted a cool 3D version, the only option at the time wasyou had to have

2) The card/chipset makers paid good money for these specific 3D ports of games and were only willing to put so much money into their software bundles. Rendition had choosen the path of Quake as their big name investment and didn't want to pay for a MW2 port.

3) Lastly, all the PC 3D Enhanced versions of MechWarrior 2 were made for Win95 based native 3D API 's, to ensure acceptable performance (early D3D performance being questionable at best, especially w/ early Verite drivers). The problem? Surprisingly, Rendition did not have a Win95 3D API ready at the time! (One notes their choice, VQuake was DOS based). You were basically left with programing for the DOS "Speedy3D" API and as mentioned above, these were only Win95 3D ports and with that the V1000's fate was sealed for this game. Of course if Rendition/Sierra/Creative, etc. paid a huge amount of money to Activision, I'm sure they could have accommodated them with a DOS Speedy 3D port. (A version that would have been nice to see @ 640x480 with anti-aliasing). Rendition's Win95 Native 3D API "RRedline" was not released until the Spring of 1997, by which time Activision had moved on and already started preliminary work on what would become the Titanium Edition.

The MW2 Titanium editions, released in the Spring of 1998, did finally offer some level of RRedline support, though I never could find any details, aside from Activision's basic information stating that it supports RRedline and finding a "zredline.dll" file in the plugin folder.

* For the record, the main video boards using the Rendition V1000 were the Sierra Screamin' 3D, The Intergraph Reactor 3D (later renamed the Intense 3D 100), Creative Labs 3D Blaster PCI and the Canopus Total3D.

** GLQuake was not out until early 1997 and Mr. Carmack himself has stated (in Boot magazine and elsewhere) that it was *not* made for 3Dfx, but for his work station, but it turned out that the Voodoo cards where the only consumer level boards available [at the time] that were able to run GLQuake at an exceptable level.

nVidia:

I was very surprised to find out that there was a 3D accelerated version being worked on for the nVidia NV1chipset, but it was never quite completed. For more details, refer to the Q&A with Chacko Sonny.

The nVidia NV1 chipset (and SGS Thomson's STG2000 variant) was released in the fall of 1995 and was used in Diamond Multimedia's Edge 3D series and LeadTek's Proview series. Along with a non-traditional rendered method, the NV1 based cards also had onboard sound and input for Sega Saturn controllers. It sounded good on paper, but just didn't work out well in the real world.

**UPDATE** According to First of One, the FRAPS utility *does* work with the ATI Rage version and I did get it to work with the PowerVR version, though changing some of the advanced features settings on the PowerVR Display Properties tab can cause it to disappear . While I no longer have the Mystique and ViRGE versions to test, I suspect that FRAPS would probably work with them as well. It does NOT work with the 3Dfx Voodoo version (like many other utility programs).

As far as the MW2's built in framerate counter: After looking through old alt.games.mechwarrior2 posts @ Google Groups, I found out that Pierre Perret had created a fix for the framerate counter in back 1996. It was called WEDGE.EXE that worked on the DOS versions of MW2, GBL and MercNet. He found out that you needed to use the "-x" command line switch to activate the framerate counter, but this could only be used directly for the SIM part of the game (not the intro shell) and therein lies the problem. MW2 is designed to start off in the shell page first and that would cause a crash. The WEDGE.EXE program solved that problem. Unfotunately I have't been able to contact Pierre or find his program anywhere to see if it would work. What I did do is take the information about the "-x" switch and try it with the command line enteries for going straight into missions (See X. below), figuring this would bypass any crash problems with the shell. Be damned if it didn't work! Once in the mission I hit Alt+f and there is the framerate counter. Example of shortcut target:

MECH2.EXE -x userstar.bwd ****scn1

-OR-

MECH2.EXE userstar.bwd ****scn1 -x

Where **** is the 4 letter mission code (see codes below at X.)

mission=pink tile_sky=12.0 tile_ground=20000.0 anim_rate=0.00004

After some testing I changed the animation rate to by adding an extra zero and slowing it down quite a bit to anim_rate=0.000004 Depending on your systems speed and own personal preference, you will probably have to mess around with values until you find a result you are happy with

As far as the other two values, tile_sky & tile_ground, they control the number of terrain map files per given unit area. Increasing the values will create smaller tiles, decreasing values will stretch the tiles out over a larger distance. I messed around with both values for the "Pink" mission. Increasing the sky tile number did make the sky more realistic overhead (and changed the perceived cloud altitude), but it made it look for unrealistic and tiled-looking as you looked toward the horizon.

These tweaks may not offer any huge insight, but they are starting point to becoming famliar with the MW2 3D game engine.

*Note: There are 70 Missions listed, but it appears that there really are only 68: 6 Jade Falcon training, 16 Jade Falcon campaign, 6 Wolf training, 16 Wolf campaign, 10 Instant Action, and 14 Netmech. Two others are listed, but I never got around to checking them out.*

Here are the command line arguments for entering specific missions. The must be added after MECH2.EXE in the Shortcut Target Box: i.e it will look something like this:

D:\Mech2\MECH2.EXE userstar.bwd ****scn1 (where **** is the mission name)

The mission name uses a four letter abbrevition and the key is listed below. Note that this justs lists the single player campaign missions, because using this method with multiplayer missions causes the program to crash and training missions took forever to load and the colors were somewhat screwed up. Basically, this is not worthwhile IMO (because of the FREEBIRTHTOAD cheat) unless someone can use it as a starting point to figure out how to change the command line text and enter the Netmech missions offline.

Ex: MECH2.EXE userstar.bwd pinkscn1

Since this method uses the userstar.bwd files, the mechs that you enter the mission with are determined by what you last entered a mission with in the Trials of Grievance part of the game. SO if you want to change the type of number of mechs for you and your star, choose them in the trial, drop into the mission, then exit and the next time you run the command line short, it will be set up for those mechs.

If for some reason you still really want to try to view the *.888 files, you can use a procedure posted by VMaxx in alt.games.mechwarrior2 way back when. You will need a program like Adobe Photoshop or Paintshop Pro (both have evaluation versions available for download). Once you have a program to view the image with, you'll first need to change the *.888 extension to *.RAW (or just use "Open As..." in the program and then choose *.RAW).When the file is opened in Photoshop, Paintshop, etc. you will be prompted for some additional information before file can be displayed. In the dialog box that pops up, choose RGB, 4 byte header, and 1024x300 resolution. Acitivision's support page tells you to choose the resolution the game was running at to set the *.RAW size but this does not work. You will end up getting an image that is sort of a split widescreen version of what the screenshot should have looked like. Also, you will not be able to get the HUD overlay using this procedure. I have messed with this one on and off over the years trying to get it to work correctly, but I've given up. I really think it is a big waste of time unless you're really curious about it.

Battlepack was released in March of 1997 and like the later Titanium Trilogy, it included three CD's that had revised versions of the MW2 series, in this case: MW2, GBL, & Netmech. (Unlike Titanium, the third CD was not Mercenaries, but just Netmech packaged seperately). Also differing from the later Titanium Trilogy/Series, it was *not* hardware accelerated, with the main change for the Battlepack Edition being the use of the Mercs 1.0 game engine in MW2 and GBL. This gave these new versions some visual enhancements, but they still were only software rendered. Also, the Battlepack version of Netmech was *not* compatible with the other versions of DOS/Win95 Netmech already out at the time (a bad decision) and lead the mulitplayer part of Battlepack into quick obscurity online. Apparently the 8-bit Titanium versions are the same thing as the Battlepack Edition (once again, source is a USENET post by Dan K.) and I believe that the Titanium 8-bit Netmech is compatible with its Battlepack counterpart. Battlepack changed very little in these games and IMO was a waste of resources that could have been used to either get people Mercs v1.1 earlier and/or get rid of many of the v1.1 multiplayer bugs. Finally, while there is a v1.0.5 patch available to fix some bugs in Battlepack, Activision did not make any patches that would upgrade Battlepack versions of MW2, GBL, or Netmech to the Titanium versions, though this was originally discussed the Dave G. and others back in the Spring of 1997 when the Titanium Series was first announced.

The Titanium Editions were the final evolution of the many versions of the MechWarrior 2 series. First offered in the Spring of 1998, they can be found in three packaging variations: A) Titanium MechWarrior 2 B) Titanium MW2:Mercenaries and C) the Titanium Trilogy, which includes all 3 of the MW2 series: MechWarrior 2, MW2:Mercenaries and MW2:Ghost Bear's Legacy (Titanium GBL was never made available for purchase separately). Each CD in the Titanium series included 2 versions of the game: an 8-bit software rendered version which was basically Battlepack Edition v.1.0.5 and a 16-bit 3D accelerated version, including D3D, RRedline and 3Dfx Glide options (more on this below in XIX.) On paper this upgrade sounded great, but the execution was not there and Titanium ended up falling far short of most people's expectations, with Activision earning many a mechwarrior's [further] animosity. Below, I'll try to cover some background on the Titanium edition's problems.

Some history first: As far back as the Fall of 1996 when the ATI, Mystique and other 3D versions were being released, people starting asking for a single D3D (or even OpenGL) port of MW2, so that you did not have to buy a new videocard to get a 3D accelerated version. Of course, D3D was new and immature at the time and would have resulting in a much slower port than any of the native API versions. Still, many at Activision stated that it would be done at some point in the future. During the Spring of 1997 Dave Georgeson made a post refering to upcoming MW2 series prodcuts with D3D acceleration:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Zyzyg (zyzyg@aol.com)
Subject: Re: Mercenaries and 3dfx
Newsgroups: alt.games.mechwarrior2
Date: 1997/04/01

Howdy, folks.

I'm Dave Georgeson. I'm the Producer at Activision that is handling:
a) The Mercenaries Patch v.1.1
b) The Mercenaries GOLD product
c) The MechWarrior 2 GOLD product.

I'll add gobs of info in the days to come on these products, but right now
we're doing the design docs on this stuff and the features aren't set.

However, I CAN SAY, that you will be blown away by the graphics
improvements and the net enhancements. And, yes, Mercs (and Mech2 and GBL)
WILL be D3D capable.

More later.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Over the next several months, many possible features where discussed and the name was changed from Gold to Titanium by the marketing department. The talk of Titanium died down a bit as Activision released the beta D3D patch for Mercenaries in the summer of 1997, then the final v1.1 D3D patch in late fall. Dave Georgeson stated that they could not release any more patches to fix the outstanding issues, but explained they would have to be taken care of in the Titanium product. Throughout early 1998, people waited to hear news on how Titanium was shaping up, but all they got to see were occasional posts that were made by Activision employees indicating that the project's original lofty goals where dramatically reduced. In the end of March 1998, Titanium went into stores somewhat quietly and received mixed reviews. Some reviewers loved the improved graphics, but many mecha fans found that the game that was little changed from Mercs v1.1, with some additional bugs just for good measure. Some of the criticism:

• Activision took forever to release the Titanium versions and ended up cutting out most of the enhancements that were originally discussed and what was added often looked like it was hurriedly done.

• It only offered 320x200 and 640x480 resolutions. The 3Dfx Voodoo and S3 ViRGE editions did 800x600 back in 1996, so the support for higher resolutions was in the code, but not implemented.

• You see the same hideous blurred low resolution ground textures reused again and again. Especially that sickly green one, GRRR! The horizon does add an image wrapped around the edge of the visual plane that looks like mountains or other features far in the distance making the world look more realistic, but ofteb it looks unfinished with jagged edged low res textures and bad seam meshing.

• The skies in Titanium show the addition of planetary objects and more complex clouds, but they also cut out all the old different colored atmospheres for a generic blue rather than the purples, greens, reds, etc. that the DOS/Pentium/3D Enhanced versions had. In several of the missions, no one ever finished the skies and you get to see good old 8-bit banding.

• The game engine used for MW2 and GBL was taken from a conversion of Mercenaries v1.1 and ported to floating point game engine (instead of integer math). The intention was to created higher performance, but the game still experienced terrible slowdowns to low teens to single digit framerates even on faster systems. The lights, shadows and other effects that were some of the versions main reasons for buying had to be turned off by many to have a reasonable framerate. You don't see that problem on the older 3D Enhanced versions.The reason (or one of the reasons) behind this performance problem was explained in a post by Dan Kegel on the MW2 newsgroup back in 1998:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dan Kegel (dank@alumni.caltech.edu)
Subject: Re: Titanium framerates SUCK
Newsgroups: alt.games.mechwarrior2
Date: 1998/05/15

While making a minor change to Titanium recently, a programmer
working for us noticed that one of the frame rate fixes applied to an
earlier version of the engine slipped between the cracks, and didn't
make it into Titanium!

I'm trying to interest the Titanium producer in getting the fix into a
patch. Deadlines etc. are making it hard for him to say yes, but I'll
keep at it.

- Dan
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, others at Activision decided not listen to Dan (again) and never bothered to make a patch to fix this problem or any other of the numerous bugs in the Titanium series.

• All the great CD music tracks had been cut down to about half their original length to make room on the CD for the bloated game code. I have been told that some of the music tracks were also rearranged and/or missing, but I haven't checked that firsthand.

• The main reason for many people to buy this game was to finally have a 3D accelerated version of GBL, but this suffered probably the worst ofthe Titanium Series. The unfinished state of this game can be seen in many aspects of the game, but probably the worst was the missing GBL and other insignias in the game. Ghost Bear's Legacy is devoid of any Ghost Bear mechs and instead you see the Jade Falcon and Wolf insignias from MW2. Then there's the disappeaing waterfall, weakened AI (especially for aircraft) and other many other issues. I'd love to see someone do some hack fixes for this.

• And perhaps the biggest thing that killed this game was, the *feel* of the Titanium versions of Netmech, which is very different from that of the DOS/Win95/Pentium/3D Enhanced versions. The mechs have the feel of Mercs v1.1: i.e. the Autocannons are slow and [arguably] almost useless in multiplayer, where they used to be a good finishing weapon. This change in feel affects many of the other weapons and the movement of the mech to some extent. Plus you have the crappy Mechlab layout from Mercs as well. Players who had spent months or years learning the feel of the game and honing their skills suddenly found themselves with something was foreign. Activision also "forgot" to put in the Tinaca and Avon missions. The only two missions that look nice are Yamarovka and Graus. I believe these two mission contain a hint of what Titanium could have been, the textures looks pretty nice in both: the hills in Yamarovka look nicer and stand out more than in any other version; Graus also has nice textures which define the ice cavern better than any other version, but this is somewhat nullified by the terrible polygon disappearing/clipping/pop-up of the ceiling and walls of the cavern.

• Why wasn't Titanium done right? After many complaints in the mw2 newsgroup Tyler Scott tried to explain the situation:

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: tscott@activision.com (tscott@activision.com)
  Subject: Re: Wireframe view in Titanium
  Newsgroups: alt.games.mechwarrior2
  Date: 1998/04/21
  
  I admire your candor and I partially agrree with you. There is a lot of
  pressure on us (the people who make the game) from the sales/marketing folks
  you mention, but that is not an excuse for the quality of the games I
  release. I personally take responsiblity of Titanium as the producer, but I
  also took the resposibility to try inform the public (this newsgroup) of the
  current status of the project (see previous posts). There is a few things
  you should know, I am given a specific amount of time and a specific amount
  of money to do my job. When either of those two things are gone, I have two
  choices, kill the project, or release what I have. In the case of Titanium I
  chose to release what I had with an attempt at letting everyone know what I
  was providing. I am a concerned gamer who is interesetd in hearing your
  input. Please feel free and e-mail me directly if you think your questions
  are not being answered on these newsgroups.
  
  Tyler
  Producer Activision
  
  PS The ideas presented are my own and do not necessarily indicate the ideas
  of my employer.
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• In conclusion, it was a pretty disappointing product. The only thing that really saved it from oblivion was a combination of new players who didn't know what they were getting into and old & new players that really wanted to have the game with updated 3D graphics. Does this mean you shouldn't buy it? Back in 1998 I would have generally recommened avoiding it due to it's price, performance and lack of multiplayer compatibility, but now its worth a look if you can get it cheap. eBay is usually not a good choice for the TT, because people are paying insane amounts of money for it, but you may occasionally find it mislisted or in the wrong category and be able to win it for a reasonable price. Titanium Mercs is pretty good, and the Trilogy is the only way to get a 3D accelerated version of GBL, if you are into that sort of thing. Titanium MW2 is weak IMO, but if you want 3D acceleration and want to keep it simple, then it may be for you. If you are a hardcore fan and want to see MW2 at its best, then I would say skip Titanium and pick up a 3Dfx Voodoo card + the MW2 3Dfx Voodooo Edition and/or a PowerVR PCX2 card + the MW2 PowerVR Edition and you'll be ready to fight the Refusal War in high frame rate, textured-mapped 3D.

Titanium does offer 3D hardware acceleration with 16-bit installation option (the 8-bit choice is basically Battlepack). Activision's webpage states that it supports 3 API's: Rendition RRedline, 3Dfx Glide and Microsoft's D3D (D3D mode has limited compatibility w/ non-3Dfx & Rendition cards). After checking into this, there are three files in the PLUGIN subfolder that is within the main installation directory: 1) dx5draw.dll 2) zglide.dll and 3) zredline.dll. I'm not sure if you would really consider Titanium a true Glide or RRedline game, as these are just plugins (vs. the Enhanced vesions being specifically ported to one API). In the past, I ran the Titanium series in D3D on TNT and TNT2 Ultra cards, but it did look better on a plain old 4mb 3Dfx Voodoo card. You can run these games in D3D with many other videocards as well, but you may have graphic anomalies, which may be compounded by the graphics glitches that result from rushed and/or unfinished programming

To date, I honestly have never really spent much time trying to change the resolutions of these versions. Considering the hardware that the ATI Rage, Matrox Mystique and S3 ViRGE versions were made to work on, they are generally not worth trying to change. Perhaps the ATI Rage version at 640x480 or higher would be nice on an 8mb Rage Pro on a decent system, but supposedly it is locked to 512x384@60Hz. The 3Dfx version already offers 800x600 (as does the ViRGE, oddly enough). Now that I think about it, the one that I would most want to increase resolution in would be the PowerVR version, since it is one of the nicest ports and the card supports up to 1024x768. Recently, I found out that using a different MW2SHELL.DLL file for 3Dfx/D3D Mercs unlocked higher resolutions (for details, see below) and this makes me think that I might be able to do this for MW2 as well. The S3 ViRGE edition was the single one that offered resolution changes in the "Combat Variables" section of the shell and it appeared to be scalable with the amount of video memory available. Perhaps, if you were to use that ViRGE Edition MWSHELL.DLL on another version, such as the ATI 3D Rage or PowerVR, you just *might* be able to change to respolutions from the Combat Variables screen of the shell and successfully drop into single and multiplayer missions in higher res. This may even work for MW2 Titanium, since the shells are so similar to the older versions (aside from the Titanium running full screen). If the Titanium code handle running at 800x600 or higher, this may be the way to unlock it. I'll see if I can get a hold of the S3 ViRGE MW2SHELL.DLL and test this theory out.

"3Dfx" Mercenaries (retail version, OEM Adrenaline Rush 3D version, & 1.08b/ 1.081b patches)

Through experimentation, I have come up with way to increase resolutions in the 3Dfx Versions of Mercs. You can acess 800x600 and higher (if your videocard can handle it) by using the MW2SHELL.DLL file that came with a special OEM version of Mercs that does not cap resolutions like the later 1.08/3Dfx series. Fortunately, I have own this version :) Since this game isn't z-buffered, it should go 800x600 even on old 4mb 3Dfx cards. You can download the fix from HERE. *I would first back up your original MW2SHELL.DLL as a precaution* Then, just unzip this file and drop it into your Mercs installation directory. When you go into Mercs again, check your Video Options menu for the available resolutions. You should see resolutions up to 800x600 or higher, depending on your videocards memory.

D3D Mercenaries v1.1 (aka the v1.1 patch)

There are two ways of getting higher resolutions with Mercs v1.1:

1) The easiest way is to just use the same method as listed above for the 3Dfx versions of Mercs and while it is not flawless, it does work. Some problems are caused by the fact that the older 3D Enhanced shell DLL has some minor compatibility issues with the v1.1 code in the shell part of the game. Fortunately, the sim seems totally uneffected. You will lose the Mercnet and Options buttons on the main shell screen, because the older shell predates the addition of those buttons. This is really no big deal, because you can access both seperately anyway, Mercnet via Mercnet.exe and Options (Combat Variables) is available on the top menu. The other problem is that some of the shell's sound effects will be mixed up. You may get the Dropship thrust sound while hitting the exit button, or the "Enter Callsign" sound when clicking on the Mercenary button. It seems that the rest of the game functions fine though. One major benefit is that when you drop into a mission in Mercnet 1.1, the game will be at the resolution that you selected under the Video Options in the single player part of the game. It still will only show 320x200 or 640x480 for the Cockpit Resolution choices in the Mercnet shell, but you can ignore these as they are now irrelevant. If you want to see how your framerate is, use ALT+CTRL+SHIFT+FR to toggle the framerate counter.

2) I am including the second method only to help those who interested in understanding some of the inner workings of Mercenaries, because it is not very practical. This method involves editing two registry values and it only works with the Mercnet part of the game. These are the same values that are editing automatically when you choice your resolution under Video Options in the game. Here, the idea is to increase them beyong what the Video Options offers. This main problem is that once you go back into the single player, the shell DLL will change the registry values back to 640x480, as it is the max resolution that the v1.1 MW2SHELL.DLL file allows. This means if you are going back and forth between the single player and mercnet shells as most people do, you will have to go back into the registry and change the values each time you want higher resolutions in Mercnet after playing single player. (The DLL fix listed above changes the version of the MW2SHELL.DLL to allow the greater than 640x480 resolutions to stay in the registry). Here's the procedure:

Use REGEDIT to find: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Activision\Mercenaries 3D\1.0 If you highlight this key you should see two DWORD values under it, titled "DISPLAY HEIGHT" and "DISPLAY WIDTH." Right click on each of these and choose "Modify." An "Edit DWORD Value" box should then pop up. In this box, under "BASE" choose "Decimal" Value and change the value for the height and width to 600 and 800 respectively as a starting point. Note: If you try to go to high for your present videocard (i.e. trying to get 1024x768 out of a Vodoo I card), you will get an error when launch the Mercnet Mission. When done changing these values, close REGEDIT and go strait to Mercnet. *DO NOT ENTER THE SINGLE PLAYER SHELL TO GET TO THE MERCNET BUTTON OR THIS WILL VOID YOUR CHANGES!!* When you go into the Mercnet shell choose a Free For All mission, so you can stay in it and check it out. You will notive that the values under "Cockpit Resolution" will still read 320x200 or 640x480. Don't bother with them, because they will not change. When you enter the mission, it should be in higher resolution you set in the registry. If you get an error, you might have gone to high with the resolution or the resolution is not supported by your videocard.

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I was able to do all this because I came across some early OEM D3D versions of Mercs that don't cap the maximum resolution . I've seen two different variants so far. 1) a "3D Enhanced Edition" that came with Sony desktop systems w/ PowerVR cards and 2) a "Enhanced Direct3D Video and 3D Positional Sound" ELSA version that also adds some new sound effects.

Looking at the file dates on the 3D Enhanced Edition, the lastest date is April 1997, which means that these versions actually predate the release of the 3Dfx Interactive Edition and the 1.08b patch by a couple months. It seems like they later decided to cap the resolutions at 640x480 on the 3Dfx/1.08x versions for performance reasons. This was probably done because even people with higher end systems w/ 3Dfx cards complained that 3Dfx Mercs in 640x480 was very slow and they must have know based on their testing that very few if any people would have achieved an accepatable framerate.

Titanium Editions

I have long since dumped the Titanium versions, so I am unable to test them, but the answer has generally been "no" to the higher resolution question. *BUT* you do have some options to try:

You may want to check the registry for keys mentioned just above under "D3D Mercenaries v1.1" Perhaps you may be able to change resolutions this way (or at least for Titanium Netmech/Mercnet) until you have to reenter the single player part of the sim, at which the game would probably reset them to 640x480.

The Hi-Res Patch that I made for Mercs 1.08-1.1 does not work on Titanium Mercs. The code was changed and [apparently] also the MW2SHELL.DLL, MW2.EXE, and MW2.PRJ work together. There is now an additional PLUGIN folder that contains 3D DLL's for D3D, Glide and RRedline and somewhow these also figure into the mix.

Internet Games:

Unlike the Titanium version, Netmech DOS and Netmech95 (Win95 version inc/ the 3D Enhanced editions) really require third party software to help them find games on the internet as they only support modem, null modem (for DOS only), TCP/IP and IPX connections. Such third party software is available from websites like Kali, Kahn, MPlayer and other companies. This software ranges from Freeware to a small cost to register the software. In the past there might have been little [free] hack programs out there that might help out set up games, but I'm not familiar with any at this point.

As far as playing Netmech on Kali, Kahn etc. services: Up to the Spring of 1999, Kali had many Netmech games showing up and many Netmech Leagues that helped provide both league and no league related games for players, but after MW3 was released almost all of these games dried up. Even though MW3 multiplayer did not really replace Netmech (many Netmech players were very disappointed by MW3 and MW4 for that matter), they seemed to move on to other newer games like Half-Life, Tribes, etc instead of going back to Netmech. MPlayer continued to have some life after the Kali games died out, but it has since merged with Gamespy and no longer [at least presently] supports Netmech. Apparently Kahn has some Netmech activity on it as well, but I have never seen it first hand. I'm not sure of the state of other gaming networks, aside from knowing that Heat and Dwango have closed their doors.

The Mercenaries, Battlepack, and Titanium editions all added a Intenet game option to multiplayer and allow you to look for servers hosting games included many that were offered by Activision. See XXI below for more details.

LAN Games:

From what I have read at Bad Karma, on USENET and elsewhere, many people that play Netmech have moved to LAN games. I've never taken part in any LAN games outside of running Netmech on the network in my house a few years back. I would imagine, LAN parties would probably be bigger in larger cities or around college campuses, but you might want to look around and see what you can find out. Also, if you have the money & the room, you can build your own Netmech network for you and your friends: get some old P200's or so w/ 3Dfx and NIC cards and you're set. This type of older 3Dfx based setup can also be used for Descent 2, GLQuake, etc.

From: Dan Kegel (dank@alumni.caltech.edu)
Subject: Re: Activision server update
Newsgroups: alt.games.mechwarrior2
Date: 2000/04/24

Here are the servers for the accelerated Titanium and all recent Activenet games:

us1.alink.activision.com
us2.alink.activision.com
us3.alink.activision.com
california12.activision.com
uk1.activision.co.uk
australia1.activision.com
activision.ciudad.com.ar
ags.ionet.net
delta.coliseo.cl
games.igateway.net
germany.alink.kdt.de
nl.alink.gamepoint.net
stockholm.alink.fragzone.se

Here are the servers for classic Mercnet and non-accelerated Titanium
(which was just classic Mercnet):

mercnet.activision.com
i76net.activision.com
california12.activision.com
us2.alink.activision.com
ags.ionet.net

You can tell if they're up by looking at the date on the
web pages... most of the servers need rebooting ever 248 days
or they get stuck.

There used to be a FAQ about this on us4.alink.activision.com,
but it got hosed by the previous sysadmin. When he was upgrading
that machine to a new rev of the OS, somebody kicked
the power cord, and he reformatted the disk without saving the
FAQ :-(

My fault for not keeping it in a revision control system,
and his fault for doing an upgrade rather than an install
onto a new disk. I'll have to recreate it sometime.

- Dan
--
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

** For all of the cheats below: Hold Control-Alt-Shift while typing these in during the game**

MechWarrior 2 DOS/Pentium/Win95/3D Enhanced:

blorb - toggle invulnerability
cia - toggle unlimited ammo
coldmiser - toggle heat tracking
hangaround - toggle mission time-limit
flygirl - add jumpjets to mech
mightymouse - toggle infinite Jumpjet juice
gankem - destroy targeted mech
enolagay - explode an atom bomb (killing everything?)
michelin - toggle bounding spheres on debris and mech parts
tinkerbell - view battle from free-floating camera. Turn off with "c".

• ctrl-left to turn left
• ctrl-right to turn right
• ctrl-up to increase altitude
• ctrl-down to decrease altitude
• z to move forward
• shift-z to move backwards

front - toggles mini-front-view, shown in place of mini-rear-view
xray - enhanced imaging with see-through. Turn off with "w"
dorcs - view the MW2 Sim Programmer Dorcs Web pages
icanthackit - end mission successfully
idkfa - end mission as a failure
zmak - toggles time expansion (?)
meepmeep - time compression key enabled (?)
unmeepmeep - time compression key disabled (?)
lairdo - "ATTENTION ENEMIES: Don't mess with the blimp." (?)
dei - "F E I F". (?) (Maybe Michael Douglas knows what this does.)
sh*t - "Freebirth vulgarity will not be tolerated!"
f*ck - "Freebirth vulgarity will not be tolerated!"

MW2: Ghost Bears Legacy DOS/Pentium/Win95:

clark - X-Ray vision
kent - Invincibility
dorcs - Meet the staff
kaboom - Destroy all Mechs
palex - Destroy targeted Mech
putz - End mission successfully
jumbo - Add JJs to mech
burr - Toggle heat tracking
thundros - Toggle unlimited ammo
tik - Same as "michelin" for MW2
crillion - Unlimited jump-jets
drone - Same as "tinkerbell" for MW2
merlock - Time expansion
voyeur - Camera to front (I think--try it out)
speedygonzales - Time compression
kentik - Toggle green sphere

MW2: Mercenaries DOS/Win95 (All versions from v1.0 - v1.06):

superfunkicalifragisexy - invulnerability on\off
iseenfireandiseenrain - unlimited ammo on\off
ooohhhlllaaalllaaa - heat tracking on\off
wediditagain - coming at cha again (Dorcs Screen)
itsdabombinmybeautifulballoon - sprout jumpjets
tikruleslikethecomstarbaby - end mission successfully
ontimeeverytime - time compression key enabled\disabled
bubbleboy - bounding spheres on\off
crazysexycool - infinite jumpjets on\off
beholdmyglory - free eye mode on\off
antijolt - time expansion enabled\disabled
flashyflashy - auto-grouping enabled\disabled
walkthisway - leading reticle enabled\disabled
redjackandtikrules - Destroy targeted Mech

Easter egg: Click on the third flashing light on the bottom right (heading down a corridor) and a picture of the programmers will appear. Put the cursor over a specific person and their name will appear, double click and their message will appear

MW2 Mercenaries v1.08x, v1.1 and the entire Battlepack & Titanium Series:
(basically these are the first two letters of all the old Mercs codes)

su - Toggle invincibility
is - Toggle infinite ammo
oo - Toggle heat tracking
it - Nuke current target
li - Mission skip
in - Jump jets
cr - Infinite jump jet fuel
is - Infinite ammo
re - Destroy targeted mech
be - Free camera mode
wa - Leading reticle
fl - Auto group weapons **
fr - Show frame rate counter

** Note:Do not enable this code followed by any code that starts with "i", since it will be misinterpreted by the CPU as the level skip code

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From: J. J. Franzen (jfranzen@activision.com)
Subject: The Final Word in Level Editors
Newsgroups: alt.games.mechwarrior2
Date: 1996/05/28

O.K. Here we go. The main reason we cannot release a level editor, as such, is that we don't have one. There are no "levels", like in Doom or Duke3D, but actual worlds. I get a design from the game designers. I then go into 3D Studio and model the world, building all the different objects that are needed for that world. I then give that geometry to the designers who then take it, add the necessary info to it, like hardness, what it says when inspected and so on, and then process all that info through a set of proprietary tools that extract all that, and the geometry, and converts it all to a format that the sim can read, and then adds it all to the PRJ file so the sim can find it.And that's just world layout. That has nothing to do with setting objectives, placing AI 'mechs, setting their objectives, setting ambient sound effects, ambient animation, and so on. So, as you can see, it's not just a simple click and point interface like Duke's Build editor. It's a very complex and involved process. We could probably spend 6 months to a year making a decent world design tool, but we'd rather just make games. Everyone on the team wishes we could give you guys a level design tool. We'd love to see what you could do. But the plain fact remains, it's just too complex. Sorry 'bout that. Type at y'all later,

J^2

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The answer as of my writing this (Oct 2001) is still "no" and I honestly don't know if it will ever happen. I'm hardly an expert on this subject, but the most credible info I have subject is from almost 3 years ago (Feb 1999) when Dan Kegel mentioned on alt.games.mechwarrior2 that Activision "was thinking about it," but I've never heard anything since then. I'm not aware of anyone or group that is actively petitioning for its release and most people seem to be fed up dealing with Activision and have moved on to other things.