r/mechwarrior

I kill the first three mechs guarding the dome, then run out and intercept the next two. Then two more spawn and immediately run straight up to the dome and shoot only at the dome. It's driving me nuts the last two just shoot the dome before I can kill them every time!

Playing solo, no AI star members. Any tips are welcome, haven't found much elsewhere as far as tips and no one mentions the enemies shooting the dome.

Hi all. I really dig mech type games but not sure where to start. Played Robotech and Mechwarrior TTRPGs back in the day, now looking to get into something similar on PS5. Would appreciate any recommendations... Don't mind tactical type games but would appreciate some story or RPG elements.

This is a remake of an older guide I made about a year ago for setting up MechWarrior 3 in the modern day. Back then it was a long convoluted and easily broken setup with DgVoodoo 2 and compatibility mode in Windows 10.

Now, with years of changes to Windows 11 making it somewhat berable, in particular to how it handles older DirectX games, we no longer need to use DgVoodoo 2, 86box Emulation, or even compatibility mode.

Its not perfect, but its a lot simpler than it was back then, and more reliable.

Thus, here is the new and revised guide!

Preamble

This guide is acting on the assumption that you are installing on a modern version of Windows (7/10/11). I have verified that this guide works with a semi-recent build of Windows 11, Windows 10 and 7 compatibility is more theoretical as ZipperFixup does theoretically work in those OS's, though their ability to handle legacy DirectX reliably is unknown, especially so for Win7.

This guide also presumes you have a GPU that is DirectX compatible, and that you are reasonably adept with computers and understand terms like "ISO image", "Batch File", and "Directory". If not, here is a quick and dirty guide.

ISO Image: A digital copy of a CD-ROM's contents, mountable via an ISO mounting program like WinCDEmu, PowerISO, or DaemonTools. WinCDEmu is my preferred option as it is free and no fuss.

Batch File: A self contained program consisting of a series of commands executed in command line automatically upon running. It differs from an .exe (executable program) by being written entirely in a txt file and compiled into a .BAT file.

As a bit of fun historical context, .BAT files were commonly used to run games in DOS by writing out all the necessary commands in order to properly load drivers and memory management before running the game itself. This was before the era of Windows 9x that more or less (with varying reliability) did that for you in the background with the adoption of PnP protocols (plug and play).

Directory: The file system catalogue structure that keeps track of where everything is on your Hard Drive/SSD/M.2/CF Card/CD-ROM/SD Card/Floppy Drive/etc.

You very likely know what this is even if you don't recognize the term. Its the string of letters below.

C:/Users/[your username]/Documents/MechWarrior 3

That is an example directory for an installation of MechWarrior 3

Actual guide now follows

Step 1: Download the following

A. MechWarrior 3 ISO (the game itself): https://archive.org/download/mechwarrior-pc-redump/MECHWARRIOR-PC-REDUMP/MechWarrior%203%20%28USA%29.zip

A download link for MechWarrior 3 from an ISO dump of the entire MechWarrior series on Archive.org, I've used it, it works well. You can also find one on MyAbandonWare which also works. Archive.org is just my personal preference.

B. MechWarrior 3 v1.2 Patch: https://www.moddb.com/games/mechwarrior-3/downloads/mechwarrior-3-v12-english-patch

The English v1.2 patch for MechWarrior 3 that fixes some critical bugs when running the game on high settings. Without it, running the game on max resolution (1024x768) and 8MB+ textures will eventually lead to a crash.

(IMPORTANT) C. TerranMechWorks ZipperFixUp 0.1.1: https://github.com/TerranMechworks/ZipperFixup/releases/

THIS CANNOT BE SKIPPED, ZIPPERFIXUP IS 'REQUIRED' FOR MECHWARRIOR 3 TO FUNCTION.

Step 2: Grab an ISO Mounting software if you don't have one already, WinCDEMu is my go to option but DaemonTools or PowerISO also work.

Step 3: Mount the MechWarrior 3 ISO with your ISO mounting software, and run Setup.exe directly from the CD. The Auto-play of the CD sometimes works, but can be unreliable. Setup.exe however runs generally without fault in my experience. Compatibility mode should be kept off, as its unneeded and causes more problems than it solves.

Step 4: Go through Setup and installation, install to a directory of your choice (preferably one you can easily navigate to). You won't need software rendering nor will you be running the game at anything less than 8MB+ textures most likely so you can disable software rendering entirely and only install the 8MB texture set if you really want to save every last megabyte of space on your hard drive, but installing everything works as well.

Step 5: Once installation is complete, run the MechWarrior 3 v1.2 patch. It will pull up an installation wizard and should take all of about 3 button clicks for it to automatically find your MechWarrior 3 directory and install the patch to it.

Step 6: With the game and v1.2 patch installed, we can now work the needed techno-magic for MechWarrior 3 to run.

Unzip the ZipperFixUp .zip file you downloaded from the linked Github above. Inside you will see the batch file InstallFixUp.bat and zipfixup.dll, as well as the read me text file, you can read the readme.txt if you wish but I will be parroting what it states here.

Copy InstallFixup.bat and zipfixup.dll to your Mechwarrior 3 directory. Then, run the .bat file. If it works correctly, you should see a brand new Mech3fixup.exe appear in your game directory.

Congratulations, you have now successfully installed MechWarrior 3!

That's it, that's everything! Your done! Run the game from Mech3fixup.exe and your off to Tranquil to make some smoked jags!

That said, there are a few concessions to be aware of with this method.

A. The audio is a bit crackly at start, specifically for the menu music and the beginning of a mission. It subsides after the game gets going but it is jarring at first. Don't worry, your PC/game isn't breaking, its just the quirk of a 27 year old game.

B. The game will be fixed to a 4:3 aspect ratio and will not stretch to accommodate whatever aspect ratio your monitor is running at if it is anything but 4:3. You could theoretically utilize DgVoodoo 2 to fix this by having it re-render the game in a stretched wide screen aspect ratio, but I do not recommend it as its untested and compatibility between ZipperFixup and DgVoodoo 2 is likely to be 'no'.

C. (important). MechWarrior 3 Pirate's Moon does work as well with this method, needing only ZipperFixup to run and no compatibility mode or anything of the like.

However, installing MechWarrior 3 Pirate's Moon changes something deep in Windows that then breaks normal MechWarrior 3, rendering it unable to properly initialize your video device when trying to start it. This then requires a full reinstall that will in turn break MechWarrior 3 Pirate's Moon in the same way.

If you want to play Pirate's Moon, be aware you will not be able to play base game MechWarrior 3, or vise versa, nor will your pilots data be stored unless you manually save and import them.

D. Sadly no Joystick/Sidewinder FFB2 support, I tried with my Sidewinder FFB2 USB and got nothin, wouldn't recognize axis's or buttons. I presume this is a quirk of legacy DirectInput not being represented properly in modern Windows handling of legacy DirectX.

Thats all however, beyond that, MechWarrior 3 will run buttery smooth and as stable as its likely ever been, even compared to original hardware!

So many great memories from my teens playing that game!

My screen name back then was "Tigger2000"… (don't ask)

Started out joining SA - Santander's Assassins, then creating my own clan NBP - New Belt Pirates and started admin'ing for SL... Loved the game, the lore, and the community back then.

wondering if any of you guys are still out there?