Hello Adventurers!
Recently, I was playing MM9 on an older computer during my vacation and everything ran great. I was able to make it all the way to Yorwick after playing for two days straight on my free time! But when I returned home and put it on my Acer laptop that's running on Windows 11 it was borderline unplayable.
After much trial and error, I was able to find the correct setup to get the game running flawlessly on my computer without any issues (except for the occasional in-game bug/scripting issue/rare crash). I'll include a list of steps below that should hopefully help out most of you that just bought the game or are a returning veteran interested in playing through again!
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Step 1: Installing the Game
What should be the simplest step is also the easiest one to mess up on. I HIGHLY recommend you install Might and Magic IX via the offline game installer! If you do install it through GOG Galaxy, PLEASE TURN OFF automatic updates! When I first got the game running correctly, everything worked until I exited out of the game and GOG Galaxy started to change/edit some of the files installed into the game's directory. On a second startup, nothing worked, and the game was reverted back to an unplayable state. You'll save yourself so much time and headache by avoiding this pitfall.
Once the game is installed, rename the lithtech.exe file to something else (I renamed mine to lithtechz.exe). I honestly don't 100% remember the reasoning behind this, but I do remember seeing a comment somewhere suggesting this to fix and issue with the game's startup. If you have a desktop shortcut you can then easily edit the targeted pathway to the new name of the application file.
You don't need to worry about installing TELP 1.3a since it comes standard with all installations of the game now! Click here to view a full detailed list of all of the fixes included in the unofficial patch on the TELP website.
Step 2: Removing the Loading Screens
The game has a very nasty habit of crashing and freezing on the loading screen during transitions (travel, entering cities and dungeons, and even loading up save files). You can tell when this happens when you hear the game music playing but the boat that travels back and forth on the loading screen is either stuck or missing.
Download these two modified .REZ files and copy-paste them into your "Might and Magic 9\data" file and overwrite the two existing files of the same name. Your screen will now appear completely black during level transitions, but that's okay! At least the game isn't crashing as much now.
Step 3: Fixing the Menu Freezes
This wasn't a big issue for me, but I know plenty of others have reported issues of in-game menus taking too long to open or completely freezing the game (i.e. opening your character's inventory).
Download this modified .dll file and copy-paste it into your "Might and Magic 9\data" file and overwrite the existing file of the same name. Opening menus should be instant now going forward, without creating any slowdown.
Step 4: Fixing the Screen Resolution and Night/Water Bug
This is the most important fix to install. Without this, the game is practically unplayable on modern computers!
Apparently, the game can't reliably detect and handle modern graphic cards. Whenever your party swims underwater or stays up past 5pm in-game, the screen will turn completely black, and you'll be unable to see anything. Some quests, such as the Mercenary Promotion quest, requires you to stand guard from 3am to 6am, while others such as the Ranger Promotion quest involves navigating two dungeons that have water sections.
To fix these two issues and to get the game to run in full screen, download dgVoodoo2.zip from this link here and open the file. Extract or drag dgVoodoo.conf and dgVoodooCpl.exe from the ZIP archive and place them in your main directory ("Might and Magic 9\"). After that, click on the file labeled MS in the ZIP archive and open up the subfolder named x86. Extract or drag all of those files into the main directory as well.
Once that's done, run dgVoodooCpl.exe and disable the 3Dfx Watermark option under the Glide tab, and the dgVoodoo Watermark under the DirectX tab. Don't forget to click "Apply" once you make these changes before hitting OK!
The config folder/running instance at the top of the control panel should say C:\Might and Magic 9 (or D:\Might and Magic 9 in my case). You should be fine with the default settings it gives you, but for reference I'll include my settings at attached images to this thread.
Step 5: Play the Game
With all of that out of the way, just double click your renamed lithtech.exe application and the game should be playable for you! The best way to test this is to quickly run out of the starting museum and jump into the water in the training area. If your screen isn't black, congratulations (same goes for pressing "R" and waiting until 5pm)!
Post edited October 15, 2024 by Darkmoor18
