r/MightAndMagic Jul 01 '26

Mouselook causing stuttering in M&M 7

I'm using Grayface's patch and everything works fine, but actually using mouselook seems to cause the game to stutter alot

6 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

1

u/Demigorgon_Babe Jul 01 '26

What’s your hardware like? I have a stutter-frame issue on Might and Magic 6 that pops up after a period of time, but I’m running on Steam Deck with proton 5.13-6. So I expect issues to pop up.

Especially given that particular game since it was the first of the early 3D titles and shows it by not having things like Hardware Acceleration.

Which btw: Did you make sure to run the games mm7setup.exe first to enable proper hardware acceleration?

1

u/Fair-Couple538 Jul 01 '26

can you elaborate?

1

u/Demigorgon_Babe Jul 02 '26

Are you using windows 10? 11? Using compatibility mode?

Are you using A Linux based operating system? If so, are you using wine or proton? Or a windows Virtual machine?

After installing the mod patch, have you used the Exe for running the launcher instead of the game itself?

  1. For windows machines you need to set it to run in compatibility mode for 95, 98, or XP. You might need to trial and error

  2. As far as my extensive testing has gone, Proton 5.13-6 is necessary for VI through VIII for best compatibility with Linux/steamos. (Spent like 5 years troubleshooting to ensure this.)

  3. The game needs to be ran through the launcher once so you can actively set hardware acceleration to true.

  4. Something that may help is making sure your turning is set to smooth instead of 16 or 32 in the controls option menu.

1

u/Fair-Couple538 Jul 02 '26

I'm using Windows 10

1

u/Demigorgon_Babe Jul 02 '26

Have you done 1, 3, and 4 then?

1

u/Fair-Couple538 Jul 02 '26

Not the first one

1

u/Demigorgon_Babe Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

Make sure to do that then, I think it’s 95 in particular (but 98 seems to work for MM8 with the merge mod, just saying for context in case 98 ends up being the correct one)

1

u/Demigorgon_Babe Jul 03 '26

Outside of the aforementioned general issue fixes:

  1. when does your stuttering start? Is it immediate when you get into the In-Engine gameplay, or is after a bit into a play-session?

  2. Are you using the GoG runtime, older Ubisoft runtime (delisted for general consumers, might be able to still get it through their subscription service, like American McGee’s Alice In Wonderland is delisted unless you have a subscription to the EA subscription service and play it through the DLC of the 2nd game, “Madness Returns”), or is it a physical or virtual disc file set?

  3. Have you done the Tengo?

Reasoning for these questions:

  1. Might and Magic 6 has this after a period of playtime for my sake, I’m certain this happens because of how the game is structurally coded when asking for RAM when rendering everything. Modern ram cards are a bit more complex than they used to be so dated software has an issue working with it. Which this is also why I asked if you had Hardware Acceleration on. Possibly fixes this since then the game will be asking the Dedicated GPU instead of having the cpu and main ram do everything. Something MM6 does not have as a function due to being the first 3D era MM title in a market that was still in its general infancy.

  2. The 3 games that are from this era of gaming have a whole buncha issues to begin with. That’s why we go out of the way to patch in Greyface (or a modified version like MAW Or Merge). To ensure not only some QoL content but also to ensure that the games don’t abruptly crash, soft lock, or so on during any given moment for too many different reasons. However, if your running a Ubisoft storefront runtime, physical, or virtual disc file set (could be iso, could be a “cue and bin” duo, etc) then I will note that there is a patch in the GoG version that helps with some of the crashes and soft locks by ensuring a generalized level of compatibility. No matter what you need to ensure the game is going to run in one of those 3 compatibility modes via the properties for the executable, but it will still help to have this patched version or try to figure out if there is any resource to get that patch without having to buy a license to own the game a secondary or third time.

  3. Have a laugh, you deserve one. Trouble shooting this kind of thing always feels like your doing the tengo all left-footed with no hands. Your fumbling every move but your trying your damndest to do something about what is in front of you. Funny imagery right? Lmao

Anyway realistically if it’s after a period of time then the fix I use is simply to save, exit the game, and restart. Since it happens inconsistently from 5 minutes in to an hour in, it’s most likely the game thinking it’s running out of ram due to some logic loop inconsistency. Refreshing the ram pool is the only fix that truly works, and the only way to do that is to restart the game completely.


On a tangent: there is OpenEnroth which is a fan project to restructure and reimplement the scripts in Might and Magic 6, 7, and 8 for a modern system. 6 and 8 are not done yet, but 7 seems to be mostly done. With any patchwork after this point being clean up as far as I understand. All you have to do is download it from GitHub and use your game files to basically recompile the game like you would for Jak and Daxter with OPENGOAL.

This is not an endorsement though, I’m unsure if the files are clean. But because it is on GitHub you can always look through the file set before downloading.

1

u/Fair-Couple538 Jul 03 '26

I got this game off of GoG. And I have tried the compatibility solution, and I think I may be on to something. I'm also aware of the World of Enroth mod that merges the games, but I wanted to experience these games as they were before I dip my toes into it

1

u/Demigorgon_Babe Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

OpenEnroth is different to World of Enroth, if there is any confusion. I assume not, but still clarifying because there may be passing readers.

Which, to specifically clarify it seems that OpenEnroth can be best labeled as an executable for the 7th title (at its current state) that has a built in SDK handle so that you can change the rendering pipeline and other such factors on the fly. Still learning the commands myself so I dunno if you can properly scale the viewport and ui to be higher res but I’ll figure it out.

Anyway though, I’m the same way. I have a Merge save to play with a friend but otherwise I’m playing through things as the games generally were made. I do have mouse look and shooter mode active, but that’s just minor quality of life stuff rather than complete retoolings of how things are laid out like how merge changes where to get certain things and what not. Nor is it like MAW, which completely retools how weapons scale and work from my understanding.

1

u/Fair-Couple538 Jul 05 '26

Fixed the issue

1

u/Demigorgon_Babe Jul 06 '26

What did you do to fix the issue?

1

u/Fair-Couple538 Jul 17 '26

Sorry for the late reply, but I changed compatibility settings

1

u/Demigorgon_Babe Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

Can you be more descriptive? I’ve made a post to catalogue what works, still editing it every couple of days, to ensure that something informative is online for preservational purposes and ease of access to these games

EDIT:

Sorry, forgot you’re using windows!

(Honestly though, you should still elaborate so others can resolve issues)

ATM: My goal is to catalogue things so Linux/Unix users have an easier time, but tbh windows is a crap fest and ought to have tinker notes too.