How to use Port Royale 2 in windowed mode using DXWnd

[Slayerjerman]

DXWnd download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/?source=typ_redirect

What it does:

1. Allows you to hook into the game's DirectX8 renderer and force it to windowed mode and alter VSYNC to fix the super-scroll speed bug.
2. With the proper settings, you can also move/resize this window!! No more stretched game or forced fullscreen!

How it works:

1. Download and unzip DXWnd somewhere (your desktop will be fine)
2. Start DXWnd, it will appear as a simple little application window.
3. Navigate to your PR2.exe inside your steam installation folder.
4. Drag and drop PR2.exe onto DXWnd window. This should cause a large set of options/settings to appear for the EXE.

5. Under "MAIN" tab be sure the path is set to your PR2.exe and not the PR2.url steam shortcut!!
6. Down below under 'generic' toggle on "RUN IN WINDOW" + Terminate on Window close + Full screen only, I also use "Keep aspect ratio".

7. Under "VIDEO" tab - Turn on Fix Window Frame Style, Prevent Win Maximize, Refresh on win resize, Force win resize, Hide multimonitor config (optional). Be sure to keep the "Screen Resolution" set to SVGA modes...

7a. Window size & Position should be set to 'floating'

8. Under "DirectX" tab, choose DirectX8 for PR2... Set to Primary surface, Full Bilinear and just turn on "Flip emulation".

9. Under "DirectX(2)" tab choose VSYNC default and toggle on "wait for frequency" (fixes scroll/pan speed on the game maps)

10. Under "Compat." tab, turn on "Fake Version" and set it to Win98/ME

11. Lastly, under "HOOK" tab, make sure hook is enabled.

12. Press the "TRY" button to launch the game.

13. Later on you can just start DXWnd and double click the PR2.exe next to the green dot to launch the game. To change settings, right click this entry and choose "modify".

[Slayerjerman]

Screenshot of it working: http://imgur.com/a/e8169

[lbmarshall]

This worked for me perfectly. You are a legend. For years I have been trying to find a way to play this windowed on the 1080p monitor.

[Alaric Crax]

CreateProcess ERROR 740 :(

[Slayerjerman]

What WindowsOS ver? Did you make sure to run it as Admin? I confess, mine is working on Win7x64, I have not tested this on Win10 etc.

[Sykaas]

Tried this on Win 10, tons of problems, not working at all. Game maximizes itself after opening scene, mouse is invisible, vsync doesn't work.

[Slayerjerman]

Yeah, its not going to work on Win 10.... thats DX11 and the game needs DX8. This is of course assuming you had it set to the right settings to use/force DX8

[Adam Beckett]

I found this post while googelbinging to 'fix' the way too fast camera panning (mouse and/or directional keys).

===========

The above DXWnd setup WORKS with current, latest Windows 10 64-bit (Version 1903. OS Build 18342.8). Exactly, as described.

===========

Only thing to make it run in windowed mode is to use PR2Config.exe and uncheck "Fullscreen Mode" (while keeping all other compatibility elements checked, so the water does not look like checkers!).

I cannot 'measure' it, but with DXWnd the game 'feels' like it's running smoother in fullscreen compared to running the game without DXWnd in fullscreen. The mouse panning and or camera movement with arrow keys is now at a playable speed.

"Windowed mode" needs further adjustments in the DXWnd settings, because in windowed the font and UI looks pixelated (aliasing) on my 1920x1080 monitor.

[Slayerjerman]

Glad it helped!

[TheCollector]

Note :

If you do all this just to fix the scroll speed problem and it does not work :

You can disable the mouse-scrolling in Options -> GamePlay and click the minimap to select the map section to be displayed on screen. (This works in world map, city map and battle map.)

[Gedsaro]

Thanks for this, Windowed mode is a must for me with almost any game, but it is also much less common in older games, this is great.

[Sin317]

Some settings are no longer present or have changed.

This is what I use:

with this settings (not all are needed, but that's what I use)

Under Main:
(check these boxes)
no banner
Run in Window
Terminate on window close
Hide desktop background
Keep aspect ratio
desktop work area

set W and H to whatever fits your screen. Mine is a 2560x1440, So I set it to 1920x1440 (4:3 ratio).

Under Video tab:

Emulate Win Maximize
Force win resize
Fix aspect ratio
Limit resolution 1024x768

[JapLance]

I'll give my report of using the OP tips. I use Windows10 and a non-Steam version of the game (El Imperio de los Mares version, in Spanish).

At first I thought it wasn't working because the game seemed to freeze when I tried to enter the tavern or the church (among other places), but after some time I realised it was only a long delay caused by the videos. After turning off the videos in the preferences menu all seems to work fine. Videos are funny when you are new to the game, but after a while I don't really need them.

So it works, even though looks a bit ugly because anti-aliasing seems not to be working anymore. It does if I run the game normally (without DXWnd), but then it's stretched to my 16:9 monitor. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to try this.

The other is that I'm currently streaming it on Twitch, but this old game doesn't like ALT-TABbing much. So I thought that maybe if I run it in a window it would ALT-TAB smoother. This is something I still need to test, but if you just want to play the game in a non stretched window, slayerjerman tips still worked for me after seven years.

Here is a screenshot of the game running at a window resolution of 1440x1080.

https://imgur.com/NQijMWJ