Windows 10/11 compatibility via DGVoodoo2

[Hollenhammer]

Surprised no one has mentioned this solution but patching the game to 1.2 resulted in my game crashing often. Doing the software renderer = 1 resulted in my game crashing often.

Checking PCGAMINGWIKI i discovered another solution. dgvoodoo2. Download it (its safe and the site owner is aware of the false flagging). Extracted, grab DDraw.dll and D3Dlmm.dll from the MS folder, I picked x86, and drop them in the base Tropico 2 Directory. They won't overwrite anything. You can either confirm now to see if its working (via watermark) or move on to use the dgvoodoo2 profiler to turn the watermark off. Do this by adding a path to the Tropico 2 folder and unticking the watermark on the DirectX tab.

Before doing this the game wouldn't start 2/3rds of the time and alt tabbing would mean i tab back into weird colours. Now I can alt tab just fine and the game hasn't crashed since. This solution may not work if you don't meet the system requirements for dgvoodoo2, however.
--------------------------
2022 Update: Here's the process in an easy to digest form given the amount of bad advice that people are giving in other threads.

From a fresh install:
*Patch the game to 1.2
https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=2970

*Crack the exe with a nocd crack. You cannot launch the game via steam anymore. Send a shortcut of Tropico2.exe to your desktop
--NO compatibility options need to be set--

*Download dgvoodoo2 from the website

*Extract the archive to its own folder anywhere on your hard drive (somewhere easy to access)

*Navigate to the MS/X86 folders and copy out DDraw.dll and D3Dlmm.dll into Steam\steamapps\common\Tropico 2
This folder should already be open from when you cracked the executable

*Use the dgvoodo2 software (dgvoodocpl.exe) and add the Tropico2 directory

*Click the DirectX Tab and untick dgvoodoo watermark (This is how you can verify that you've done everything correctly) If required I can take pictures of how I have dgvoodoo set up but honestly nothing else is changed. Resolution is unforced, vsync is off

You will want to maintain a 4:3 aspect ratio to make the game look correct and that's all there is to it. You don't need to edit any ini files and this provides the best level of compatibility. You can alt tab without issue

[Hollenhammer]

Further note: I am running the 1.2 exe directly from a shortcut on my desktop. There are no Compatibility options selected

[Viscount Danku]

Yeah, I can confirm tha dgvoodoo is a really useful tool to play old games.

By the way, where did you get the latest patch?

[Hollenhammer]

https://www.fileplanet.com/archive/p-73720/Tropico-2-Pirates-Cove-v1-2-Patch is the one I used

edit: for anyone who just reads this thread: if you use this patch you must use a no-cd crack from game copy world. The patch strips out the steam drm given it will replace the .exe

[[ITA]elmacigno88]

i' cant extrack crack no cd, nobody file to excratc say for me

any help?

[feroce]

Awesome, thanks! It works.

[Zongo]

thx for posting this! had some annoying graphic bugs after alt-tab and back...

[Aran]

thanks man this helps a lot. You are ingenious.

[$[Cola-Freak]$]

Originally posted by Hollenhammer:

https://www.fileplanet.com/archive/p-73720/Tropico-2-Pirates-Cove-v1-2-Patch is the one I used

edit: for anyone who just reads this thread: if you use this patch you must use a no-cd crack from game copy world. The patch strips out the steam drm given it will replace the .exe

Does this fix make it possible to set the resolution to max?

[Hollenhammer]

Originally posted by $Cola-Freak$:

Originally posted by Hollenhammer:

https://www.fileplanet.com/archive/p-73720/Tropico-2-Pirates-Cove-v1-2-Patch is the one I used

edit: for anyone who just reads this thread: if you use this patch you must use a no-cd crack from game copy world. The patch strips out the steam drm given it will replace the .exe

Does this fix make it possible to set the resolution to max?

Did a quick test. This is what it looks like when i force 1920x1080 https://i.imgur.com/OsbHIe4.png
and this is unforced https://i.imgur.com/sDCLyYz.png

e: forcing 1080 made the pointer glitch around a little bit on the main menu

[$[Cola-Freak]$]

Originally posted by Hollenhammer:

Originally posted by $Cola-Freak$:

Does this fix make it possible to set the resolution to max?

Did a quick test. This is what it looks like when i force 1920x1080 https://i.imgur.com/OsbHIe4.png
and this is unforced https://i.imgur.com/sDCLyYz.png

e: forcing 1080 made the pointer glitch around a little bit on the main menu

When i use your link to download patch 1.2 for the game, i get a white screen with the text "403 forbidden". what to do?

[Hollenhammer]

Originally posted by $Cola-Freak$:

Originally posted by Hollenhammer:

Did a quick test. This is what it looks like when i force 1920x1080 https://i.imgur.com/OsbHIe4.png
and this is unforced https://i.imgur.com/sDCLyYz.png

e: forcing 1080 made the pointer glitch around a little bit on the main menu

When i use your link to download patch 1.2 for the game, i get a white screen with the text "403 forbidden". what to do?

any source is fine, really. I just linked the one I used at the time. You'll probably have a zip file which contains tropico2_patch.exe and the size will be roughly 8.68 MB (9,102,517 bytes). Maybe this one will work better for you https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=2970

[$[Cola-Freak]$]

Originally posted by Hollenhammer:

Originally posted by $Cola-Freak$:

When i use your link to download patch 1.2 for the game, i get a white screen with the text "403 forbidden". what to do?

any source is fine, really. I just linked the one I used at the time. You'll probably have a zip file which contains tropico2_patch.exe and the size will be roughly 8.68 MB (9,102,517 bytes). Maybe this one will work better for you https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=2970

I managed to download tropico2_patch.exe successfully! But now after installing the patch, i can't start the game. what now?

[Hollenhammer]

Originally posted by $Cola-Freak$:

Originally posted by Hollenhammer:

any source is fine, really. I just linked the one I used at the time. You'll probably have a zip file which contains tropico2_patch.exe and the size will be roughly 8.68 MB (9,102,517 bytes). Maybe this one will work better for you https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=2970

I managed to download tropico2_patch.exe successfully! But now after installing the patch, i can't start the game. what now?

well as I mentioned in my first few posts, the patch replaces the exe file which strips out the steam DRM. You need a cracked exe file (to make it no cd) for version 1.2. You dont explicitly need version 1.2 to get dgvoodoo2 to work but reading the changelog, the fixes seem essential (to me). This also means that you'll have to make a shortcut to the exe file from the install directory to your desktop (you can't launch through steam anymore)

[Tsuichoi]

Originally posted by Hollenhammer:

Surprised no one has mentioned this solution but patching the game to 1.2 resulted in my game crashing often. Doing the software renderer = 1 resulted in my game crashing often.

Checking PCGAMINGWIKI i discovered another solution. dgvoodoo2. Download it (its safe and the site owner is aware of the false flagging). Extracted, grab DDraw.dll and D3Dlmm.dll from the MS folder, I picked x86, and drop them in the base Tropico 2 Directory. They won't overwrite anything. You can either confirm now to see if its working (via watermark) or move on to use the dgvoodoo2 profiler to turn the watermark off. Do this by adding a path to the Tropico 2 folder and unticking the watermark on the DirectX tab.

Before doing this the game wouldn't start 2/3rds of the time and alt tabbing would mean i tab back into weird colours. Now I can alt tab just fine and the game hasn't crashed since. This solution may not work if you don't meet the system requirements for dgvoodoo2, however.
--------------------------
2022 Update: Here's the process in an easy to digest form given the amount of bad advice that people are giving in other threads.

From a fresh install:
*Patch the game to 1.2
https://www.fileplanet.com/archive/p-73720/Tropico-2-Pirates-Cove-v1-2-Patch

*Crack the exe with a nocd crack. You cannot launch the game via steam anymore. Send a shortcut of Tropico2.exe to your desktop
--NO compatibility options need to be set--

*Download dgvoodoo2 from the website

*Extract the archive to its own folder anywhere on your hard drive (somewhere easy to access)

*Navigate to the MS/X86 folders and copy out DDraw.dll and D3Dlmm.dll into Steam\steamapps\common\Tropico 2
This folder should already be open from when you cracked the executable

*Use the dgvoodo2 software (dgvoodocpl.exe) and add the Tropico2 directory

*Click the DirectX Tab and untick dgvoodoo watermark (This is how you can verify that you've done everything correctly) If required I can take pictures of how I have dgvoodoo set up but honestly nothing else is changed. Resolution is unforced, vsync is off

You will want to maintain a 4:3 aspect ratio to make the game look correct and that's all there is to it. You don't need to edit any ini files and this provides the best level of compatibility. You can alt tab without issue

Got to the last step but it says "binkw32.dll was not found." and "mss32.dll was not found." Is there something I did wrong? How do I fix this? Thanks in advance!

[Hollenhammer]

I just ran through a fresh install to see how my instructions hold up. Everything still works besides the original download link, which fouled. I've changed it to the gamepressure link. The download should be a zip file holding an exe. Do not download an exe with a name like "Setup for.."
tropico_patch_v12.zip and 8.49mb in case the new link goes bad in another 4 years.

As for those two files, they're both in my Tropico2 directory and I assume were downloaded as a part of the steam download. If you verify integrity it will change your exe back, but it could be worth a try.