How to play Port Royale 2 on Windows 10 (for NVIDIA users)

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Easy fix for Port Royale 2 on Windows 10

It's Alive

This guide is for NVIDIA users. You can check AMD version here.

1. First step...

...is make the game playable. (Otherwise it won't even start in Windows 10.)

• Go to your default game directory. Usually;
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Port Royale 2
  
  
• Right-click on PR2.exe -> Properties
  
  
• On Compatibility tab, check "Run this program in compatibility mode for:"
  
  
• Select "Windows 98 / Windows ME"

2. Game is working but...

...it's so pixelated and sea texture is messed up. To prevent this, open NVIDIA Settings.

• Click "Manage 3D Settings" on the left.
  
  
• Switch to "Program Settings" tab.
  
  
• Select Port Roysle 2 from the list. If it doesn't there, click "Add" and find Port Royale 2.
  
  
• Now we're gonna change some of the settings.
  
  - Anistropic Filtering -> Select "16x"
  
  - Antialiasing - FXAA -> Select "Off"
  
  - Antialiasing - Gamma correction -> Select "Off"
  
  - Antialiasing Mode -> Select "Override any application setting"
  
  - Antialiasing - Setting -> Select "8x"
  
  - Antialiasing - Transparency -> Select "8x (Supersample)"
  
  - Texture filtering - Quality -> Select "High quality"
  
  Also select "On" for following settings too: Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization, Threaded optimization, Triple buffering, Vertical sync

3. Sea texture is fine now and...

...there is only one problem left. Everything is pixelated. To use anti-aliasing settings enabled, we need one last retouch.

• Open Port Royale 2 configuration
  
  
• This option is opposite of AMD. Uncheck "Execute in full-screen mode" (This option is a necessity, otherwise the game won't run properly.)

And voilà

Just like the old times.

[Mitsukuni]

@NickCoolAI, yeah you'll need a reboot after that. I think it has better chances with Intel HD rather than Nvidia alone.

It seems you're having a different problem though. Usually the DLLs fixes the black screen at the start, or glitches in water, stuff like that. So your game can start but cannot continue due to freezing? That sounds like a compatibility issue. Different Windows compatibility setting could work.

[NickCoolAI]

Disabled GeForce 840M in the Device Manager, and it didn't help, at least without reboot (something for the next time). If disable Intel Graphics - also.

When a scenario must start, sound changes, image also changes - the fire can be seen on top of the lighthouse, some objects are moved a bit and the game becomes unresponsive.

I will add a comment, if I will find a solution for this issue.

[Mitsukuni]

@NickCoolAI, huh I actually uploaded 71 instead of 70, my bad. Though I guess if others didn't work, this would not either most likely.

Ahh, 2 GPUs. This game somehow has a problem with them. If you can manage to run it with Intel HD Graphics, the game should run fine. I would say uninstall Nvidia driver just to see if the game runs but not sure if it worths the effort, might actually work though. Could be fun to experiment. :)

If you're gonna try WSL, must warn you it's kinda tricky to run WINE (or Proton) over it. Maybe it's better now, I tried it a while ago.

Good luck either way!

[NickCoolAI]

Proton 4.11\32-bit gave me an error "Bad Image" regarding msvcr71.dll: error status 0xc000012f.
Oh, In archive for this version *71.dll instead of *70.dll, I assume.

But I tried all others and without success.
One thing, which I forget to mention: my laptop has 2 video cards.
One is 840M, and the second one is from CPU, and it's Intel HD Graphics 4600.
In the configuration, I see exactly Intel HD Graphics 4600.
I was trying to run the game with both of them.

It's an interesting idea to run the game on Windows from wsl.
Maybe I will give it a try one day.

Thanks for your time.

[Mitsukuni]

@NickCoolAI, no problem!

I pulled the DLLs from 3 different branch and uploaded them. I hope at least of them would do the trick. Try starting with 3.7 which is the oldest.

https://gitlab.com/gitsukuni/port-royale-2-dlls/-/blob/master/Proton_DLLs.zip

By the way, it works fine on Linux but obviously I cannot recommend it to everybody. If you are tech-savvy enough, you might try that way.

I was actually working on to make this game playable on Windows through WSL but eventually doing stopped that since I don't use Windows anymore (and it works on Linux). This is the main reason why I don't update this guide anymore (unless someone from the community suggests a new thing).

Interestingly there are people saying this game works fine on Windows 11 without any fix, but it's been generally hit-or-miss different systems-wide.

So, good luck with DLLs. Otherwise sadly I won't be able help further because I cannot try things myself anymore.

[NickCoolAI]

@Mitsukuni, thanks.

But it didn't help. I tried both: 32 and 64 version from your link.
Yeah, maybe for older systems can do a trick.

[Mitsukuni]

@NickCoolAI, you're welcome, though wish it did work.

840M is a 10 years old card so maybe the old DLLs might work you. Could you try these? If they are to work, you probably won't need anything from this guide.
https://gitlab.com/gitsukuni/port-royale-2-dlls/-/blob/master/PR2-202006.zip

If it doesn't work, I can upload the DLL versions for even older systems.

[NickCoolAI]

Thanks for the guide, but in my case it didn't work, unfortunately.
My video card GeForce 840M doesn't have the option "- Antialiasing - Gamma correction", for everything else followed this guide.
The only thing, I was trying this guide after another one with .dll files from Proton. Tried both (x32 and x64) before and after this guide, but in vain.
Then verified integrity of the game files in order to revert 3 of those .dlls, but also without success.

In all cases I get into the main menu, but the game isn't started after the sand clock is done, only the sound and loads CPU to 25-35% (I have 4 vCPU).

[Mitsukuni]

You're welcome @Thomas
I know this solved the graphics issue but did you try the DLL guide? (Link is in this guide's description). It might be helpful about sound issues too.

[Thomas]

Followed the instructions and game running buttery smooth on a Win10 / RTX 3080 / AMD Ryzen 7. Thank you!

But I have crackling sounds. Not sure how to fix that. It just crackles every few seconds on a particularly high-pitched notes of the music. If I don't write another comment, consider that I haven't found a solution.