Heroes of Might and Magic IV

What works

I get the 'complete' pack: that's it: HOMM IV + 2 expansions.

The autorun.exe runs fine, but when you try to install the game, the installator doesn't show up correctly, so there's only a way to install the game: running directly the setup.exe searching in its folder. Curiously, if you try to uninstall the game it seems to work.

Ingame, in full screen mode everything seems to be fine. Few screen issues: "Windows style" menu bar is persistent on the screen. No way to get rid of it, or at least I have no idea how to. I tried windowed mode, virtual desktop, etc. with same results.

If you run on windowed mode -switching full screen at game configuration- at a different resolution you are (for example: I'm at 1280x1024 and I selected 1024x768 and 800x600), game performance is horrible. Just an slowdown in video performance; sound is OK. Seems not to be a Wine issue, but who knows. I am using last ati's fglrx restricted driver, version 8.50.3, running on Xorg 7.3 and gnome 2.22.2

What does not

As I said, the autorun works fine, but installators don't work at all.

'Home' and 'End' keys seem not to work properly when you try to type write something as server name, player name, etc. I doubt if that is a game or Wine issue, don't remember if in Windows happened the same.

Multiplayer:

· Internet play goes thru GameSpy, so no way to test it.

· If you try to host a game via LAN (IPX) or Direct TCP / IP, game crashes.

· If you try to join a game via LAN or Direct TCP / IP, same results: game crashes.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Installing and running the two expansions (Gathering Storm and Winds of War).

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

The version I try of HOMM IV is an -out of the box- install. No patches / fixes applied.

The game does not run correctly in Wine 0.9.37. Earlier and newer versions work fine

This game requires a crack to work.

Installing the patches is highly recommended, as they provide fixes for serious bugs in the game (not Wine related).

There are different patches for the different versions of the game

UK - various

Multiplayer
To get multiplayer working, place dpnsvr.exe and the DLLs in this archive in Wine's windows/system32 directory. Then, start winecfg and add dll overrides (native, builtin) for the following DLLs: dplayx, dpnet, dpnhpast and dpwsockx. Finally, update your registry by running 'wineprefixcreate'.