Heroes of Might and Magic III

What works

I ran the game using the OpenSource Wineskin, in particular Wineskin 2.0 Beta. WineSkin is run in a Mac environment only, using XQuartz (An updated version of X11). Wineskin will handle xQuartz and a version of Wine within it's Infrastructure. Here's the Install procedure:
1. Run the Wineskin Winery GUI, hitting the "+ button" to tell it which Wine + xQuartz combo you want to use from a drop-down menu.
2. Create New Blank Wrapper, giving it a name with simple syntax. (Like Heroes_3)
3. Allow it to point out the WineSkin Wrapper. To find it manually, it's under Users>"YourUserName">Applications>WineSkin.
4. Run the wrapper you've created to initiate the install.
5. Choose Install Windows Software.
(i) If the software is already unpackaged, choose "Advanced" and then browse for or type in your run file (with it's route) in the first bar. Be sure to go to the Tab "Tools" and refresh and update the wrapper right afterwards, to confirm the run route. (You may want to select "Test Run (Debug Mode)" first, of course, though).
6. Select your HOMM3 setup file.
7. Allow it to install as predesignated. Be sure to choose "Launch" at the end, as the Wineskin GUI requires a proper exit of the program after a continuous launch cycle to register the final 'choose which file to run' prompt.
8. Choose the filename that ends in: ".../Heroes3.exe" - Install - Singleplayer Campaign + Scenarios - Saves P.S. If you run into the, "can't seem to run the wrapper without a clean install of the game everytime," issue make sure to check out the Advanced selection, as described in 5.

What does not

- Nothing, as far as I know

Workarounds

What was not tested

- Multiplayer
- Run scenario vs native Windows install.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

As far as I can tell, the installation of Heroes 3 required no outside installations. I did however install Wine previous to this, so it is possible that a something in the background was involved. I had first run it under Wine 1.3.3, as they recommend to use versions that have been proven to work. For some background I had several issues running the game previously, notably influenced by a lack of background knowledge. I tried running the game through MacPorts and WineBottler, both failing after installation. I had some interference also from a back-up with a version of DarWine (which is reported to be unsupported for Snow Leopard), a weak install of X11 (though "uninstalling it and reinstalling it fixed it), a failed download of a MacDevTools package, and some programs like GIMP telling my mac they were best meant to run the files created. I did not try compiling Wine myself, as, though I had it work under a previous version of Macintosh, I did not wish to undergo the hassle to allow a single unsupported game to work. The WineSkin wrapper worked without a hitch though, as I was presently surprised after 24 hours of frustration previous.

Multiplayer
To get multiplayer working, you need native directplay dlls. The old howto had a link pointing to outdated directplay dlls which cause problems with wine and generally don't work as expected. However with the latest dplay from DirectX 9.0c multiplayer is (almost - see note for details) flawless.
In the wine wiki is described how to get native direct play dlls.
Personally I would recommend using winetricks directplay which installs dplay dlls and sets overwrite in winecfg, however you may choose do install manually those files in which case you need to:

1. Place the following dplayx.dll, dpnet.dll, dpnhpast.dll, dpwockx.dll, dplaysvr.exe in your .wine/drive_c/windows/system32
2. Set those files to overwrite (native, builtin) in winecfg

NOTES: The game always freezes when exiting a multiplayer game.
Sometimes when you host a TCP/IP game, no one is able to connect (any client trying receives an "IP address not found" error.) In this case just rehost and the problem will be gone.

 

You can now play Heroes 3 in HD, utilizing the full size of your screen, thanks to Heroes3HD mod. It doesn't change anything gameplay wise.

With recent Wine releases, Wine prefixes are set to Windows 7. Currently, it causes rendering issues when HD or HD+ mod are installed.

Running winecfg and setting the Windows version to Windows XP solves the rendering issues.