Mafia 2 on Windows 2000

[Tommy]

I have no idea how many Mafia fans roam this board, but I'd definitely like to post this for anyone who may be trying to figure out how to get it running on Windows 2000 since there is no documentation out there that I can find. This is definitely possible.

First, don't even try the Steam version, it's a lost cause from the very beginning since Steam doesn't even support Windows XP anymore, or Vista for that matter. So your only option is for the Retail version (maybe), or the GOG.com version.

For the heck of it, since GOG.com was having a sale on Mafia II: The Director's Cut for only $7.99, I decided to purchase and download it. At first it seemed like it was going to work, but then it didn't. It installed without a hitch, didn't even complain that I was running Windows 2000 since even the retail version states that it requires at least Windows XP Service Pack 3. But then trying to run it, it complained about some "exception", you know, those pesky little things that pop up if there's an issue with a dependency. So I decided to fire up Dependency Walker and see what was going on with that.

Turns out it was dealing with PhysX, which is also required in order for the game to run. I thought I had a version of PhysX installed but it didn't seem to work, probably too new to actually work but installed at some point. So I dug a little deeper and found an older version of PhysX. I installed PhysX version 9.12.0807 and installed it. After that I fired up the game and to my surprise, it worked! It is completely playable. No more booting into my Windows 7 install which is slow as heck because of all the updates and the fact it's running on an older (15 year old) HDD, so I avoid it at all costs. But now there's no reason to, it'll work perfectly in Windows 2000.

Now as far as the vanilla version of Windows 2000, I can't say it would work since I haven't tested it. But I do have Blackwingcat's KernelEx version 3.0a installed (GameGuard version) and ForceWare version 182.50 and the June 2010 DirectX9 dependencies.

I certainly hope that this at least helps someone out that is looking to play this awesome (but very short) version of Mafia on their Windows 2000 computer. Purchasing the Director's Cut means that it'll include all the DLCs as well, so no need to download anything else, everything else is just there. The original Mafia states it wants at least Windows XP, but unless anything at all changed, it originally ran on Windows 98 without a hitch, even stating it in the official system requirements. If I recall, it only required a 500MHz processor for the minimum. We sure came far since then.

[win32]

Not surprising, considering that DX9 is DX9 regardless of OS, If you look at the old win2kgaming board there is an endless list of "XP-only" games made in the late 2000s that only need a few DLLs to work on Windows 2000 (before the extended kernel was conceived).

Interestingly, the vast majority of my games have XP x86 or below as their minimum OS requirement (except for Cities: Skylines, which is XP x64) and don't make use of Steam DRM so I think I'll copy those from my Windows 8.1 system and try them out on my HP Z600 (if IDE mode doesn't make much of a difference).

I just got the game "News Tycoon" (released March 2017) to work. It's supposed to be for Windows 7 and up according to Steam but it launched on Windows 2000! Unfortunately it ran out of memory and crashed while loading, so I'll have to set /3GB now. Democracy 3 does work fully, and I'm quite pleased.

Edited April 27, 2019 by win32
A little good news

[Tommy]

14 hours ago, win32 said:

Not surprising, considering that DX9 is DX9 regardless of OS, If you look at the old win2kgaming board there is an endless list of "XP-only" games made in the late 2000s that only need a few DLLs to work on Windows 2000 (before the extended kernel was conceived).

See, one thing I was concerned about was that I wasn't sure exactly how integrated it was with Steam.

Now...I bought a used copy on eBay without realizing that it required activation and it was one of those "One time uses" activation and it still wanted to work with Steam. Even the retail copy installed Steam on my machine and since Steam won't even think about working on XP anymore, I figured that even though it was an XP game, that it would no longer be relevant because Steam and XP are no longer a thing. But unfortunately since the activation key was already used by the previous owner, the game was completely useless. Hence why I bought the Steam version.

But then a bit ago I discovered GOG and noticed just yesterday that it had such a good sale going on it that I decided to try it out, since their games don't rely on Steam and also have an Offline installer that doesn't require to be online or hitched to anything to install and run. But then I was really concerned how much the game would run if PhysX wasn't fully compatible with Windows 2000. With some minor tweaking and version downgrading, I managed to get it going. I played it for a while last night on my Windows 2000 install and I had no problems at all. I did noticed that when you first launched into your save file that it can seem a bit choppy for a second or two, but that could be driver related as well.

I'm not really against activation per se, even though I think it's sort of useless because if someone wants to pirate a game, they'll find a way. But what I am against is something like Steam that will render your XP games unplayable because their stupid software all of a sudden decides that it's no longer going to work on XP since XP users no longer dominated their servers anymore and that everytime you launch Steam, it always wants to update itself. I thought I read that you can prevent that from happening but if you can't even get it to launch, then that's a problem in itself.

[UCyborg]

Mafia II Director's Cut on GOG.com is missing some music that's there in the initial release.

PhysXLoader.dll should probably be deleted from the game folder (pc subfolder, to be precise). It gets installed with other PhysX DLLs when you install PhysX so it's kinda redundant and will likely result in unintended mixing of PhysX DLLs of various ages (which could cause problems).

I noticed even newer games may have minimum requirements above what's needed to make it playable. I've no idea how Mafia I runs on 500 MHz CPU. Might be OK with the drawing distance of 5 meters. 

Edited March 1, 2020 by UCyborg
Remark regarding pc subfolder

[Tommy]

On 2/28/2020 at 1:05 PM, UCyborg said:

Mafia II Director's Cut on GOG.com is missing some music that's there in the initial release.

I'm not surprised since the original Mafia cut all of Django Reinhardt's music plus a few other tracks from other artists like the Mills Brothers, etc. But I'm very curious to know which tracks were cut in Mafia II's Director's Cut.

As for the original Mafia, you'd be surprised how frugal it was. That's why people criticize it today for looking aged. But come on, people! What did you expect for a game that could run natively on Windows 98 and a Pentium III 500mhz processor? If anything, that game totally rocks for its age and needs to be appreciated and respected for the awesome gameplay at the time. We're all too used to today's graphics and the sky is the limit graphics, amount of actors at any given time, and overall special effects. But back in 2003, we didn't have the high end stuff we do now and whether people agree with me or not, both of these games are awesome in my book, even today. Heck, many say that Mafia II needs a remaster. Call me old fashion but I thought Mafia II was BEAUTIFUL as it was and a huge improvement over the original Mafia game. There are a few things that could be touched up but the game is just quite polished as it is if you ask me!

[UCyborg]

On 3/3/2020 at 6:12 AM, Tommy said:

But I'm very curious to know which tracks were cut in Mafia II's Director's Cut.

Here's a list of changed files between original and GOG release (source):

sds/music/Radio/40/empire/buttons_and_bows.fsb
sds/music/Radio/40/classic/good_little_bad_little_you.fsb
sds/music/Radio/40/empire/therell_be_a_hot_time_in_the.fsb
sds/music/Radio/40/classic/youre_driving_me_crazy_dr.fsb
sds/music/Radio/40/empire/sing_sing_sing_bg.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/classic/che_la_luna.fsb
sds/music/Radio/40/empire/it_dont_mean_a_thing_if_it_a.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/classic/oh_marie.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/classic/speech/0_14_3_51_0191.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/classic/speech/0_15_3_06_0196.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/classic/makin_whoopee_dd.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/classic/speech/0_10_3_07_0181.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/classic/aint_that_a_kick_in_the_head.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/delta/aint_that_a_shame.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/delta/i_put_a_spell_on_you.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/empire/why_do_fools_fall_in_love.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/classic/when_youre_smiling.fsb
sds/music/Radio/50/empire/speech/1_11_1_50_0161.fsb
sds_en/script_sounds/m06_sounds_4.sds
sds_en/script_sounds/m06_sounds_4b.sds
sds/music/Menu/Credits_theme_music.fsb

I'm curious about Mafia I on 500 MHz CPU because the first computer I used that could do 3D games had 2 GHz Intel Celeron (I think its codename is Northwood) and an entry-level NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440. Frame-rate drop was quite noticeable at night, I guess due to the lighting. Even on later hardware, it can be felt that rendering city at night is more resource intensive than during daytime.

Heh, I don't think I tried running it on low settings back then.

Plus, there are two missions in Free Ride Extreme (Exploding Celeste and Bridge Bombing Zeppelin) that are impossible to complete unless you cap the game's frame rate to about 20 FPS. That made me think it didn't run too well for at least some of the developers and whoever tested those missions.

On 3/3/2020 at 6:12 AM, Tommy said:

Heck, many say that Mafia II needs a remaster. Call me old fashion but I thought Mafia II was BEAUTIFUL as it was and a huge improvement over the original Mafia game.

Games already looked pretty detailed in general were back then if you ask me. Even if you do remaster such a game, I don't think the difference would be as huge compared to if you go and remaster a game from 1995. Either way, it's possible to replace textures in both games.

Edited March 6, 2020 by UCyborg
Can't figure out the spoiler tag

[Tommy]

6 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Here's a list of changed files between original and GOG release (source):

<snip>

I'm curious about Mafia I on 500 MHz CPU because the first computer I used that could do 3D games had 2 GHz Intel Celeron (I think its codename is Northwood) and an entry-level NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440. Frame-rate drop was quite noticeable at night, I guess due to the lighting. Even on later hardware, it can be felt that rendering city at night is more resource intensive than during daytime.

Heh, I don't think I tried running it on low settings back then.

Hmm, I didn't take a full look at it but I wonder if Belleville was removed from Mafia II, it's the very same track that was played on Central Island by Django Reinhardt and that was certainly removed from the original Mafia release. I didn't see it on the list but then one of the fsb files may have contained it with a filename that I didn't recognize.

I'm also not sure about low settings either. But I believe you can dial it down quite a bit. When I open up setup.exe, it looks like the lowest resolution is 640x480 and I'm not sure if compressed or low detail graphics would yield better results.

6 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Plus, there are two missions in Free Ride Extreme (Exploding Celeste and Bridge Bombing Zeppelin) that are impossible to complete unless you cap the game's frame rate to about 20 FPS. That made me think it didn't run too well for at least some of the developers and whoever tested those missions.

Yep, I'm 100% aware of this problem as well. In fact I knew something was off even on my older PC, I had an HP Pavilion 532w that had a 1.7GHz Celeron and even then, I could never beat those two missions and I thought it was me who just sucked at it. But years down the road when I finally had internet access of my own where I could research this problem, I found out it was a processor issue because of the way the game is programmed. Rather than relying on timer events, it somehow utilized processor speed itself so the faster and better the processor was, the faster the explosions were. I remember in the day, I'd even try pushing the Bolt Model T with a fast car and usual it resulted in the car managing to go over the bridge rails or something stupid like that.

There are other similar problems in older games with faster processors. One really old one comes to mind is Roger Wilco 6, The Spinal Frontier. There was an issue that if your processor was over 100mhz and you scanned your ID card at the Com-Post, the game would crash. (Funny, completely off the wall and offtopic but that game made me laugh because Sierra would insert a message every time you'd quit the game and one of them was, "Aren't you glad your middle name isn't Lawrence?" Well, turns out that IS my middle name. ) They weren't lying when they said to check the readme with processors over 100mhz. There was a workaround you could do involving Turbo or there was a savegame file on the disk that got you past that part and you could continue playing. Need for Speed 5: Porsche Unleashed/Porsche 2000 also has a problem with fast processors. The game automatically determines graphic detail based on processor speed and I believe if you have a processor that is either over 2GHz or 3GHz, the game automatically defaulted to low graphics and even if you manually selected higher graphic details, they were ignored and your car and everything would look like complete trash, that's if the game even loaded at all which it would sometimes just crash at the titlescreen. Luckily someone figured out how to fix that so now it runs as it is suppose to but I'm sure there were times when these games were made, there were fast shortcuts around certain engine limitations that weren't known to have problems with better hardware.

But back to Mafia, I'm quite familiar with the internal workings as I've done plenty of Mafia hacking in the past. The code makes sense but is a mess and truly not organized that well. However, I do like some of the editing tools people have released for it. I made some of the common handguns so powerful that if you shot at a car while it was being driven by an NPC, it would start flying and tumbling in the air just from the sheer force of the bullet. Fun and games until you'd hit a gangster's car with it and they had that model handgun and shot you with it, it was generally insta-death which then you go in and edit Tommy's health and add up to 99,999 hit points. I believe any number higher than that would cause problems. Regardless of how corrupted the number looked, you had that much health. You could make Paulie and Sam completely invincible because they had a secondary value that would allow you to change how hit points are multiplied and changing the number, you could give them not only 99,999 hit points but also change the multiplier to the point that you could shoot them with a Thompson and they'd literally never even take 1 point of damage. The only exception to that rule is Shotgun/Sawed Off Shotguns. If you're shot in close range, it doesn't matter, you're dead. But one more interesting tidbit. Getting hit in person by a Tram is NOT insta-death. I haven't figured out how to change the values dealt by them but as long as you have that much health, you can stand in front of the tram and take damage like crazy but you will not die.

My edited Mafia game has Freeride which not only has a toned down light setting so it's not so yellow/orangish (sunny as hell) tint to it, but you're also accompanied by Paulie, Sam, and Don Salieri himself. All have Colt 1911s except Salieri who is still wielding his Smith and Wesson Magnum (with almost unlimited ammo, of course). Only downfall is you can only drive four door cars and if you don't start with a four door car, they'll start at the bar and have to run to you, otherwise you all start in the car. But something weird is I noticed in certain places, they get stuck and refuse to walk. This usually occurs in Oakhill or a few other random, off the beaten path places. They'll just stand there and they will only pivot in place but you could literally go to the North Pole, they will not follow you unless you manage to knock them out of place that is preventing them from walking. All these years later, I still haven't figured out why this happens.

[UCyborg]

Regarding Mafia, it's interesting that only those specific missions are somehow bugged. With older games in general, it's common that if they have issues with higher frame-rates, the entire world / physics simulation is bugged.

Interstate '76 for instance doesn't only have the issue with higher frame rates, but the entire world simulation almost comes to a stop if the operating system has been running for too long. It converts 32-bit unsigned integer representing system uptime in milliseconds (from GetTickCount function) to seconds and stores it in float, which doesn't have space left for the part after decimal point after several days. So it seems when it happens, the state is only updated every second. Managed to fix that along with some other problems with it and published a patch for it.

Since you mentioned NFS: Porsche 2000, the unofficial patch that exists for it is quite extensive, same for some other older Need or Speed games.

13 hours ago, Tommy said:

I'm also not sure about low settings either. But I believe you can dial it down quite a bit. When I open up setup.exe, it looks like the lowest resolution is 640x480 and I'm not sure if compressed or low detail graphics would yield better results.

I usually just lowered the resolution on that old computer in games, I think I left Mafia at something higher than 640x480 though. That alone helped a lot with the performance.

Only lowering resolution still leaves details in place, but makes things pixelated on LCD screens while settings dealing with texture quality can take a direct toll on the quality of the original assets.

13 hours ago, Tommy said:

My edited Mafia game has Freeride which not only has a toned down light setting so it's not so yellow/orangish (sunny as hell) tint to it, but you're also accompanied by Paulie, Sam, and Don Salieri himself. All have Colt 1911s except Salieri who is still wielding his Smith and Wesson Magnum (with almost unlimited ammo, of course). Only downfall is you can only drive four door cars and if you don't start with a four door car, they'll start at the bar and have to run to you, otherwise you all start in the car. But something weird is I noticed in certain places, they get stuck and refuse to walk. This usually occurs in Oakhill or a few other random, off the beaten path places. They'll just stand there and they will only pivot in place but you could literally go to the North Pole, they will not follow you unless you manage to knock them out of place that is preventing them from walking. All these years later, I still haven't figured out why this happens.

Maybe the world data contains pathways that they follow and they won't move in places where pathways are missing.

On 4/27/2019 at 7:13 PM, Tommy said:

I did noticed that when you first launched into your save file that it can seem a bit choppy for a second or two, but that could be driver related as well.

Right, back to Mafia II. Do you notice this also if you alt-tab out and back in? I've got a hitch like something's not fully loaded yet when you load the saved game. And if you tab out, it must be restored when going back in.

And what little I've read about programming with Direct3D, some care must be taken when handling such events.

[Tripredacus]

On 3/7/2020 at 10:18 AM, UCyborg said:

Interstate '76 for instance doesn't only have the issue with higher frame rates, but the entire world simulation almost comes to a stop if the operating system has been running for too long. It converts 32-bit unsigned integer representing system uptime in milliseconds (from GetTickCount function) to seconds and stores it in float, which doesn't have space left for the part after decimal point after several days.

Interesting, I know of a DOS game that doesn't poll the clock, but only once when the program is launched. If you leave it open for over 12 (or 24) hours, the time will go over 24:00. I've seen it over 38:00 but I learned to just not run the game for that long. I do not know if the clock is used for any calculations, it seemed to work normally on the wrong time.

[UCyborg]

On 3/3/2020 at 6:12 AM, Tommy said:

Heck, many say that Mafia II needs a remaster.

Just found out about Definitive Edition of all Mafia games. Mafia I is being completely remade, the other two are updated versions of the original. Mafia II is apparently 64-bit only now, 44,6 GB in size (holy crap!), engine uses D3D11 and officially requires at least Windows 8.1.

Edited May 21, 2020 by UCyborg
Word Definitive

[Tommy]

On 5/21/2020 at 5:10 PM, UCyborg said:

Just found out about Definitive Edition of all Mafia games. Mafia I is being completely remade, the other two are updated versions of the original. Mafia II is apparently 64-bit only now, 44,6 GB in size (holy crap!), engine uses D3D11 and officially requires at least Windows 8.1.

You got that right! I actually purchased Mafia 2 on Steam a while ago before getting it again on GOG Games since I didn't know about the latter before. But being on Steam, I have access to the Definitive Edition of Mafia 2 so I downloaded it. Eh, it's okay for what it is but I think we could've lived without it. Now had there been cut content and other goodies, then I would've been happier, but I thought Mafia 2 looked really good as it was.

I have very mixed feelings about the original Mafia remake. From the leaked trailer, I truly hope the voice isn't going to be Tommy's new voice. Michael Sorvino is Tommy Angelo and therefor really should return. Let's just say I am excited to see what is in store because it looks like a lot of love is going into it, and they promise that it's going to be reminiscent of the original Mafia we all know and love. But how much of it is going to be the same? I hope Django Reinhardt tracks come back along with the handful of Mills Brothers, but that could be debatable since I believe both Steam and GOG versions have the music removed because of licensing issues. I know you can restore them but what does this mean for the new game? Will there be radio stations like Mafia 2 and 3 or just generic area music? So many variables. How many cars back then even had radios anyway? But anyway, I'm excited but proceeding with caution as well. Luckily I have a heavily tweaked version of Windows 10 Pro 64-bit alongside my Windows 2000 installation so I should be good to go once the new Mafia comes out. My PC can handle the new definitive edition quite well with the settings cranked up except for a few small areas that lag a bit but otherwise it's pretty smooth.

[UCyborg]

It's going to be interesting. Guess we'll just have to wait and see to get all the answers.

[UCyborg]

@Tommy
Did you get to play remade Mafia I by any chance?

Edited March 27, 2022 by UCyborg

[Tommy]

5 hours ago, UCyborg said:

@Tommy
Did you get to play remade Mafia I by any chance?

I did! It was fantastic! My complaint was only mostly in the music department where some of it got a bit repetitive but other than that, I really enjoyed it a lot. Luckily I made the decision to hop to Windows 10 for my daily driver or I never would've been able to play it. My main computer had a dualboot between it and Windows 2000 but somehow the 2000 install got corrupted so I cannot even boot into it anymore.