Get a black screen with a darker black square and the game hangs. I need to force quit to get back to Windows.

Managed to get the game working, but still having issues when trying to play vanilla.

First solution is using Stracciatella mod (https://ja2-stracciatella.github.io/how-to-run/). This is not ideal because the mod does make changes to the game other than the resolution.

Second solution is using https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat. Replace the game's ddraw.dll with this new one. This works but the game does not fill the screen, instead it is at 640x420 resolution and taking up only a fraction of the screen; even if you change Window's resolution to match.

I'm dissapointed that GOG is selling an old game that isn't compatible with modern machines.

Got it working now on vanilla using:
- the patched `ddraw.dll` (as explained above)
- configuring my monitor to display un-scalled resolutions
- The ja.exe executable set to Windows 8 compatibility mode
- deleted/renamed the intro movie file "Data/Intro.slf"

GOG doesn't give a shit.

Search the Forum for "wine".
You'll end up with using dll's from the wine project like here:
https://community.jaggedalliance.com/forums/topic/18-want-to-get-feet-wet-with-ja2-while-you-wait-for-ja3-but-the-game-is-slow-and-stutters-like-mad-fix-here

Well, it works on my modern machine (Windows 11, RTX 3080).

But then again I am used to replace DDraw for years now (and that's all I had to do) with the Version from dgVoodoo2.

The problem is not the game not supporting the OS, but modern drivers not supporting the old standards. DDraw was only used in a Windows 95/98. For years drivers still supported it, but it became somewhat obsolete.

And the compatibility mode for programs does exactly what it was made for. Windows has problems with old games? Set the compatibility mode for that game. FIRST try the tools that you have, THEN complain.

Changing old exes often breaks compatibility with mods, so it's better to leave them alone. Sure they could change the whole game, recompile it, but it's not worth it. If they had to do that, they would not release it at all, the costs would be too high.

Windows PCs are not consoles. Gaming consoles have NO compatibility to old games (until you run them in emulators), Windows has very good compatibility, but sometimes you need to tweak something yourself.
Can's ask for improvements and expect that nothing changes at the same time.


Btw, before GOG there were a lot more games that didn't run on modern machines at all. GOG actually put in a lot of effort to get these running again. Before GOG there was no GK3 or JK or SW EP1 Racer. They are not omnipotent however, some special cases escape their gaze.

We should always pay attention to the name of the forum.
Here it is Jagged Alliance series.
Sometimes, I think, forums are also merged later.
So it also makes sense to mention the name
of the game in the opening post. At this point here
it is...

Jagged Alliance 2

Hi All,

I have just updated my computer to win11 and I have also installed JA2 Wildfire. When I try to run the game, I get an error message from Win11: The code execution cannot proceed because smackw32.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem.

How did you guys get around this problem?

Thanks

Peter

UPDATE: I solved this problem by installing it from off-line files instead of using gog galaxy

Thanks for posting this. I am new to GOG and initially didn't notice offline package downloads. Got same error, as result. GOG Galaxy seem not that reliable piece of software :)