I bought MM6 and MM7 a while back, played through the former (had it in the early 2000s and loved it) but had major graphical issues with 7.

Having abandoned it, I've come back with a new laptop and wanted to see if I could get MM7 to run but now neither will.

For MM6, I get the error: DDraw->SetDisplayMode() failed

Which I've seen in another post but hasn't seemed to find a resolution

For MM7, it might briefly open a grey screen but it shoots to the GOG Galaxy page where the play button moves from clickable, to grey, to saying "syncing" but nothing happens.

Tried messing around with compatability, but nothing's doing.

Any advice/help?


Edit: Found a suggested workaround on GOG FAQ or something, and now MM7 is, if it opens a grey screen, returning "D3Drend-> Init failed

I'd try installing the GrayFace patches for both games.

This seems to have helped MM7. It'll open 1 in maybe 4 or 5 times, albeit in a small window. MM6 still hasn't work in a few attempts. It opens and I can hear it, but I can't actually get into the window to see the game.

Do you launch the game via Galaxy? Have you tried launching the game using its own executable, without Galaxy running?

It could be that directplay has not been activated. That is not automatically activated on windows 10 and 11 and has to be activated separately.

I also have this issue - with directplay activated AND GrayFace patch installed. MM7 starts only out of 5-6 attempts.

When I try to start directly from the exe (instead of from Galaxy) - would the savegames still be synchronized with the Galaxy cloud?

(too bad that I can't paste my errorlog.txt here - the forum would process my posting for hours whithout ever actually posting it)

It helped me to tweak the MM7.ini file, setting the BorderlessFullscreen to 1.
No idea if that is your issue, though, so sorry if that is a dead end.

Did that after installing the GrayFace and resolution patches. Didn't use the GOG client.

I think I fixed it. Seems simpler than all the solutions I've been finding on the net with altering your register and so on...

Next (right side) to the In-Client Play button, click on settings -> Additional Executables -> Options -> Change Video from Hardware Accelerated 3D to Software 3D.

That did it for me. Working flawlessly for now..

Thank you so much for posting this! I have the grayface patch installed and this makes it start up no problems now

Look for (MM7-Rel) in programs 86, GOG Galaxy, Games, MM7. Double click that icon and see if it will open up.