MiG Alley: Improving compatibility

DarkenedRoom
1 hour ago
2 min read

This guide will attempt to improve Win10/11 compatibility using techniques that have proved successful with other sims.

These compatibility improvements are very subjective in nature as their success is gauged by an absence of crashes or other issues. Only through long term use in long duration missions can a subjective assessment be made. Despite this, it is hoped these changes will improve compatibility.

While currently working well in Windows 10, the following was reported in the Combat Ace forums post, Rowan's MiG Alley by Dornil:

With this MA is running well under Win10 even without any compatibility settings. Unfortunately, it's not perfect after all - CTDs happen often during long missions :( Although it could well be inherent problem of the Mig Alley itself - I vaguely remember something like this from the days when it was a relatively new game.

To try and correct this issue the following techniques are used:

Disabling/removing Windows libraries in the game folder, which will cause MiG Alley to revert to the later Windows system libraries.
Replace 3rd party libraries with later versions that are compatible with MiG Alley. Later libraries should have increased compatibility with later versions of WIndows. Any bugs or memory issues may have been resolved with later versions of libraries.
Upgrade to the latest version of DirectX wrappers.

Disabling the Microsoft library

The msvcrt.dll library is found within the MiG Alley installation folder. There are a couple of methods that can be used to disable it:

Delete the library (not recommended).
Rename the library, as this allows the lib to be restored, e.g. adding .bak to the filename, msvcrt.dll becomes msvcrt.dll.bak (preferred).

Replacing Miles & SMACKER libraries

MiG Alley uses the Miles Sound System (MSS) library (mss32.dll) and the SMACKER library (smackw32.dll). The old version must be disabled (using the same method as above) and then replaced with a newer version that is more compatible.

A collection of MSS and SMACKER libraries are available from this VOGONS post by DosFreak. To replace the libraries:

Download Miles(use 7z as ext).zip and rename to Miles.7z.
Extract the contents of Miles.7z (with 7zip).
Copy the 32-bit library 4.0d-mss32.dll into the MiG Alley installation folder.
Rename to mss32.dll.

Download SMACKER(use 7z as ext).zip and rename to SMACKER.7z.
Extract the contents of SMACKER.7z (with 7zip).
Copy the library 4.1a-smackw32.dll into the MiG Alley installation folder.
Rename to smackw32.dll.

Upgrading DDrawCompat wrapper

The latest version of DDrawCompat, v0.7.0 continues to work well with MiG Alley. It can be obtained from the DDrawCompat GitHub Releases.

The existing DDrawCompat.ini configuration should continue to be used.

Finally...

Credit and thanks go to:

Dornil for his post on the Combat Ace forums.
DosFreak for the VOGONS post with additional Miles Sound System and Smacker libraries.
narzoul for DDrawCompat.

Good hunting!