Cannot have a male ingame character

[Father of Runes]

Hello guys, first of all, thank you so much for all the effort spent on making this old game playable on new machines and for all the other improvements!

Unfortunately I still have some problems, I can't find solutions for:
- If I start a new game, I always have to play with a female ingame character, regardless of what face and name I choose. Can anybody explain me, what I have to do in order to get a male character?
- Sometimes the 4:3 ingame screen is strechted to my 16:9 monitor, sometimes not. If it is not strechted, I have a free black area on the right, where I have the possibility to e.g. move my hand cards to in duels, what is quite useful. Is it possible to constantly configure this anywhere?

I also still sense the game speed to be very fast, but that seems to be a property of the game and not a problem due to my strong system, so I can live with that.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

EDIT: Forgot to mention: I play with the "Microprose Magic the Gathering 2010 Custom Installer ISO"

[monoeye]

does anyone have an answer to this?

[Huggybaby]

Sorry, hopefully someone will comment eventually.

[monoeye]

so no one else has this problem? is the game supposed to pick male or female depending on your avatar automatically?

[CirothUngol]

- If I start a new game, I always have to play with a female ingame character, regardless of what face and name I choose.

Wow, yer right!
I've just confirmed that the 2010 ISO doesn't properly set the gender of your character. I've checked the original Microprose versions (MtG v1.0, 2.15, and 3.0), Manalink 1.3.2 and Shandalar 2012. All of the others set the byte at 0x000224B4 of the .SVE file to "1" if your character is male, but the 2010 ISO does not.
Incidently, you can correct it by opening the .SVE file in a Hex Editor and manually changing the byte to "1". Now you're a guy. ^_^

- Sometimes the 4:3 ingame screen is strechted to my 16:9 monitor, sometimes not... Is it possible to constantly configure this anywhere?

I don't think so. I know what you're talking about, but I'm not sure what causes it. Guesses, anyone?

I also still sense the game speed to be very fast, but that seems to be a property of the game and not a problem due to my strong system

Actually, it might be due to your fast system. I play the 2010 ISO on a 500Mhz WinXP system as well as a 2.4 Ghz QuadCore Win7x64 system, and the throttle difference is rather large.

If you wanna see fast, try loading one of the original Microprose discs on a Win98 VirtualMachine. Ridiculously fast... and totally unplayable.

[monoeye]

does that mean I need a save file to fix it? I can't get the game to set the correct gender after character creation?

[CirothUngol]

Well, I couldn't get the 2010 ISO version to set my character as male, and since it seems to work in all of the other versions I'm not sure what's wrong. The game should set the gender based upon the character you choose in FaceMaker.exe... but it doesn't seem to work for the 2010 ISO.

The SaveGames are named MAGIC4.SVE - MAGICD.SVE (for SaveSlot #1 - 10) and the current game ("Resume Game") is named MAGIC3.SVE.

[monoeye]

I'd play the 2012 version but I can't get it to work. And I'm not about to go break my game with a hex editor so I guess my wizard's gonna have to stay confused for the time being.