GTA 2 doesn't start (Windows 10)

[RGF]

Vanilla/default version doesn't start.

After installing the 1.03 patch from soggi.org the game still doesn't start.

Changing the compability to Windows 98 or Windows XP doesn't help.

I also tried the "Glide API" solution from PCGamingWiki, but the game still doesn't start.

 

By the way I have GTA 2 European release in jewel case.

 

[jm-9]

The disc version of GTA 2 requires a no-CD exe to work on modern Windows (post-XP). Safedisc, its copy protection method, is no longer supported. So either find one of those for v10.3 (linking isn't allowed here) or find the free version that Rockstar used to provide for download. If you use the disc version you will still need the disc in the drive for music.

Edited October 17 by jm-9

[RGF]

5 hours ago, jm-9 said:

The disc version of GTA 2 requires a no-CD exe to work on modern Windows (post-XP). Safedisc, its copy protection method, is no longer supported. So either find one of those for v10.3 (linking isn't allowed here) or find the free version that Rockstar used to provide for download. If you use the disc version you will still need the disc in the drive for music.

It's strange that GTA 2 can only start on Windows 10 with no-CD exe, meanwhile GTA 1 (I have European release in jewel case) can run right after installation without any patches and cracks on Windows 10.

[cant remember]

Did GTA1 have any form of copyprotection? Anyhoo the GTA2 that was on R*'s classics site works for me under Windows 10.

[RGF]

27 minutes ago, cant remember said:

Did GTA1 have any form of copyprotection? Anyhoo the GTA2 that was on R*'s classics site works for me under Windows 10.

I don't like the R* Classic versions, because they are more broken than the original versions and also lacks something.
Atleast in case of GTA 1 from R* Classics:

- no music in menu

- sometimes game closes by itself when I choosed to play

- police radio playing in background instead of city ambience

- radio stations most of the time didn't work.

 

I don't know what about GTA 2, because I'm unable to play the disc version since I bought it back in 2021 (what makes it even worse is that I've been looking for the disc version since late 2019).

Edited October 17 by RGF

[cant remember]

I know the GTA1 from R* Classics sucks but the one for GTA2 is in much better shape. I've played both the retail disc version and the R* Classics one and as far as I can tell they both play identical.

 

The radio stations for GTA1 can be manually fixed btw. R* numbered the filenames wrong so the copcar "music" plays on foot, the on-foot ambience plays instead of one of the stations etc. If you go in the folder and renumber them from 1.wav to 0.wav, then 2.wav becomes 1.wav etc (or something to that effect) then it will be normal again in game, you will only be missing the menu music. But yeah you're better off not bothering and playing the original release in DOSbox or something.

[jm-9]

5 hours ago, RGF said:

It's strange that GTA 2 can only start on Windows 10 with no-CD exe, meanwhile GTA 1 (I have European release in jewel case) can run right after installation without any patches and cracks on Windows 10.

For Rockstar Classics GTA 1, use these patches to fix the radio, music and save corruption issues. I agree though, the retail version is better, it's what I use myself.

 

The reason that retail GTA 2 doesn't work and retail GTA 1 and GTA: London 1969 work is because of the copy protection methods that they use. GTA 2 uses Safedisc, a very common copy protection method in the late 90s and early 00s. It checks if the disc is in the drive when you start the game. Because of security vulnerabilities it caused, it was disabled in a 2015 update of Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. It is not supported in Windows 11 either. GTA 1 and GTA: London 1969 use a different copy protection method to check if the disc is present in the drive when the game starts. This is still supported by modern Windows, and so you can play the games without a no-CD exe. The disc version of GTA III also uses Safedisc, and so also requires a no-CD exe. GTA Vice City onward do not use Safedisc.

 

So if you get a no-CD exe (which I cannot link to here) for v10.3 it'll work fine, as long as you have the disc in the drive for the intro movies and the radio. This is also why the Rockstar Classics version works without any issue, as it has no disc check DRM. Microsoft's article about the update at the time actually recommended finding no-CD exes to play games with Safedisc.

 

By the way, if you didn't realise, by pressing F11 in-game you can increase the resolution of GTA 1 to 800x600x32 (retail) or 1024x768x32 (Rockstar Classics) in GTA 1, GTA: London 1969 and GTA: London 1961.

Edited October 17 by jm-9

[RGF]

8 hours ago, cant remember said:

But yeah you're better off not bothering and playing the original release in DOSbox or something.

Why not?

6 hours ago, jm-9 said:

By the way, if you didn't realise, by pressing F11 in-game you can increase the resolution of GTA 1 to 800x600x32 (retail) or 1024x768x32 (Rockstar Classics) in GTA 1, GTA: London 1969 and GTA: London 1961.

I know about this. 800x600 and 1024x768 isn't a big difference. Also playing in 800x600 resolution is not a problem for me.

[RGF]

6 hours ago, jm-9 said:

The disc version of GTA III also uses Safedisc, and so also requires a no-CD exe.

I remember that I could run GTA 3 after installing the official 1.1 patch.

6 hours ago, jm-9 said:

The reason that retail GTA 2 doesn't work and retail GTA 1 and GTA: London 1969 work is because of the copy protection methods that they use. GTA 2 uses Safedisc, a very common copy protection method in the late 90s and early 00s. It checks if the disc is in the drive when you start the game. Because of security vulnerabilities it caused, it was disabled in a 2015 update of Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. It is not supported in Windows 11 either. GTA 1 and GTA: London 1969 use a different copy protection method to check if the disc is present in the drive when the game starts. This is still supported by modern Windows, and so you can play the games without a no-CD exe. The disc version of GTA III also uses Safedisc, and so also requires a no-CD exe. GTA Vice City onward do not use Safedisc.

 

So if you get a no-CD exe (which I cannot link to here) for v10.3 it'll work fine, as long as you have the disc in the drive for the intro movies and the radio. This is also why the Rockstar Classics version works without any issue, as it has no disc check DRM. Microsoft's article about the update at the time actually recommended finding no-CD exes to play games with Safedisc.

Interesting information.

[RGF]

I've remembered that on gtatools.com there is a "GTA 2 windows xp patch" where the description said "this 500kb patch will make GTA2 work under windows xp". When I first saw that I was surprised how can GTA 2 not work on Windows XP, but when I searched for "GTA 2 windows xp" or "GTA 2 windows xp patch" there were lot of results of forum posts from early 2000's about GTA 2 not working on Windows XP.

It's strange that GTA 2, which was released in late 1999, didn't even worked on Windows XP, which is a operating system from late 2001.

[jm-9]

3 hours ago, RGF said:

Why not?

I know about this. 800x600 and 1024x768 isn't a big difference. Also playing in 800x600 resolution is not a problem for me.

Yeah, the retail version is the better version anyway. Besides, the game only renders in a maximum of 640x480 anyway, anything higher is just upscaled. Interesting about GTA III 1.1, I'll have to try it. I've never heard that this removes/alters Safedisc before.

 

The 500KB patch is the v10.3 patch. GTA 2 was created for Windows 95 and Windows 98, both of which are part of the Windows 9x family of operating systems. These, along with Windows Me, are the last of the original Windows line, which began with Windows 1.0 in 1985. These run on top of DOS, an older operating system that was first released in 1981. Microsoft's version of DOS was called MS-DOS. GTA 1 and the London games also have DOS versions that are installed from the disc (or download in the case of London 1961) when the Windows version is installed.

 

The problem was that DOS had certain limitations as it was older technology. So Microsoft created a new line of operating systems with no relation to DOS called Windows NT. Windows 2000 was the first Windows NT OS that was commonly used for gaming. The problem was that it was quite different internally from Windows 9x, which most games were made for, so some games had problems when played on it. GTA 2 was no exception, but a few months after it came out DMA Design released patch v10.3, which increased the compatibility of GTA 2 with Windows 2000.

 

Windows XP is the direct successor to Windows 2000 and was very similar to it. That is why the patch also works for XP. All modern versions of Windows are descendants of Windows NT.

Edited October 17 by jm-9

[RGF]

Today I wanted to try out the XP patch from gtatools.com, but for some reason I cannot copy the exe file from the archive.

On gtatools.com it's said that the creator is "tAC", so I searched for "GTA 2 tAC" in Google and it turns out to be a no cd crack made by some "tAC cRACKING : tAC's Cracking Resource Present's". When I searched for that group in Google I didn't get any results about it.

 

Seriously, there has to be another way to run this game beside downloading some cracks that are probably gonna change something else in the game and also infect my PC with viruses.

Edited October 20 by RGF