Homeworld

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[[Series:|]]
Homeworld	1999
Homeworld: Cataclysm	2000
Homeworld 2	2003
Homeworld Remastered Edition	2015
Homeworld 2 Remastered Edition	2015
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak	2016
Homeworld 3	2024

Where to Buy

The CD copy of the game is available under the Sold Out range (Amazon UK or Amazon US).

You may alternatively purchase the game second hand either through a local game distribution chain or from sites such as eBay.

Serial Key

The serial key is only required during setup.

Patches

Homeworld 1.05

Graphical Tweaks

Hardware Acceleration

Using OpenGL or D3D (in the video options) enables hardware acceleration, which gives you 32-bit colour, and the ability to use graphics techniques invented since the game's release. Hardware Acceleration works best on Windows XP or later when the game is run using compatibility mode for Windows NT 4.0.

On Windows 8, you are no longer able to select "Windows NT 4.0" as a compatibility mode, and no other modes manage to get OpenGL to work. D3D mode works, but bugs out at non-default resolutions. You will need to download the Application Compatibility Toolkit from Microsoft, create a new compatibility database, and manually add the Homeworld executable file to it with "Windows NT 4.0" compatibility mode. After that, save the database and then right click it and choose "Install". The game should now run.

Anti-aliasing

With an ATI card, you can force Anti-aliasing (and anisotropic-filter, etcetera.) in the Catalyst Control Centre. For the best results use the OpenGL renderer in Homeworld, as there are some issues with the menu with using D3D and anti-aliasing. Your mileage may vary with an nVidia card.

Widescreen

Widescreen can be enabled by changing the ScreenHeight and ScreenWidth registry keys in HKLM\Software\Sierra On-Line\Homeworld

Windowed mode

Execute the game with the command line parameter -window. Add -noBorder to remove window border. If you do not use the -noBorder switch, you must run the game at less than maximum screen resolution or it will crash.

Command-line parameters

The following command-line parameters may improve quality on newer systems, or enable extra functionality:

Argument	Description
/triple	Enables OpenGL triple buffering, improves graphical quality and removes flickering at higher resolutions. Use unless it causes problems.
/enable3DNow	Enables the 3DNow processor instruction set if available. Use unless it causes problems.
/enableSSE	Enables the SSE processor instruction set if available. Use unless it causes problems.
/disableAVI	Disables the intro movies when the game starts.
/nofastfe	Disables the fast graphical frontend. Use this only when having graphical problems like flickering
/noglddraw	Fon't use DirectDraw to setup OpenGL renderers. Try this is you're having problems getting OpenGL to work.
/safeGL	Don't use possibly buggy optimized features of OpenGL for rendering. Try this if you're having problems getting OpenGL to work.
/pilotview	Enable pilot view. Focus on single ship and hit Q to toggle.
/heap BYTES	Allows the game to use up to BYTES bytes RAM for the heap since by default the game isn't allowed to use much. 256MB should suffice: /heap 268435456 but if you have more, try raising it to 1GB: /heap 1073741824