Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Cover image missing, please upload it
Developers
	Blizzard Entertainment
Publishers
	Sierra Entertainment
	Capcom
Release dates
Windows	July 3, 2002
macOS (OS X)	July 3, 2002

Warcraft
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans	1994
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness	1995
Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans	Cancelled
Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition	1999
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos	2002
World of Warcraft	2004
Hearthstone	2014
Warcraft III: Reforged	2020

Key points

Comes bundled with a map editor

Runs well on low-end PCs

Run as an administrator on Windows Vista and later to avoid problems

General information

Official Blizzard Site

Battle.net Warcraft III Support

WoWWiki - A huge wiki for everything Warcraft universe related.

Mojo StormStout's Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Strategy Guide - Strategy and Game Guide by Blizzard

Epicwar - Biggest Warcraft III Map Database

The Hive Workshop - Community Site with focus on modding & Map database

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Developer website
Amazon.com		Warcraft III Battle Chest. Includes the base game, along with the expansion and strategy guides for both games.

If a retail copy is already owned, digital versions can be downloaded for free by entering the serial key on Battle.net.

The digital version is not automatically patched to the latest version. See the Patches section for details.

Essential improvements

Patches

Click on "Battle.net" in the Main-Menu to automatically patch the game to the latest version. Patches are also available as separate download (English, other languages). Current patch is 1.26.

Game data

In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

Template:Game data/rowTemplate:Game data/row

System	Location

Save game data location

Template:Game data/rowTemplate:Game data/row

System	Location

Save game cloud syncing

No save game cloud syncing information; you can edit this page to add it.

Video settings

In-game graphics settings.

Widescreen resolution

It is highly recommended to install the latest patch instead for official support

As of patch 1.25b, Warcraft III contains native Widescreen support. To change resolutions, simply open the video options. If you do not wish to install the patch, do the following:

Instructions

Although Widescreen is now supported, it is stretched widescreen, causing the UI to look somewhat misshapen.

Audio settings

In-game audio settings.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
LAN play		12
Online play		12

Ports

Protocol	Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP	6112, 6113-6119

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

Issues fixed

Running the game on Intel-based Macs

Even with the patch, the map editor will not be compatible with Intel Macs

The latest patch for Warcraft III adds Intel Mac support. However, the patcher is PowerPC-based and will only run on OS X Snow Leopard or below. Update the game before upgrading the OS.

Mac issues

While Warcraft 3 works fine with most new MacBooks a lot of older ones (Powerbooks and early generation MacBook pros around 2006) can be very deceptive. A lot of them will be able to run the game until too many units are spawned in a game, which will cause the computer to freeze completely forcing the user to shut the computer down. Other than that a lot of the older macs get error messages quite often causing disturbance in gameplay. There are some rather difficult work arounds for some of these issues but the best you can do is installing a windows partition on your mac using bootcamp. This will allow the computer to run as a windows with as much power as the actual mac, enabling it (in some cases) of playing the game.

Windows NT Is Not Supported

When installing Warcraft III, the installer will contain a warning about Windows NT if you are using Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7. These versions of Windows are based on Windows NT, but are compatible with Warcraft III. It is safe to ignore this message.

Windows Vista/Windows 7+ Compatibility

The game will run on Vista, Windows 7, 8.1 and 10, even though it was intended for Windows 98. There might be a few issues with the game, however. If you have any problems, set the Compatibility Mode to "Windows 98 / Windows ME".

You may get the following error message in Windows 7 and upwards when connecting to Battle.net: "There was an error writing to your hard drive while trying to download a file from Battle.net. You may need to free some space. Please check your hard drive and try again." The game is trying to write to the "Program Files"/"Program Files (x86)" directory which is write protected for security reasons and multiuser compatibility. You can evade this by running the game as administrator (Strg + Shift + Enter when icon is selected) or adding write access rights to the game directory.

If you can't connect to battle.net, make sure that you have configured your firewall. Windows Vista and upwards adds security features to the Windows Firewall to block certain types of network connectivity by default. Press Alt+Tab to switch to your desktop to acknowledge any Firewall popups.

Cinematics may have artifacts or other corruption on Windows 7. Right-click the executable. On the Compatibility tab, check Disable desktop composition and click OK.

System requirements

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98	XP or greater
Processor (CPU)	400 MHz Pentium II or equivalent	600 MHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	700 MB
Video card (GPU)	TNT Voodoo 3 i810 Rage 128 8 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.1 compatible	32 MB of VRAM

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10.3.9 to 10.6.8
Processor (CPU)	400 MHz G3 processor	600 MHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	700 MB
Video card (GPU)	ATI Technologies or nVidia chipset 3D video card 16 MB of VRAM	32 MB of VRAM