Ground Control II: Operation Exodus

Ground Control
Ground Control	2000
Ground Control II: Operation Exodus	2004

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Ground Control II: Operation Exodus is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view RTS game in the Ground Control series.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 5 DRM.
GamersGate		Also bundled with the original game.
GOG.com		A unique multiplayer key can be requested here. Mac version is available once added to your library despite the store page showing Windows only and not Mac (except for a small Mac notice under the system requirements section).
Steam
ZOOM Platform
GamersGate (unavailable)

Free demo versions are available from SierraHelp.

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patch is 1.0.0.8, and is available from Patches-Scrolls.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\profiles\[profile number]\[profile number].profile^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/254840/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\profiles\[profile number]\*.gciisave^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/254840/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Video settings.

Graphics feature	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution		Interface scales poorly.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)	Up to 16x.
Anti-aliasing (AA)	FSAA, up to 4x.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)	See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Input settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Sound settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Traditional Chinese				Retail only.
French				Retail and GOG.com only.
German				Retail and GOG.com only.
Italian				Retail only.
Russian				Retail version only. Localization can be downloaded here
Spanish				Retail and GOG.com only.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
LAN play
Online play		GameSpy services have been shut down;^[2] see GameSpy for workarounds.

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated		Requires separate download of official dedicated server files.
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Issues fixed

Windows

Increased game speed on multi-core processors

Set `gcii.exe` to run use one processor core.^[3]

Extreme mouse latency

Change mouse driver settings^[4]
Open "Pointer Movement Settings" Uncheck "Use OS native drivers for pointer speed and acceleration"

Issues unresolved

Crash related to wireless peripherals

The game crashes on startup if the user has wireless peripherals (headsets, mice...), either with a black screen or with an error message reporting an access violation. Before the game is run, the USB dongle needs to be unplugged, and only plugged back in when the game's intro/menu is shown.^[5] ^[6]

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0b

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)			^[7]

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Multiplayer	GameSpy	No longer available.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98, 2000, ME	XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 3 800 MHz	Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz AMD Athlon XP
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1.5 GB
Video card (GPU)	AGP and Hardware Transform and Lighting 32 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0b compatible	128 MB of VRAM
Sound (audio device)	DirectX 9.0b compatible
Other	56K modem for online multiplayer

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.6.8
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz
System memory (RAM)	1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	4 GB
Video card (GPU)	64 MB of VRAM

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/254840/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (254840) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

↑ Mac Game Update: 22 New Additions - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ Pricing | GameSpy Technology
↑ GCVets.net Board | Increase multicore-processor gamespeed
↑ GOG.com | Community Discussions - Fix mouse latency
↑ Game won't start / Black Screen :: Ground Control II General Discussions - last accessed on 2022-09-11
↑ Verified by User:Plok on 2022-09-11
Confirmed with the Logitech G533 wireless headset.
↑ Ground Control 2: Operation Exodus Special Edition on GOG.com - last accessed on 2019-12-08
"Mac notice: The game is 32-bit only and will not work on macOS 10.15 and up."

[gamedir-2] 1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

[Proton_path_note-3] 2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/254840/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (254840) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[1] Mac Game Update: 22 New Additions - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023

[4] Pricing | GameSpy Technology

[5] GCVets.net Board | Increase multicore-processor gamespeed

[6] GOG.com | Community Discussions - Fix mouse latency

[GroundControl2Crash-7] Game won't start / Black Screen :: Ground Control II General Discussions - last accessed on 2022-09-11

[8] Verified by User:Plok on 2022-09-11
Confirmed with the Logitech G533 wireless headset.

[9] Ground Control 2: Operation Exodus Special Edition on GOG.com - last accessed on 2019-12-08
"Mac notice: The game is 32-bit only and will not work on macOS 10.15 and up."

[1]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

Developers

	Massive Entertainment
Publishers
2004-2008	Sierra Entertainment
2008-present	Rebellion Developments
Release dates
Windows	June 18, 2004
macOS (OS X)	April 23, 2013^[1]
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view
Controls	Multiple select, Point and select
Genres	RTS
Themes	Sci-fi
Series	Ground Control