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Homeworld: Cataclysm

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Homeworld: Cataclysm
Homeworld: Cataclysm cover
Developers
Barking Dog Studios
Publishers
Sierra Entertainment
Release dates
Windows June 30, 2000
Homeworld: Cataclysm guide on StrategyWiki
Homeworld: Cataclysm on Wikipedia
Homeworld
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

Key points

Re-released on GOG.com as Homeworld: Emergence due to "Cataclysm" being a registered trademark of Blizzard Entertainment.[1]
Remastered version unlikely due to source code being lost.[2]

General information

Encyclopedia Hiigara - A wiki for everything Homeworld related
Homeworld Shipyards - A fairly old but big Homeworld fan site
GOG.com Support Page

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SecuROM 4 DRM.
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows

Essential improvements

Patches

A full list of all available patches can be found here.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows

Save game data location

System Location
Windows

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy

Video settings

Template:Video settings

Widescreen resolution

Widescreen can be enabled by changing the ScreenHeight and ScreenWidth registry keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Sierra On-Line\Cataclysm.


Widescreen mode requires the use of the OpenGL renderer as D3D has rendering errors with widescreen. Enabling OpenGL can be found further down the page in the "Issues Fixed" section.


For Windows 10 x64 you need to be run the program as Admin for the registry entries to be created (right click properties on the application under compatibility set run as administrator).[citation needed]

Set resolution in registry[citation needed]
  1. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sierra On-Line\Cataclysm
  2. Edit the ScreenHeight and ScreenWidth values to match your chosen resolution.
  3. If the resolution doesn't take effect after doing the above, try running the game in Administrator mode.

Windowed

Add -window to the game's path. For borderless fullscreen windowed mode add -noBorder as well. If you do not use -noBorder you must run the game at less than maximum screen resolution or it will crash.

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
German
Retail only

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Notes
LAN play
Online play

Connection types

Issues fixed

Severe Lag in Menus

a. Use OpenGL rendering b. Run the game with command line options /nofastfe /noglddraw

Enabling OpenGL rendering on Windows 8 and later

OpenGL rendering can solve severe lag problems in menus but in order to get OpenGL to work you need NT4 compatibility mode. This is problematic on Windows 8 and Windows 10 because NT4 compatibility mode is no longer offered by default. For Windows 8 and later use the Homeworld hardware acceleration fix to apply NT4 compatibility mode. Download the zip file. Extract the contents and follow the instructions in the readme.txt.

Game runs on wrong screen (multi monitor set up)

Simplest fix is to use the Windows shortcut SHIFT+WINDOWS KEY+ARROW KEY to move the game to the screen of your choice. You may have to alt tab back to the game afterwards.

Other information

Command line parameters

The following command-line parameters may improve quality on newer systems, or enable extra functionality:
Parameter 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 Don'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.
/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. 256 MB should suffice: /heap 268435456 but if you have more, try raising it to 1 GB: /heap 1073741824

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D
OpenGL 1.1
Software renderer
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Multiplayer Sierra.com, WON

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95, NT 4.0
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium II 233 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 80 MB
Video card (GPU) 4 MB of VRAM

References