Homeworld

Homeworld
Homeworld	1999
Homeworld: Cataclysm	2000
Homeworld 2	2003
Homeworld Remastered Edition	2015
Homeworld 2 Remastered Edition	2015
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak	2016

Key points

For Windows 8 and later use Homeworld hardware acceleration fix.

Mod tools come bundled on the disk

Small but dedicated community

The audio settings include an equalizer (!)

HUD doesn't scale on higher resolutions

General information

Relic Entertainment Official site

Encyclopedia Hiigara - A wiki for everything Homeworld related

Homeworld Shipyards - A fairly old but big Homeworld fan site

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability[edit]

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GOG.com		Homeworld Remastered Collection
Humble Store		Homeworld Remastered Collection
Mac App Store		Homeworld Remastered Collection. Currently no online multiplayer or mod support.
Steam		Homeworld Remastered Collection

The Homeworld Remastered Collection contains Homeworld, Homeworld 2, Homeworld Remastered Edition and Homeworld 2 Remastered Edition.

The included serial key is only required during setup.

Essential improvements[edit]

Patches[edit]

The latest patch is Homeworld 1.05.

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

Command-line parameters[edit]

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	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.
/pilotview	Enable pilot view. Focus on single ship and press `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. 256 MB should suffice: `/heap 268435456` but if you have more, try raising it to 1 GB: `/heap 1073741824`

Game data[edit]

In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location[edit]

System	Location
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux (Proton)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/244160/pfx/^{[Note 1]}

Save game data location[edit]

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\SavedGames\^{[Note 2]}
macOS (OS X)
Linux (Proton)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/244160/pfx/^{[Note 1]}

Save game cloud syncing[edit]

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video settings[edit]

In-game general graphics settings.

In-game advanced graphics settings.

Graphics feature	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)	Determined by the aspect ratio (see Widescreen resolution).
Windowed	See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed	See Windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)	Force from the graphics card control panel (use the OpenGL renderer).
Vertical sync (Vsync)	Use the command line parameter `/triple`
60 FPS and 120+ FPS	No frame rate cap.

Widescreen resolution[edit]

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

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]}

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sierra On-Line\Homeworld
Edit the ScreenHeight and ScreenWidth values to match your chosen resolution.
If the resolution doesn't take effect after doing the above, try running the game in Administrator mode.

Windowed[edit]

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[edit]

In-game key map settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Audio settings[edit]

In-game audio settings.

In-game speech settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		An in-game equalizer is also available.
Surround sound
Subtitles		On by default
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French

Network[edit]

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
LAN play		8	Versus Not available in the Homeworld Remastered Collection/Steam version.^[1]
Online play		8	Versus

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Ports

Protocol	Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP	15000-15300, 21000-21999, 30000-30999
UDP	15400-15401

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

Issues fixed[edit]

"Invalid or missing Homeworld CD - Please insert CD"[edit]

Install the 1.05 Patch and download a no cd crack before playing without cd.

Hardware Acceleration[edit]

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. For Windows 8 and 8.1 only use the Homeworld hardware acceleration fix to apply this compatibility mode on Windows 10 the compatibility mode was added on the latest update.

Windows 8 hardware acceleration[edit]

On Windows 8 the "Windows NT 4.0" compatibility mode is no longer listed, and no other modes manage to get OpenGL working; D3D mode works, but bugs out at non-default resolutions.

Apply the fix

Download the Homeworld hardware acceleration fix.
Extract it anywhere and run install.bat.
The game now runs in Windows NT 4.0 compatibility mode so hardware acceleration works correctly.

Other information[edit]

API[edit]

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	6.1
OpenGL	1
Software renderer
64-bit executable

Middleware[edit]

	Middleware	Notes
Multiplayer	WON

System requirements[edit]

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95, NT 4.0	98
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II 233 MHz	Intel Pentium II 350 MHz
System memory (RAM)	32 MB	64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	80 MB	600 MB
Video card (GPU)	4 MB of VRAM DirectX 6.1 compatible	12 MB of VRAM

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.9.5
Processor (CPU)	Intel 2.2 GHz
System memory (RAM)	4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	20 GB
Video card (GPU)	ATI Radeon HD 3870 Nvidia GeForce 640M Intel HD 4000 512 MB of VRAM

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 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>/244160/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (244160) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
↑ When running this game without Administrator elevation, activity in %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%, and %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\ (more details).

References

↑ Gearbox Software Forums - Where is lan in the classic homeworld?

[Proton_path_note-1] 1.0 ^1.1 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>/244160/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (244160) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[gamedir-2] When running this game without Administrator elevation, activity in %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%, and %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\ (more details).

[3] Gearbox Software Forums - Where is lan in the classic homeworld?

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[1]

Developers

	Relic Entertainment
macOS (OS X)	Aspyr Media
Publishers
Original	Sierra Entertainment
Current	Gearbox Software
OS X	Aspyr Media
Release dates
Windows	September 28, 1999
macOS (OS X)	August 6, 2015