Frequently Asked Questions
First, make sure you are running the latest version of Warzone 2100. You can download it from the Download page.
Table of Contents
Installing
How do I install a map?
To install a map, move it into:
| Windows: | My Documents/Warzone 2100 2.2/maps/ |
| Mac OS X: | ~/Library/Application Support/Warzone 2100 2.2/maps/ |
| Linux: | ~/.warzone2100-2.2/maps/ |
Maps can be downloaded from the Showcase forum.
NOTE: Maps must be in .wz files. If they are .wdg files, they are incompatible with this version of Warzone and must be converted manually.
How do I install a mod?
There is no longer an easy way to install a mod. In the future, there will be.
For now, mods have to be installed using a relatively complicated sequence, starting with moving the mod to:
| Windows: | C:/Program Files/Warzone 2100/mods/global/ |
| Mac OS X: | ~/Library/Application Support/Warzone 2100 2.2/mods/global/ |
| Linux: | ~/.warzone2100-2.2/mods/global/ |
(Create the directory if it does not exist.)
Then you must alter your shortcut, or use the command line (terminal):
| Windows: | "C:/Program Files/Warzone 2100/warzone2100.exe" --mod whatevermod.wz | (alter the shortcut) |
| Mac OS X: | /Applications/Warzone.app/Contents/MacOS/Warzone --mod whatevermod.wz | (enter this in Terminal.app) |
| Linux: | ./warzone2100 --mod whatevermod.wz | (enter this in the console) |
(Replace whatevermod.wz with the name of your mod)
For skirmish-only mods, move the mod into "mods/multiplay/" instead of "mods/global/", and use "--mod_mp" in the command line instead of "--mod".
For campaign-only mods, move the mod into "mods/campaign/" instead of "mods/global/", and use "--mod_ca" in the command line instead of "--mod".
For more information, see Command Line Options.
Mods can be downloaded from the Showcase forum.
NOTE: Mods must be in .wz files. If they are .wdg files, they are incompatible with this version of Warzone, and you must find a modder to convert them manually.
Why does my antivirus program say the installer has a virus/worm/...?
Antivirus programs aren't perfect; they can be wrong. When an antivirus program is thinks that a virus-free program has a virus, it's called a false positive. The website AV-Comparatives describes the false positive rates of many antivirus programs.
If you downloaded Warzone from our website, it is impossible for it to have a virus. The installers are created on a Linux-system with a cross-compiler, and hosted on Sourceforge's Linux servers. There is virtually no way they can get infected by anything. Please point your antivirus maker to the file it complains about as a false positive, so they can update their software.
If you didn't download Warzone from our website, well, then, don't do that. ;)
We also recommend a better antivirus program. Microsoft Security Essentials is free, and is as good as or better than all other antivirus programs, including paid ones, according to independent studies by AV-Comparatives.
Can I play the cut-scene videos (FMVs) or music from the CDs?
You cannot play the videos/music from the CDs directly, since we use different (crossplatform) codecs in this version. But we provide both music and videos in a format suitable for the game. The video files can be downloaded by the Windows installer or separately from our download page (see the instructions there where to put the file).
As the licensing regarding translated videos is a bit unclear, we currently only offer the English cutscenes; however, the German ones are available at http://warzone2100.de/.
Since manual conversion is complicated, we recommend using our already converted files. If you really want to do it yourself, you need to compile rpl2avi, convert the original RPL files into the AVI format, then encode those to Ogg/Theora/Vorbis. Music is also in Ogg/Vorbis format.
Setup
How do I change the screen resolution?
The resolution can be changed in game by using the options menu:
- Start Warzone 2100
- Choose the Options menu
- Choose the Video menu
- Change the resolution field by left clicking the field until it reaches your desired resolution
Note: Changing the resolution in game will require you to restart Warzone.
Note: Changing the screen resolution must be done with command-line options in versions of Warzone earlier than 2.1.
Why doesn't the game support my screen resolution?
The game can use any resolution that is at least 640x480. If your screen's resolution doesn't appear in the menu, the problem is your display driver or SDL. As a workaround, you can use the command line options --width and --height, or edit the width/height values in the config file to use the resolution you want.
My Warzone is running very slowly, why? How can I fix it?
First make sure your system is set up correctly for OpenGL games. That means especially to use the most recent drivers for your graphics card (though if you already have those, sometimes those have new bugs, and downgrading to an older version might work), and on Linux perhaps the non-free binary drivers instead of the open-source ones.
There are a few settings you can change to increase the speed:
- Disable shadows (graphics options, or alt-s in game).
- Reduce the texture size (video options). Some (mostly onboard) GPUs claim to support large textures (Warzone uses the largest texture size the driver supports), but fall back to software mode for that. Unfortunately there is no way to autodetect that, so you have to reduce the texture size manually.
- If you have coloured cursors enabled, disable them (mouse options, though on OS X this might not work).
- Reducing the screen resolution (video options; see next question) can also help.
- Turn off Compiz (on Linux)
If even the main menu is running slow, OpenGL is probably running in software mode. That means your driver/hardware doesn't support some needed feature, and if a driver up/downgrade doesn't help, you need a better graphics card.
How do I enable Cheats?
If you are stuck, and need an extra edge in the singleplayer campaign, take a look at Cheats.
Multiplayer
Where do I find people to play multiplayer?
The most popular method is to use the IRC channel #warzone2100-games on irc.freenode.net.
Users without an IRC client may visit:
Which ports does Warzone use for hosting?
2100.
Note that you only need to open ports for hosting games. You can join and play any games you want without configuring port forwarding.
Internet/LAN multiplayer doesn't work!
For version 2.3 and up, Warzone can set up the required ports if your router supports UPnP (maybe you need to enable it first in the router settings). If you want/need to set it up manually, make your router forward TCP port 2100 to the machine that is doing the hosting, and make sure no firewalls block that port. If you have no clue how to do this, refer to a specialized website.
Some useful links:
Also try searching Google for terms like 'port forwarding' or 'open ports firewall'.
Development
I'm a developer/graphics artist. May I contribute to the project?
Yes, we highly appreciate contributions. Before doing duplicate work you should talk with the community and/or the developers. Best ways to do so are the mailing list, the forums and the IRC channel #warzone2100 on Freenode. Check out Development for more information.
Users without an IRC client who wish to join the IRC channel may visit:
I want to work on the source code; how can I submit my changes?
There exists a good article providing information on participating in open source projects in general. It is published in German on Heise under the title Totalitäre Open-Source-Entwicklung.
If you are not a member of the project, you can't commit directly via SVN. You checkout the latest revision from trunk (for larger changes) or branches/2.2 (for smaller fixes). Then do your changes and check if they do what you expected. (And don't crash anything or similar.)
Separate separate changes. Means: Don't create a 2MB patch with all your work in it. Just put those features/changes in one patch which belong to each other or depend on each other, because we will review your patch and that is easier if it is small. And if we reject one part of the patch it wont happen that your whole patch get rejected, because we don't have time to separate the accepted parts from the others.
After you have finished your work, you right click on the directory you checked out. Choose “Subversion” from the menu, then “Create patch”. This will open a dialog where you can check your changes again give the filename of the patch. Then send us the created file.
How to send it? You should create a ticket in Trac and attach your patch.
You can also send it to warzone-dev at gna org. This is a moderated (for non members) mailing list. Your email will be accepted if it can be identified as not being spam.
A patch will only contain the files that are explicitly added to the SVN repository. Means: Only changes to those files will be included, which (the files) are already on the server or you requested SVN explicitly to add them to the repository.
I think you do it wrongly
We don't mind criticism, as long as it is constructive. There are some hot topics which easily lead to flame wars. We appreciate it if you would try to avoid creating flame wars.
Please also keep in mind that we do this all in our spare time and are mostly not professionals or paid for this. You should realize that time is the scarcest of all resources any open source project depends upon. Thus, because we do this both voluntarily and in our preciously scarce spare time, you should not expect us to change our priorities because you tell us to. You will have to convince us to do so. Thus your suggestion's chance of being used is determined by your ability to "wet our appetite".
That said, most suggestions are very welcome. Provided, of course, that you have actually thought it through! It is usually better to ask "Have you thought of doing X this or that way?" than to say "You should do X that way.". See for example the FAQ entry below, which is a very common "suggestion", which is rarely thought through and highly unrealistic. Thus simple suggestions that require relatively small changes to implement have a much higher chance at being taken seriously.
Also keep in mind that a lot of suggestions are given over, and over again. We hope you understand that this can become very annoying, very fast. Thus please try to find out whether a suggestion has been given before.
Additionally, due to the scarcity of our time, please do your homework and work out your suggestion to a reasonable amount of detail. Otherwise your suggestion might be very difficult to discuss due to it being too vague.
You should port Warzone to language XYZ (or 3D engine ABC, or make it into an MMO)!
You should realize that Warzone is a huge codebase, and porting to some other language or engine will be a enormous job (think years, if not more). We wish to improve the existing code and engine piecemeal, since we believe that is the only realistic way of going about it. We hear requests to port the game to some other language or engine very often, and it can quickly get tiring.
Of course, we could be wrong, and things could change. If you do feel that it is possible to port Warzone to a superior engine, feel free to do so yourself, with our blessing. After all, Warzone is an open-source project; you may do with it nearly whatever you wish. Before you begin, remember that Warzone is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and BSD; any engine that doesn't support at least the first three OSes would be a severe regression.
In fact, we simply will not accept any conversion to an engine that does not support Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, because several of our best developers on each OS would no longer be able to continue contributors, and many others would leave the Warzone Project on principle. We also will not accept any engine with a license more restrictive than the GPL, since it would be incompatible with our own license. Since we do not own the source code (Eidos does), we can't do anything about the fact that it would be illegal to port Warzone to a GPL-incompatible engine.
My question is not listed here
Don't fear to ask, after you read how to get answers. (The examples given in that guide are aimed at programmers, but the sense also applies to other questions.) Best places to ask are listed on the contact page.