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Emperor: Battle for Dune

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Emperor: Battle for Dune
Emperor: Battle for Dune cover
Developers
Westwood Studios
Intelligent Games
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Release dates
Windows June 12, 2001
Taxonomy
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres RTS
Themes Sci-fi
Series Dune
Emperor: Battle for Dune on MobyGames
Emperor: Battle for Dune on Wikipedia
Dune
Dune 1992
Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty 1992
Dune 2000 1998
Emperor: Battle for Dune 2001
Frank Herbert's Dune 2001
OpenRA (unofficial) 2010
Dune: Spice Wars 2023
Dune: Imperium 2024
Dune: Awakening TBA

General information

Dune2K.com - A major Dune fansite with an active community

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
CD key
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SafeDisc v2 DRM[Note 1] (removed with the official Install Fix)
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.09 updates the game to the latest version.

Skip intro videos

Delete/rename video files[citation needed]

Delete or rename the file <path-to-game>\DATA\MOVIES\LEGALS.BIK

Lag fix in Windows 8/10

Follow the procedure[citation needed]

The game lags terribly in modern operating systems, such as Windows 8 and 10. In order to fix this, you have to use "dgVoodoo 2" by Dege. Follow the instructions in this video (Dark Ruler fix). The game will now run at 60 FPS in Windows 8 and 10. (Note: the program may be detected as malware; the developer of the program (Dege) asserts that it's merely a false positive).

  1. Download dgVoodoo2 and unpack it.
  2. Locate the file "dgVoodooSetup.exe" inside the MS folder.
  3. Copy and paste the files in the base game directory. By default it's "C:/Westwood/Emperor".
  4. Run "dgVoodooSetup.exe" in the game base folder.
  5. An application will open: select your appropriate graphics card from the drop down menu in "Adapters to use/enable"; in "Apperance," choose "Centered". Now click on the "DirectX" tab above. New options will appear: input "512 MB" in the "VRAM" menu. Deselect "dgVoodoo watermark". Click on the "apply" button, then press "OK."
  6. Run the game. Notice the main menu will still lag, but the game itself will run fine.

Playing without the CD

Follow the procedure[citation needed]
  1. Install the game.
  2. Install Patch 1.09.
  3. Download the official Install Fix.
  4. Extract the file EMPEROR.EXE from the Install Fix archive and copy it to <path-to-game>, overwriting the old file.
  5. Copy the contents of the game disks 2, 3, and 4 into separate folders in the games directory, e.g. CD2, CD3, and CD4.
  6. Edit the file <path-to-game>\resource.cfg. Look for the following section, where the letter X:\ represents the drive you installed the game from:
CD1
.\data\

CD2
X:\

CD3
X:\

CD4
X:\

8. Replace the letter X:\ with the respective folders for each disk, e.g. Make sue you do the same for the Movies files as well.

CD1
.\data\

CD2
.\CD2\

CD3
.\CD3\

CD4
.\CD4\

9. Save the file and run the game.

Game data

Game options
Game options

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Westwood\Emperor\Options\[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\DATA\saves\[Note 3]

Video settings

Advanced video settings
Advanced video settings

Template:Video settings

Input settings

Input settings
Input settings

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

Audio settings
Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Korean
Traditional Chinese

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
8 Versus
Online play
4 Versus

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 7
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink Video
Multiplayer Westwood Online

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium II 400 MHz
System memory (RAM) 64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 600 MB
Video card (GPU) 16 MB of VRAM
DirectX 7 compatible

Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]
  2. Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for more details.
  3. 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).

References