Homeworld

This page is for the original release. For the remastered version, see Homeworld Remastered Edition.

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

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

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

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
Publisher website		Source port of the original retail version.

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.

Demo

A demo for the original Homeworld 1 can be downloaded on Mod DB.

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patch v1.05 is available here, at www.sierrahelp.com and at soggi.org.

A full list of all available patches can be found at www.sierrahelp.com.

Command-line parameters

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 if 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`

To enter command line parameters in Windows 10, create a shortcut to the application and place the command line parameters outside the quotes for the path name to the right. Use the oldest compatibility that permits the game to launch (test this first) e.g. Windows Vista SP3.

Game data

In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sierra On-Line\Homeworld^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/244160/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\SavedGames\^{[Note 3]}
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/244160/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

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)	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)	Use the command line parameter `/triple`
60 FPS and 120+ FPS	No frame rate cap.
High dynamic range display (HDR)	See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

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.

To get to the registry editor in Windows 10, in the Start Menu select Windows Administration Tools then Registry Editor. The registry entry defaults to hexadecimal so double check the decimal representation of the resolution you select. 3840 by 2160 may be possible, but the menu scale is tiny and mean time to failure shorter than 1920 by 1080.

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

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

Controller types

Audio

In-game audio settings.

In-game speech settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		An in-game equalizer is also available.
Surround sound		Up to 7.0 output with DirectSound3D restoration software.
Subtitles		On by default
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support		DirectSound3D.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French

Network

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

"Invalid or missing Homeworld CD - Please insert CD"

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

Hardware Acceleration

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

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

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	6
OpenGL	1
Software renderer

Executable	PPC	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux				Requires a source port. PowerPC support requires building from source code.

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Multiplayer	World Opponent Network

System requirements

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

↑ Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for 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>/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 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

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

[HKLM-1] Applications writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE will be redirected to other locations based on various criterias, see the glossary page for more details.

[Proton_path_note-2] 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>/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-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).

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

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[Note 3]

[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
Linux	December 21, 2006
macOS (OS X)	August 6, 2015
Reception
Metacritic	93
Taxonomy
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view
Controls	Multiple select, Point and select
Genres	RTS
Themes	Sci-fi, Space
Series	Homeworld