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Nox

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NOX
NOX cover
Developers
Westwood Pacific
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Release dates
Windows February 16, 2000
macOS (OS X) June 18, 2013[1]
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Point and select
Genres ARPG
Themes Fantasy
Nox on HowLongToBeat
Nox on IGDB
Nox guide on StrategyWiki
Nox on MobyGames
Nox on Wikipedia

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

Nox is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view and isometric ARPG game.

The game received two official patches, the second of which had a larger variant that included the free Nox Quest expansion with new multiplayer modes.

The official multiplayer service, Westwood Online, was redirected to the also community-run XWIS server in 2005 in agreement with EA's German community team[2], and using the in-game multiplayer menus lead to it without any additional configuration.

General information

Nox Wiki
XWIS (legacy multiplayer replacement, default server lookup leads to this service)
GOG.com Community Discussions
GOG.com Support Page

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SafeDisc DRM[Note 1].
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Includes manual and reference card; includes the Nox Quest patch (version 1.2).
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Origin
Origin
Includes manual; includes the Nox Quest patch (version 1.2), but does not enable the Quest add-on by default.
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
A free demo version is available from Archive.org.

Essential improvements

OpenNox

An open-source, unofficial extension of the Nox engine for preservation, extending modding capabilities and compatibility purposes.

Skip intro videos

Delete/rename video files[citation needed]
  1. Go to MOVIES in the installation folder.
  2. Delete or rename INTRO.VQA, NOXLOGO.VQA and WWLOGO.VQA.

Notes

The title screen click prompt will still be shown.

Patches

Nox Quest

Nox Quest adds new multiplayer modes and come with larger versions of the 1.2 patch installer. There are also versions of the 1.2 patch that do not include the Quest add-on.
The Origin version includes this patch, but does not enable it by default.[5]
The GOG.com version already includes this patch.

Other

Nox GUI is an unofficial launcher patch which improves compatibility with Windows 7+.[6]
Warrior Ch. 10 Map 2 Fix provides fixes for the Warrior Chapter 10 Map 2 .map file, which prevented two secrets from triggering correctly.[7]

Peixoto's patch

Allows nearest neighbor or xBRz scaling
Supports the original DirectDraw renderer as well as the Direct3D 9 renderer on Nox GUI

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\nox.cfg[Note 2]
macOS (OS X)

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Save[Note 2]
macOS (OS X)

This game has an AUTOSAVE folder and Save Slots 1-13. The Working folder saves the current map discovery progress, as well as other activated triggers in visited maps. Do note that the Autosave folder has its own working folder.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin

Video

General settings.
General settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Resolutions up to 1024x768; see the WSGF entry. See also OpenNox which comes with an OpenNox HD executable supporting widescreen resolutions. Higher resolutions means the camera is zoomed out further and shows less detail (pixel-based scaling).
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
OpenNox comes with an OpenNox HD executable supporting resolutions up to 4K.[8]
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Run the game with the -swindow command line argument. The game has to be launched in 16-bit color mode.
OpenNox supports this natively.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
30 FPS cap
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Possible with the unofficial SDL patch.
Mouse sensitivity
Also possible with the unofficial SDL patch.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Effects, voice and music.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Everything is text-based.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
Retail only. Digital release users can use this download from this forum topic
German
Retail only; download for digital releases.
Italian
Retail only.
Korean
Retail only.
Russian
Unofficial translation by 7th Wolf and Fargus, download and review
Spanish
Fan translation, download direct download.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
32
Online play
32 Lobbies point to XWIS by default since October 20, 2005 as part of an agreement with EA.[2] The GOG.com version needs a manual installation of the Westwood Online Shared Components (otherwise found on the game disc).

Connection types

Type Native Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Run the game with -serveronly parameter
Self-hosting
Direct IP
Possible through Mix's unoffical patch

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
UDP 18590-18599
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

Issues fixed

Flickering title screen or black screen on startup

Run the game in compatibility mode for Windows 98/ME (apply on NOX.exe or Game.exe).
Install dgVoodoo 2.

"Westwood Online is not installed on this computer" error

IInstall Westwood Online Shared Components.

Enable Quest add-on for Origin version

Modify registry settings[5]
  1. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node
  2. If the key Westwood does not exist, right-click the key from above, add a new Key and name it Westwood.
  3. Right-click Westwood and add a new Key and name it Nox.
  4. Right-click Nox and add a new DWORD, name it SKU, and give it a hexadecimal value of 2500.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 7
Software renderer
Requires Nox GUI.
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
This 32-bit-only macOS game does not work on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later.

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes VQA
Multiplayer Westwood Online

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium MMX 200 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 300 MB
Video card (GPU) 2 MB of VRAM
DirectX 7 compatible


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[3] 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.[4]
  2. 2.0 2.1 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