March! Offworld Recon

March! Offworld Recon

Developers
	HBM Ltd.
Publishers
	Buka Entertainment
	Oxygen Interactive Software
Engines
	LithTech Talon
Release dates
Windows	2002
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person, Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, FPS, Shooter, TPS
Vehicles	Robot
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Sci-fi, Space

March! Offworld Recon is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person and third-person action, FPS, shooter and TPS game.

The game has a few problems, such as freezing for a few moments when music loops, cutscenes playing too fast at frame rates higher than 60 FPS, and mouse movement moving in a wavelike pattern at polling rates above 125 Hz. See Issues fixed to deal with these problems.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail

This game is not available digitally.

Essential Improvements

Skip intro videos

The copyright screen will still be shown.

Hit "Disable Video" from the launcher's "Options" tab

Delete/rename/move bukalogo.wmv and hbmlogo.wmv in <path-to-game>/video/

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\autoexec.cfg

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Save\

Video

External video settings.

In-game video settings.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor		See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen		See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS		Game logic is tied to frame rate. At over 60 FPS, mouse is jerky and cutscenes are too fast, cutting off characters' voice lines. At extremely high frame rates, game runs inhumanly fast. See Cutscenes play too fast.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Widescreen resolution

Edit autoexec.cfg
Open <path-to-game>/autoexec.cfg. Edit the lines "GameScreenHeight", "GameScreenWidth", "SCREENWIDTH" and "SCREENHEIGHT" to the desired values. Save the file. Notes Image is stretched by default. Use the FOV fix for an unstretched Hor+ image. Background videos in menus are still stretched.

Windowed

Edit autoexec.cfg
Open <path-to-game>/autoexec.cfg. Find WINDOWED. Change 0 to 1. Notes After launching it, the game will appear at the lower-center part of the screen, requiring it to be pulled upwards manually.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Sound FX and Music volumes can be changed separately.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Losing focus seems causing a bug during cutscenes. For instance, in the beginning, before the spaceship is seen to be approaching the space station, the captions are gone when returned to the game but the camera isn't moved at all, forcing the player to wait until the appearance of the spaceship.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				The commands given to bots are sounded in English, but they can be heard making strange sounds in the first level while some are talking to each other.

Issues fixed

Crash on Startup (Launcher)

Analyse wait chain[citation needed]

Open Task Manager. Find March.exe on the list and expand it. Right-click on every child object that belongs to the process and click on "Go to details". In the Details tab, right-click on the highlighted element and click on "Analyse Wait Chain". If there are elements on the list, select them and kill the process. Notes: Most common programs causing issues are logitechg_discord.exe (Discord applet for Logitech Gaming Software), Setpoint.exe (program of Logitech) and nvcontainer.exe (part of Nvidia Experience). To prevent having to do this process every time when starting the game, simply deactivate the conflicting process or uninstall the program from the conflicting process.

Game freezes for a moment when music is looped.

Disable music from the launcher's "Options" menu

Use dgVoodoo 2

Cutscenes play too fast

Game logic is tied to frame rate. At over 60 fps, mouse is jerky and cutscenes are too fast cutting off characters' voice lines. At extremely high frame rates, game runs inhumanly fast.

Limit frame rate to 60 FPS
See Frame rate capping.

Set the monitor's refresh rate at 60 Hz

Game has a resolution limit of 2048 pixels

Use dgVoodoo 2

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	7

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Miles Sound System	3.0.0.0
Input	DirectInput

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95	98, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III 450 MHz	Intel Pentium III 750 MHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1 GB
Video card (GPU)	3D Accelerator with 16 MB VRAM	3D Accelerator with 32 MB VRAM