SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle

SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle

Developers
	Sierra Northwest
Publishers
Retail	Sierra Entertainment
Digital	Activision
Re-release	Sold Out Software
Release dates
Windows	November 23, 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control, Menu-based
Genres	Action, FPS, Tactical shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Contemporary, North America
Series	Police Quest

Police Quest
Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel	1987
Police Quest II: The Vengeance	1988
Police Quest III: The Kindred	1991
Police Quest: Open Season	1993
Police Quest: SWAT	1995
Police Quest: SWAT 2	1998
SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle	1999
SWAT 4	2005

SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person action, FPS and tactical shooter game in the Police Quest series.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc DRM.
GOG.com		Tactical Game of the Year Edition
Steam		Tactical Game of the Year Edition

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

A demo is available from SierraHelp and GameWatcher. The Japanese version is available from 4gamer.

Version differences

The Elite Edition (v1.6) introduced new missions, multiplayer capabilities and a mission editor.

The Tactical Game of the Year Edition (v2.0 and v2.1) introduced additional missions. The retail version also included an additional disc with training footage of real-life SWAT officers.

Retail releases of any version can be upgraded for free up to TGOTY v2.1.

Monetization

Type	Notes
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

Essential improvements

Patches

Official patches are available from SierraHelp.

Skip intro videos

SWAT 3 may crash immediately after launching on Windows 7 and newer because the codecs for the FMV videos are not supported on modern versions of Windows. Skipping the intro video is a good way of testing whether this issue is the cause of a crash on launch issue.

Run the game with the -nointro command line argument

Performance improvement

Method 1: Use dgVoodoo2
Download dgVoodoo 2. Extract dgVoodooCpl.exe and the contents of the MS\x86 subfolder into <path-to-game>.

Method 2: Use WineD3D
Recommended for AMD graphics cards. Download WineD3D Extract all files into <path-to-game>.

Method 3: Use DXWind

May help if WineD3D doesn't work and DGvoodoo has texture errors with AMD, while the game mostly works fine, for the current version of DxWind as of writing, the game may have heavy visual errors effecting the entire screen in the following events: Player Death, pressing space to bring up the HUD that tallies all the player's equipment (That part works fine but the rest of the screen will have visual errors) and Helmet Cameras, these errors don't always happen but effect the entire screen aside from the added 2D elements for these events, it is advised to avoid this if the player is at risk of seizures. Download DxWnd. Follow the included instructions inside DxWind to set the game up.

Enhance AI

The amount of time the AI has to determine its actions can be safely increased on modern computers beyond the normal 20ms maximum for much-improved AI.

Edit configuration file[citation needed]

Open <path-to-game>\Swat.cfg in a text editor. Find the following lines: aiofficertime aisuspecttime Replace the numbers they contain (i.e. aiofficertime=20) with 200 (i.e. aiofficertime=200). Save Swat.cfg and set it as read only. Notes aiofficertime and aisuspecttime are independent of each other - aiofficertime can be set to 200 and aisuspecttime to 20 to decrease difficulty by way of making suspect AI dumber, or vice versa. Increasing the determination time further may not have noticeable improvement.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Swat.cfg
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/560370/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\game\careers
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/560370/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

General settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen			Hor+, use dgVoodoo 2.
4K Ultra HD			Hor+, use dgVoodoo 2.
Field of view (FOV)		80° at 4:3 aspect ratio
Windowed		See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See Windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Force through graphics driver.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Use dgVoodoo 2.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		On by default. Can be forced off through graphics driver.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		No FPS cap.

Widescreen resolution

Edit config file

Start a game and go to options screen. Set the resolution to 1024x768. It is recommended to set the other graphical options before editing config file as well. Save the settings and quit the game. Go to <path-to-game>. Open Swat.cfg with a text editor. Find a line: res=1024 768 and replace the values with your own resolution. After that find a line: display_mode=1024 768 2 1 and change the resolution values as well leaving 2 1 at the end (e.g. for 1920x1080, display_mode=1920 1080 2 1. Save the changes and run the game. Notes Menu is always rendered at 800x600 since the bitmap graphics are at that resolution. Resolutions higher than 1920 x 1080 may fail to load when using this solution. For higher resolutions, DgVoodoo2 may have to be used.

Windowed

Windowed mode requires 16-bit color mode.

Available only in 800x600.

DxWnd and Windowed Borderless Gaming can be used together to force borderless window mode.

Run the game with the -window command line argument[citation needed]

Use DxWnd and Windowed Borderless Gaming for borderless window mode[citation needed]

Point DxWnd to the SWAT 3 executable. Make sure to set the "DirectX Version to Hook" to "automatic". Run WBG. Right-click its system tray icon and select "Settings", "Global Settings". Under "Add Window", choose a keybind to use to "add" SWAT 3 to WBG. Then, enter the desired resolution. Finally, under "Force Key", pick another keybind to actually set the game to run in a borderless window. Go ahead and close the settings window. Execute swat.exe through DxWnd. The game should start up in a tiny window in the top-left corner of the screen. In the main menu, press the "Add Window" keybind. Alt+Tab ↹ out of the game, and right-click on the WBG tray icon. Select "Settings", "Game Settings". Select SWAT from the drop-down menu. Enter the resolution one more time and make sure that "Manage Mouse" and "Lock to game window" are selected. Apply, and close the window. Close SWAT as well, just to make sure the WBG settings are applied. Notes When running through DxWnd, the WBG borderless window keybind can be used to force SWAT 3 into a borderless window.

(Optional) Use Dxwnd for 16-bit color mode[citation needed]

DxWnd can be used to simplify the transition between 16-bit and 32-bit color mode. Launch DxWnd. Click on "Edit" and "Add". In a name field type in: SWAT 3. In a path field click on a button ... and navigate to <path-to-game>. Choose Swat.exe and press "Open". Go to the "Color" tab and check the "Force 16BPP desktop" option. Click OK and minimize the DxWnd window. Launch the game with the -window command line argument. After exiting the game, DxWnd. Upon closing, DxWnd is going to ask whatever to restore previous Desktop settings - answer yes, to switch back to 32-bit color mode.

Input

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

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French				Retail only.
German				Retail only; download for digital versions.
Japanese				Retail only.
Polish				Retail only.
Russian				Retail only.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
LAN play		Versus, Co-op
Online play		Versus, Co-op The official WON service has been shut down.

Issues fixed

Game crashes immediately after launching

On Windows 7 and newer, the game will crash if display scaling on high DPI settings is enabled.

On Windows 7 and newer, the FMV movies will cause the game to crash due to the codec no longer being supported. This usually gives a "DDERR_Generic" error message but sometimes the game just shuts down without warning.

Disable display scaling on high DPI settings

Manually download and install the FMV codecs]

Low performance on Windows 8 and newer

Low performance on Windows 8 and newer is commonly reported.

See Performance improvement

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	6

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Multiplayer	WON (World Opponent Network)	Shut down in 2008.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95, 98, 2000, ME
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II 233 MHz (original, Elite Editions) Intel Pentium II 266 MHz (Tactical GOTY Edition)	Intel Pentium II 300 MHz
System memory (RAM)	32 MB (original, Elite Editions) 64 MB (Tactical GOTY Edition)	64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	600 MB
Video card (GPU)	800x600 SVGA high color (16 bit) 8 MB of VRAM DirectX 6.1 compatible	DirectX 8.0a compatible