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Star Wars: Battlefront

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

For the 2015 game, see Star Wars Battlefront (2015).

Star Wars: Battlefront
Star Wars: Battlefront cover
Developers
Pandemic Studios
macOS (OS X) Beenox Shift
Publishers
LucasArts
Engines
Zero
Release dates
Windows September 21, 2004
macOS (OS X) July 25, 2005
Reception
Metacritic 76
IGDB 73
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives First-person, Third-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, FPS, Shooter
Vehicles Hovercraft, Robot, Space flight, Tank
Themes Sci-fi
Series Star Wars: Battlefront
Star Wars: Battlefront on HowLongToBeat
Star Wars: Battlefront on IGDB
Star Wars: Battlefront guide on StrategyWiki
Star Wars: Battlefront on MobyGames
Star Wars: Battlefront on Wikipedia
Star Wars: Battlefront
Subseries of Star Wars
Star Wars: Battlefront 2004
Star Wars: Battlefront II 2005
Star Wars Battlefront (2015) 2015
Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) 2017
Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection 2024

Warnings

The Mac OS X version of this game does not work on Mac OS X Lion (version 10.7) or later due to the removal of support for PowerPC apps.
GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Star Wars: Battlefront is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person and third-person action, FPS and shooter game in the Star Wars: Battlefront series.

General information

Titled Star Wars: Battlefront (Classic, 2004) on digital stores to avoid confusion with the 2015 game with the same name.
SWBFGamers - Active multiplayer community.
GOG.com Community Discussions
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
CD-ROM edition with 3 discs and a rare DVD-ROM version.
SecuROM 5 DRM until Patch 1.11.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Origin
Origin
Does not support multiplayer. Included with EA Play Pro. Currently only visible in the EA App's Browse menu.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows

Version differences

The GOG.com and Steam versions were updated with multiplayer support in May 2020.[1] Crossplay between these versions is available.[2]

Essential improvements

Patches

Latest version available for retail releases is Patch 1.2. This patch adds the Tatooine: Jabba's Palace map.
  • Digital releases were updated further (as version 1.3.7), replacing GameSpy for online play with GOG Galaxy middleware (regardless of platform), adding Xinput controller support and more.

Unofficial Update 1.4

Fixes various bugs, update and tweak aspects of the gameplay as well as make visual and audio adjustments.
Compatible with both retail and latest digital releases (version 1.3.7).
Incompatible with other mods.
Breaks some texts in the digital releases.

Skip intro videos

Use the /nointro command line argument[3]

Game data

General settings.
General settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\GameData\SaveGames\*.profile[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1058020/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\GameData\SaveGames[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1058020/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
Steam Cloud

Video

Video settings.
Video settings.
In-game map, demonstrating reduced accessibility to users with deuteranopia.
In-game map, demonstrating reduced accessibility to users with deuteranopia.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
1.3.5 (only digital versions) released on May 1, 2020 adds a native support for widescreen solutions without stretching.
For 1.2, use Sui's Widescreen Fix.
Multi-monitor
Use the Field of View Enhancer.
Ultra-widescreen
Use the Field of View Enhancer.[4]
4K Ultra HD
Resolutions higher than 1920x1080 can cause some graphical effects to be rendered incorrectly.[5]
Field of view (FOV)
Modifiable using the Star Wars Battlefront 1 Field of View Enhancer Mod, capable of 90°, 100°, 110° and 120° FOV presets, based on horizontal FOV in 4:3 mode.
Windowed
Use the /win command line argument.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Uses a different set amount based on the texture and surface; force in the GPU control panel instead.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Up to 8x MSAA. Nvidia users can force SGSSAA in Nvidia Profile Inspector without any compatibility bits.[Note 3]
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Available in main menu in digital versions, for retail versions use the /noframelock command line argument to disable it.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Vehicle physics glitches when using over 60fps seem to be fixed in 1.3.5 (only digital versions), but more testing needs to be done.
For 1.3 and earlier, use cap the frame rate to 60 FPS or lower or set refresh rate monitor on 60hz.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Color blind mode
Friendly info is indicated with green, and enemy info is indicated with red (ex: command posts, point bar).

Field of view (FOV)

Star Wars Battlefront 1 Field of View Enhancer (Mod DB, Nexus Mods) provides several preset files/folders that can be used to set the field of view to 90°, 100°, 110° and 120°, based on horizontal FOV in 4:3 mode. These FOV presets can be easily dragged and dropped into the root directory of the game for quick installation.
The default 4:3 first person value of 70° corresponds to 86° at 16:9, 102° at 21:9 and 124° at 32:9. 48:9 requires at least 141°, unsupported by the mod.
Cuts off the player viewmodel in 1.3 and earlier unless Widescreen aspect ratio fix is used.

Input

Audio

Audio settings, with hardware acceleration and EAX support.
Audio settings, with hardware acceleration and EAX support.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Master, music, SFX and speech.
Surround sound
Mono, Stereo, Headphone, Dolby Pro Logic II, Quadrophonic, 5.1, 7.1
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
EAX 4.[8]
1.3.5 released on May 1, 2020 adds native support for OpenAL Soft HRTF (set Mixer Config to OpenAL and Output Mode to Stereo or Headphones).
To use HRTF on older versions, use DSOAL, set Mixer Config to Hardware, set Output Mode to 7.1, and disable Bass Management.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Japan retail release only.
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
64
Online play
64 The official GameSpy service has been shut down; GOG.com and Steam versions have been updated with Galaxy support. After this update, the player limit is reduced to 32.

Connection types

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
G3D
User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Issues unresolved

"Steam must be running to play OR you does not own this game!"[sic] (Error message)

  • After update to version 1.3.5 some users receive error message mentioned above.[citation needed]

Issues fixed

An Official FAQ is available for the Windows version.
TweakGuides has created a comprehensive guide for fixing issues in this game.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
ExecutablePPC 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio OpenAL Soft Since version 1.3.5.
Cutscenes Bink Video
Multiplayer GameSpy, GOG Galaxy Version 1.3.5 introduced Galaxy as replacement for defunct GameSpy.

SWB Modding tool

Gamefront provide an unofficial mod tool can be used to create levels for Star Wars Battlefront.

  • Alternatively it can be found at ModDB.

Mods

Back up <path-to-game>\GameData folder (or any subfolder) as some mods may need to overwrite it.

SWBF1 and 2 Mixed

Adds all of the original ground SWBF2 maps to the game and overhauls some gameplay elements.

Star Wars: Battlefront Legacy

A gameplay overhaul mod which drastically alters the game.

Visually-Improved Sides Mod

Changes only the unit appearances and sounds of Star Wars: Battlefront with no alterations to gameplay.
Incompatible with Field of View Enhancer.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz
Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 3 GB
Video card (GPU) Hardware Transform & Lighting (T&L) capable
64 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.3.6
Processor (CPU) G4 1 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2.8 GB
Video card (GPU) GeForce2 MX
Radeon 8500
64 MB of VRAM


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 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).
  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>/1058020/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (1058020) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
  3. LOD adjustment and the "AA Fix" are not necessary

References

  1. thenextweb.com - last accessed on 28 May 2023
  2. twitter.com - last accessed on 28 May 2023
  3. Star Wars Battlefront Tweak Guide - Advanced Tweaks
  4. Verified by User:Rose on 2019-06-22
    Tested at the native resolution of 2560x1080, multiple screenshots taken and compared.
  5. Now that we are all here, has someone found a fix for these graphical issues? :: STAR WARS™ Battlefront (Classic, 2004) General Discussions
  6. Verified by User:Suicide machine on 2020-05-04
    Tested QWERTY and AZERTY - if no config exists, everything gets automatically set up correctly and options work correctly.)
  7. Does the GoG version have gamepad support? :: STAR WARS™ Battlefront (Classic, 2004) General Discussions - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  8. Wikipedia:List of games with EAX support