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The Wheel of Time

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
The Wheel of Time
The Wheel of Time cover
Developers
Legend Entertainment
Publishers
Retail GT Interactive
Digital Nightdive Studios
Engines
Unreal Engine 1
Release dates
Windows November 9, 1999[1]
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives First-person
Controls Direct control
Genres Action, FPS
Themes Fantasy
The Wheel of Time on HowLongToBeat
The Wheel of Time on IGDB
The Wheel of Time on MobyGames
The Wheel of Time on Wikipedia

Warnings

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

The Wheel of Time is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person action and FPS game.

General information

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)
SafeDisc DRM[Note 1].[4]
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
A demo is available.

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest version is v333b. The GOG.com distribution is up-to-date.

Peixoto's patch

Fixes FMV playback
Gets Direct3D mode working correctly
Forced resolution allows high resolution without shrinking the menus and HUD
Fixes the non-working brightness control
Windows display scaling must be set to 100% (right-click on desktop → display settings), any higher value will break the game when using Peixoto's patch.

Use nGlide

Resolution settings are more restricted with this tool.
Use nGlide[citation needed]
  1. Install nGlide.
  2. Run the game with the -changevideo command line argument.
  3. In the configuration window that pops up, select 3dfx Glide for Windows.
  4. Press 'Next' a couple of times, then click 'Run'.

Missing media files in the game's directory (retail version)

Not all the files get moved from the disc, even after a full installation.
This does not bypass DRM, disc will still be needed for the check.
Move media files from disc 2 to the hard drive[citation needed]
  1. Insert disc 2.
  2. Copy the Music and Movies folders from the disc into <path-to-game>.
  3. Navigate to <path-to-game>\System and open WoT.ini with a text editor.
  4. Search for MoviePath and replace the drive letter with .. (two dots) (i.e. instead of G:\Movies, it should be ..\Movies
  5. Search for \Music and do the same as step 5 except keep *.mp3 at the end.

Skip intro movies

Move, rename or delete files
  1. Follow these instuctions to move files off the disc.
  2. Go to <path-to-game>\Movies.
  3. Move, delete or rename gtlogo.mov and logo.mov.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\System\WoT.ini[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Save[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy

Video

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Change the system\wot.ini file's FullscreenViewportX and FullscreenViewportY lines as necessary. Use dgVoodoo 2 if problems arise. The game can run at 2560x1440[5] with this method and it could go higher. GOG version supports modern resolutions with Direct3D, though image is Vert- and FOV will need to be increased to compensate.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
Change the system\wot.ini file's FullscreenViewportX and FullscreenViewportY lines as necessary. Use dgVoodoo 2 if problems arise. GOG.com version supports modern resolutions with Direct3D, though the display is Vert- and FOV will need to be increased to compensate.
4K Ultra HD
The resolution width can only go up to 1920; anything higher will force the game to windowed mode or fall back to 1920. Windowed mode's width can only go up to 2048 before the game starts crashing.
GOG.com version supports modern resolutions with Direct3D, though image is Vert- and FOV will need to be increased to compensate.
Field of view (FOV)
See the WSGF entry.
Windowed
Can be toggled from in-game settings or Alt+ Enter
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.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Apply similar hack as for Deus Ex (change 0AD7A33B to 00000000 in Engine.dll). See Frame rate (FPS)
Change video renderer

To change the video renderer settings, execute the <path-to-game>\System\WoT.exe with the parameter -changevideo.

Frame rate (FPS)

Running the game at 120+ FPS can cause certain animated textures and sprites, such as water or weapon effects, to flicker because the animation is playing too fast. Additionally, it also causes certain sounds in the game, such as the looping sound which plays when using the Balefire, to not play.

Cap frame rate[6]

Use a frame rate limiter to cap the FPS to 60 or 80 to resolve the issue.

Notes:

NVIDIA Control Panel's FPS limiter does not work with the game.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Function keys (F1 to F12) which are used for game menus, quicksave etc. cannot be remapped.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types
Press F2 to switch spells while pausing the game.

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Located under advanced options → audio. Change UseSurround from false to true.
Subtitles
Open <path-to-game>\system\User.ini with a text editor and change bSubtitles from False to True.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
Go to Advanced options → Audio and set Use3dHardware and UseDirectSound to true. It may be glitchy.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
German
Retail only; download for GOG.com release.
Spanish
Retail only.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Notes
LAN play
Versus
Online play
Versus
GameSpy services have been shut down;[7] see GameSpy for workarounds.

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
G3D, Z3D
User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Issues unresolved

Level editor fails to start

This does not interfere with the main game at all.

The ability to make custom maps is currently not possible on modern systems due to the editor being unable to start.

A partially working fix can be found here (WoTedFix3.zip package at the bottom), but the editor still starts and immediately crashes.[8]

Issues fixed

General technical issues

Run the game in 3DFX mode after installing nGlide if D3D mode is giving error messages.

Cutscene fix

Without this fix, cutscenes either do not play or play with significant stuttering.
Use modified DDraw wrapper[9]
  1. Patch the game to the latest version.
  2. Download this DDraw wrapper and extract it to <path-to-game>\System

Crash after changing advanced settings

All those settings can also be accessed by opening <path-to-game>\system\WoT.ini with a text editor.

Unable to move after starting the game

Applies if the user chose Direct3D Support.
Run the game in Windows 7 compatibility mode[citation needed]

Brightness can not be adjusted / game is too dark

This occurs only if the game is running under Direct3D.
Turn off multitexture[citation needed]
  1. Open settings and go to Advanced options → Rendering → Direct3D Support.
  2. Change UseMultitexture to false.

Notes:

This does not make the brightness slider useable, but makes the game brighter.
Use DDrawCompat[10]
  1. Download DDrawCompat.
  2. Extract the contents from the .zip file into <path-to-game>\System

Notes:

Interferes with the DDraw wrapper to fix cutscenes, even in other video render modes.

Laggy/jittery mouse input

Use MarkC's Mouse Acceleration Fix
  1. Go to this website and download the latest version of the fix.
  2. Open the .zip file and within it, open the subfolder for the applicable Windows version.
  3. Double-click the .reg file applicable for the used monitor DPI setting.
  4. Reboot the computer or log out from the Windows user session and log back in..

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 7
Software renderer
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes QuickTime
Multiplayer GameSpy

Utilities

Official utilities

  • T.H.U.M.B provides an easy way to reorganize/modify the slots of Ter'angreal and bind commands to the keyboard and mouse.
  • ServCon allows server creation without needing disc 2 inserted.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 200 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 500 MB
Video card (GPU) Standard PCi Video Card


Notes

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

  1. Development Update (retrieved) - last accessed on 2023-10-29
  2. Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of - Microsoft Community - last accessed on 2017-01-16
  3. Microsoft - MS15-097: Description of the security update for the graphics component in Windows: September 8, 2015 - last accessed on 2018-02-16
  4. redump.org • The Wheel of Time • Disc 1 - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  5. Verified by User:scottvordem on 2021-12-01
    Verified using a 1440p monitor, unable to test higher than 2560x1440
  6. Verified by User:Scottvordem on 2023-10-18
    Tested at multiple framerates
  7. Pricing | GameSpy Technology
  8. Verified by User:scottvordem on 2021-02-16
    Tried different compatibility settings and none of them worked.
  9. Wheel of Time - Choppy QuickTime Video Problem Fix • VOGONS - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  10. GitHub - last accessed on May 2023