Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

Developers
	GRIN
Publishers
	Ubisoft
Engines
	Diesel
Release dates
Windows	May 3, 2006
Reception
Metacritic	80
IGDB	93
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, FPS, Shooter, Tactical shooter
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Contemporary, North America, Sci-fi
Series	Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon
Subseries of Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon	2001
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter	2006
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2	2007
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier	2012
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Phantoms	2014
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands	2017
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint	2019
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Frontline	Cancelled

Warnings

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

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person action, FPS, shooter and tactical shooter game in the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series.

Key points

May require the Nvidia PhysX Legacy System Software to prevent a crash at launch.

Requires the Ageia Physx PPU1 or PPU2 with Ageia driver 7.11.13 to correctly operate the game. It is not intended to be played with NVidia Physx.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM v7 DRM.
Steam (unavailable)

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.35 updates the game to the latest version. Mirror.

Skip intro videos

Use intro skip
Download Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter intro skip. Go to the <path-to-game>\Data\movies. Replace GRAW_HDEU.bik, grin_logo.bik and SIGNATURE.BIK with it's counterparts from archive.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\data\settings\renderer_settings.xml <path-to-game>\data\sound\settings.xml <path-to-game>\Settings\ctrl_set_def.xml
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/13640/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Settings\profiles
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/13640/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

Video settings.

Nvidia Inspector antialising compatibility setting for GRAW.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen			Hor+ gameplay and cut-scenes, spanned but stretched UI.
4K Ultra HD			Text scales very poorly at higher resolutions. Other HUD elements scale properly.
Field of view (FOV)		See Field of View.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		2x, 4x, 8x, 16x.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Ingame with "edge smoothing". Also see Anti-aliasing (AA).
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Confirmed 144 Hz

Field of View

Instructions[citation needed]
Can be modified by editing renderer_settings.xml (see Configuration file location) and changing the value of "aspect ratio". A value of 2 to 2.5 is recommended for 16:9 displays, with 2.3 being ideal with minimal clipping of weapon models. For example, <variable name="aspect_ratio" value="0"/> becomes <variable name="aspect_ratio" value="2.3"/>.

Anti-aliasing (AA)

With Nvidia graphics cards, true Antialiasing can be forcibly enabled via Nvidia Profile Inspector with the Antialiasing compatibility bit 0x00001241.

Input

Input menu.

Game settings with mouse sensitivity sliders.

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

Audio

Audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound		Up to 7.0 output through OpenAL.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support		EAX 4.0.
Royalty free audio

OpenAL Soft 1.19.0 and 1.19.1 cause distorted audio in Diesel engine games. OpenAL Soft 1.20.1 fixes the audio.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Hungarian				Fan translation, download.
Italian
Polish				Local retail only.
Brazilian Portuguese				Fan translation by GameVicio, download.
Russian				Local retail only.
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

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

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting		Patch 1.30 adds dedicated server software in the installation folder.
Direct IP

VR support

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

Issues fixed

Visual glitches when looking through scopes

When looking through scopes with patch 1.35 installed, many objects may appear black.

Use a custom version of dxwrapper
Download custom version of dxwrapper. Unzip it into the installation folder.

Falling through terrain

In the Steam version you will start falling through the terrain; this becomes an issue in mission 5 "Mayday! Mayday!" if you go too far north, and in Mission 6, "Ready for bear", which happens before you exit the APC.

Rename patch.bundle[citation needed]
Go to <path-to-game>\bundles\ Rename patch.bundle to Xpatch.bundle. This change may break multiplayer but can be reverted if necessary.

Crash at launch

Install Nvidia PhysX Legacy System Software[citation needed]
Install the Nvidia PhysX Legacy System Software.

Cross-com doesn't work (middle mouse button)

In the Steam version, the middle mouse button does not seem to function as it should, i.e. make your soldiers execute a command. To fix the problem, you need to edit a file called ctrl_set_def.xml. However, while this fix will allow you to open the menu, you will only be able to issue move commands. You cannot order your squad to attack, follow or stop. There is no known fix at this time.

Editing ctrl_set_def.xml[citation needed]
Go to <path-to-game>\Settings. Open ctrl_set_def.xml with Notepad or Notepad++. Change the line <button id="hud_select" binding="2" device="mouse" group="misc"/> to <button id="hud_select" binding="2" device="mouse" group="tactics"/>.

Temporary freeze at startup

The retail version of GRAW is still looking for the GameSpy servers on startup but naturally won't get any response. This lookup causes a temporary freeze, about 20 seconds long. You can prevent this by editing the Windows hosts file.

Editing Windows Hosts File[citation needed]

Go to the %SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\etc\. Open hosts with Notepad. (You may need to run Notepad as an administrator) Add the following lines at the bottom: 127.0.0.1 greconawf.available.gamespy.com 127.0.0.1 key.gamespy.com 127.0.0.1 greconawf.ms0.gamespy.com This change breaks (the not functioning) multiplayer but can be reverted if necessary. It may also interfere with any software wanting to connect to those GameSpy servers.

Other information

API

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	PhysX	May require the Nvidia PhysX Legacy System Software.
Audio	OpenAL
Cutscenes	Bink Video
Multiplayer	GameSpy

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	2000, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent	Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz or equivalent
System memory (RAM)	1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	5 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 6/7 series ATI Radeon 9600-9800/X series 128 MB of VRAM DirectX 9 compatible Shader model 2.0 support	256 MB of VRAM
Sound (audio device)	DirectX 9 compatible (PC audio solution containing Dolby Digital Live required for Dolby Digital audio)
Other	64 Kbps upstream or faster broadband connection