# Warcraft 3 In Window?



## OrbitzXT (Dec 27, 2007)

I was wondering if it was possible to play WC3 in a Window, right now I'm forced to play at 1680x1050 because of crappy ATI drivers that centered timings in Image Scaling don't work. I really hate playing it all stretched out and distorted.


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 27, 2007)

OrbitzXT said:


> I was wondering if it was possible to play WC3 in a Window, right now I'm forced to play at 1680x1050 because of crappy ATI drivers that centered timings in Image Scaling don't work. I really hate playing it all stretched out and distorted.



Nope, I used to use VMware to run Starcraft in a Window. Nowadays basic D3D is supported by VMware, it might run Warcraft 3. You could try.


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## Ehstii (Dec 27, 2007)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> Nope, I used to use VMware to run Starcraft in a Window. Nowadays basic D3D is supported by VMware, it might run Warcraft 3. You could try.



+1


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## Duxx (Dec 27, 2007)

IF you do find out, please post or send me a pm, i love to multitask


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

I've always played Warcraft III in Windows mode. It's quite simple.

1. Just create a shortcut to Warcraft III if you don't already have one
2. Open the Properties of that Shortcut (Right-click -> Properties)
3. Go to the "Shortcut" tab
4. Add -window to the Target.
Eg.
Change
"F:\Program Files\Installed Warcraft III\war3.exe"
to
"F:\Program Files\Installed Warcraft III\war3.exe" -window


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

Using VMware to run Starcraft would have taken a long time just to get started and also since VMware uses a set amount of resources when you launch it, you will either have a very difficult time when playing maps, which require more resources than VMware sets or if you set VMware to use a lot of resources then everything outside of that Virtual System will be extremely slow.


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## OrbitzXT (Dec 27, 2007)

Hm, I just tried -window and it doesn't work for me. It just goes into full screen mode. I'll try a fresh install and see if that works.


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 27, 2007)

Hitsugaya_Toushirou said:


> Using VMware to run Starcraft would have taken a long time just to get started and also since VMware uses a set amount of resources when you launch it, you will either have a very difficult time when playing maps, which require more resources than VMware sets or if you set VMware to use a lot of resources then everything outside of that Virtual System will be extremely slow.



You obviously haven't used VMware in years. You don't even notice you're in a VM when set to full screen. Besides the whole resources thing is a bit irrelevant when everyone has dual or quad cores and 2+GB of RAM.


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

If it went Full Screen then you probably had:
"F:\Program Files\Warcraft III\war3.exe"-window or "F:\Program Files\Warcraft III\war3.exe" -windows
instead of:
"F:\Program Files\Warcraft III\war3.exe" -window
which is the correct one.
Also make sure your changing the "Target:" section not the "Start in:"
Also if you have eurobattle.net server installed then your Target should be:
"F:\Program Files\Warcraft III\w3l.exe" -window
not
"F:\Program Files\Warcraft III\war3.exe" -window


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> You obviously haven't used VMware in years. You don't even notice you're in a VM when set to full screen. Besides the whole resources thing is a bit irrelevant when everyone has dual or quad cores and 2+GB of RAM.



Well, either way its much more efficient to just launch Warcraft III in Windows mode rather than going to the trouble of launching VMware then launching the game and also it'll be more resource efficient. Even if you have Dual/Quad core with 2+GiB RAM, what if you wanted to listen to music, encode a video, transferring data from HHD to another HHD while playing a game, i'm quite sure just using VMware will slow the others down... and by the way when you have VMware open the burning speed of any disc is reduced dramatically to like 0.1x speed since VMware will try to read and open the disc while your actual system is burning the disc so you'll have a conflict between them.

Edit: I've used VMware not too long ago so i know what i'm talking about. I use it to run my other operating system.


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

If you are having trouble with creating the Shortcut there is a program called UMSWE, which is actually a World editor Mod but it also came with a War3 Configuration Editor, which generates the shortcut, to run war3 in windows mode but all it does is add the "-window" to the end of Target so it shouldn't be needed but thats just an offer.


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 27, 2007)

Hitsugaya_Toushirou said:


> Well, either way its much more efficient to just launch Warcraft III in Windows mode rather than going to the trouble of launching VMware then launching the game and also it'll be more resource efficient. Even if you have Dual/Quad core with 2+GiB RAM, what if you wanted to listen to music, encode a video, transferring data from HHD to another HHD while playing a game, i'm quite sure just using VMware will slow the others down... and by the way when you have VMware open the burning speed of any disc is reduced dramatically to like 0.1x speed since VMware will try to read and open the disc while your actual system is burning the disc so you'll have a conflict between them.
> 
> Edit: I've used VMware not too long ago so i know what i'm talking about. I use it to run my other operating system.



VMware won't slow anything down noticeably. Unless you're running some really heavy tasks. Music, DVD burning or transferring data. VMware doesn't continually access your disk. Besides, you cannot access a DVD burner while it's writing, the burning program will lock it. Encoding video might lose some performance, hardly noticeable though. Most encoders don't utilize multiple cores efficiently, plenty of CPU is left. 
When I have my mobo back I'll make you a video of some multitasking, run several VM's while playing some game and burn a DVD. It runs fine. In fact I did such things several years ago on Prestonias, systems nowadays are a lot faster.

And resource efficiency is a nice point, but my answer assumed it wasn't possible to do natively. On the other hand, like I said, why would you want to be efficient with resources when you have plenty? Sure it uses more RAM, that's why you have plenty of RAM nowadays, so you have the freedom to do whatever you want.

Besides, your solution hasn't worked so far. A quick Google suggest you require the latest version of Warcraft 3.


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

You don't need the latest version of Warcraft III to run in Windows mode... Um, I'm still very new here and i haven't read the rules yet but i'll risk it.
http://au.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/...how_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-20894793&pid=589475
Read point 2 in that section on how to run war3 in windows mode.
Also,
http://blueserver.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=475789
if you want to see some screenshots of someone running war3 in windows mode like i do


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## Yin (Dec 27, 2007)

works for me


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

Also VMware does slow down burning speed... I remember even reading it in one of their troubleshooting pages... To fix the problem you need to end one of the vm processes from task manager then burn your disk but if you end the process then vmware won't be able to read or write from the dvd drive


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

Yay, i finally have it working for someone. Thanks Yin. Now i have my first thanks just after one hour of creating my account here.

I would have preferred a more friendly welcome rather than being argued against by a Senior Moderator but i guess these things happen.


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## Disparia (Dec 27, 2007)

Glad you got it working.

I was going to ask if you had actually set it to 1680x1050 (registry change) or if you were playing at like 1280x1024 with it stretched to 1680x1050.

Recently I finished War3 + TFT and didn't mind the stretch after setting the resolution manually. The 1280x1024 to 1680x1050 stretch, I agree doesn't look too good.


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

Well, OrbitzXT hasn't given a response yet so were not sure if his got it working yet but I've been certain from the start that this method works since I just played Warcraft III in windowed mode just a couple of minutes before coming onto this forum.


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 27, 2007)

Hitsugaya_Toushirou said:


> Yay, i finally have it working for someone. Thanks Yin. Now i have my first thanks just after one hour of creating my account here.
> 
> I would have preferred a more friendly welcome rather than being argued against by a Senior Moderator but i guess these things happen.



Discussion is healthy. Never knew Warcraft 3 could run Windowed, seeing those links it did get added in a later version. No clue which. Silly that it wasn't available initially since D2 did have it. Forget about the VMware workaround then, use it for other games 

When I have my board back I'll make a crappy demo of some multitasking with VMware.

As for the DVD thing, besides it being locked, even without VMware you can't read multiple files at once from a DVD, seek times are far too high. So that argument isn't valid.

Just remind me of this in 2-3 weeks.


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 27, 2007)

I'm quite sure windows mode in war3 had been available from near the start if not initially since i remember that i had been using windows mode since the early releases of Warcraft III RoC (RoC was the original and TFT is the expansion)


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## OrbitzXT (Dec 28, 2007)

I think the reason it doesn't work for me is because I crack the game so I don't have to use the CD to run it. I have two sets of CD-Keys that are mine, I originally lost my discs so I bought it again, so my friend has it installed and using one set of keys and I cracked it on my end with the other set so we could play together. The crack's file name I use is "Warcraft3ReignOfChaosv1.21ANDWarcraft3TheFrozenThrone1.21BNetLoaderNoCDLoaderAll", its the only one I could find that allows you to connect to Bnet without the disc. Anywho, my shortcut says ""C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\FrozenThrone.exe" -window"


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 28, 2007)

First of all. Rather than using a crack, download eurobattle.net server installer at
http://www.eurobattle.net/showthread.php?t=59058
This allows you to play Warcraft III without battle.net limitations with no cd (and adds an extra server to your list of servers to join)
I've been using this for the past couple of years and i've got windows mode to work.
Secondly the shortcut should actually be "war3.exe" not "Frozen Throne.exe" since Frozen Throne.exe just runs war3.exe in fullscreen mode. (If you install eurobattle then you will need to run w3l.exe in windows mode not war3.exe)


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## Hitsugaya_Toushirou (Dec 28, 2007)

Also, another work around for no cd launching is to get daemon tools or any other CD/DVD virtual drive emulator and mount an mdf/mds image of war3 and it'll give the impression that you have the disk in your drive. If you want this image file, i could send it to you since its very small (<100KiB)


This method is probably the easiest since the cracking method requires you to get a new crack for every update while this method is not reliant on the version of war3 you are using but i use the eurobattle server method since i go onto that private server. (I actually use a legal version though so i could go on either private or public)


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