Matrix Games Forums

At the risk of putting mud in the water....

I suggest Team Viewer software and a computer savvy buddy to look into your situation.

It's just a game, and should be a no brainer for any cliche computer nerd.

I recently watched a friend of mine casually make the game V4Victory work on my laptop (runs fully updated Windows 8.1). I'd have sworn that game product had no intention of ever running again for me. I had thought the same of Steel Panthers 3 Brigade Combat, but he fixed that as well.

If your problem is fixable, and just an OS not wanting to cooperate, a properly clever person could be fixing it all while you just sat there watching them do it remotely.

In my case, I have simply stopped thinking games can't be made to cooperate on modern machines. I just need the person with the right skills doing the work

Hello,
I have a little problem with Steel Panther World at War.
I have a computer running with windows vista with latest version on the game installed.
At every moment of the gam most of my units can't move forward just bacward. The message is "unable to command unit , u need 2 orders".

Is this normal or what can i do to avoid this kind of message.

Thank you for you cooperation

Alf, go to preferences and turn 'Command and Control' off. Or, go the SPWaW Depot, http://spwaw.com/phpBB2/index.php, and learn how to play with C/C.

The NCrawler fix works by shutting down explorer.exe before starting the game. This fix may not work for some users. Also the fix is far from ideal since it is basicaly shutting down an integral part of the Windows OS and may thus adversely affect background processes and functionality.

A less drastic fix is to enable the Windows build in ddraw compatibility for mech.exe. Unfortunately Microsoft has not provided a simple option in the compatibility tab to just enable this fix. Instead it is hidden in the windows registry.

Assuming your SPWAW game is updated to the latest version 8.403 you can create the registry fix as follows:

The manual method:
To enable the DirectDraw compatibility mode for SPWaW manualy you need to copy paste the folowing text string to notepad and save it to a file with the extension (.REG). So you should then have a file called SPWAW_colorfix.reg for example. Then just run it and if all goes well you should get a promt asking if you want to add the information to your registry. Click Yes.

Copy paste the text below to your notepad:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\SPWaW-v8.403]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="mech.exe"
"ID"=hex:45,1a,94,43
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\SPWaW-v8.403]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="mech.exe"
"ID"=hex:45,1a,94,43

Now when you launch the game the colors may still appear distorted but once you click on the EDITOR or go into the battlescape the colors should be normal.


If you do not want to use the registry fix you can also google "Aqrit ddraw" to find a site that has a ddwrapper program that does the same thing without modifying the registry. You do need to edit the option "ColorFix = 1" in aqrit.cfg to enable it. And make sure the files aqrit.cfg and ddraw.dll are in your /Steel Panthers World At War/ folder.

Yet another method to run SPWAW is through the DxWnd program. Google "dxwnd" and you should find a sourceforge -site that you can download it from.
If you use the DxWnd program just select the "Edit" tab and choose "Add". Now from the Path field click the "..." and browse to your mech.exe. Also deselect the "Run in Windows" option and select the "Fullscreen only" option. Then click OK and start the game from the mech.exe that now appears in the DxWnd main screen.

Edit
You can read more about the fixes for SPWAW on modern systems in this forum Topic:
fb.asp?m=3800956
Read through the posts with patience and you should find several methods of fixing SPWAW.