Battlezone works fairly well with the old 1.4 patch, but has to be
tweaked an awful lot, especially if you want it to be full-screen and
play in multiplayer.
1) Install CD
2) Download and install the 1.4 patch - can be located still on activision's servers here:
download.activision.com/activision/battlezone/patch/bzpat14.exe
3) Delete or rename the 'anims' folder in the Battlezone base directory
4) Modify 'render.cfg' (in the battlezone base directory) to allow
higher resolutions, triple buffer and mipmaps..and disable zbuffer
(helps greatly with graphics performance)
5) Download dsound via winetricks (sorts out some background noise problems)
6) In Wine Config, set the main bzone.exe to Windows 98.
7a) If wanting to play in fullscreen - untick 'Emulate a virtual
desktop', 'Allow the window manager to control the windows' and 'allow
the window manager to decorate the windows' in the graphics tab..and
tick 'allow directx apps to stop the mouse leaving their window'
7b)If wanting to play in a window (safer) - *tick* 'Emulate a
virtual desktop', 'Allow the window manager to control the windows' and
'allow the window manager to decorate the windows' in the graphics tab
and set the emulated window to something 1280x1024 or under (the max
resolution for BZ 1.4) depending on your screen resolution. *Untick*
'allow directx apps to stop the mouse leaving their window'
8) You can now run the bzone executable (wine bzone.exe) to avoid
the slow splash screen and run the game in single player. If you want
to play multiplayer (well worth it)..then you will need an up-to-date
servers.dat file in the base battlezone directory..the one that is
generated will not show any servers. One can be found here:
www.battlezone1.net/downloads/
9) In MP, excessive FPS causes problems with other players..so
limiting FPS by enabling 'Sync to Vblank' in Nvidia / ATI control
settings is helpful (it will just cap at your refresh rate).
For some reason, Wine doesn't seem to cope well with mixed-mode CDs so CD audio / music doesn't seem to happen..
Worth noting that Ken Miller, one of the original programmers, is at
work creating a 1.5 patch which addresses many of the current problems
and necessary tweaking.
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. WineHQ is not responsible for what they say.
by Elf Sternberg on Wednesday June 19th 2019, 14:56
I tried the 1.5 patch (see prior comment) and it... kinda sucked, sadly? I'll have to try again; the "ultra HD" screen really seems to confuse it, and while it works fine, it's actually a smoother experience to drop down to 640x480 first via xrandr and then play the game. (It works perfectly; it's just that there's a lot of screen flashing at startup as the game asserts control over the resolution.)
by Elf Sternberg on Friday July 3rd 2015, 15:35
It's still only "silver" quality, though; the mouse feels a bit sluggish, and the movies only play "sometimes", although I can't figure out what causes them to fail. The biggest problem is screen resolution management. It's really distracting. I'm sure there's a fix for it, but I'm not sure what it could be.
by HitchcockGreen on Sunday April 24th 2011, 11:17
www.battlezoneclub.org has both one for BZ 1.4 (which includes many game fixes) as well as Battlezone Enhanced which now stands at version 1.3.
BZ Enhanced contains many fixes as well, support for DX9, extra maps and ships and other refinements.
I will try testing Wine with these but thought I should post here to see if anyone else is interested in testing, as well.
by Matt Bee on Monday April 25th 2011, 7:04
by HitchcockGreen on Monday April 25th 2011, 8:15
There are newer versions of 1.4 as well.
Regardless, I couldn't get 1.4 to work at all, and BZE would freeze.
by Matt Bee on Sunday January 2nd 2011, 17:13
1) Install CD
2) Download and install the 1.4 patch - can be located still on activision's servers here: download.activision.com/activision/battlezone/patch/bzpat14.exe
3) Delete or rename the 'anims' folder in the Battlezone base directory
4) Modify 'render.cfg' (in the battlezone base directory) to allow higher resolutions, triple buffer and mipmaps..and disable zbuffer (helps greatly with graphics performance)
5) Download dsound via winetricks (sorts out some background noise problems)
6) In Wine Config, set the main bzone.exe to Windows 98.
7a) If wanting to play in fullscreen - untick 'Emulate a virtual desktop', 'Allow the window manager to control the windows' and 'allow the window manager to decorate the windows' in the graphics tab..and tick 'allow directx apps to stop the mouse leaving their window'
7b)If wanting to play in a window (safer) - *tick* 'Emulate a virtual desktop', 'Allow the window manager to control the windows' and 'allow the window manager to decorate the windows' in the graphics tab and set the emulated window to something 1280x1024 or under (the max resolution for BZ 1.4) depending on your screen resolution. *Untick* 'allow directx apps to stop the mouse leaving their window'
8) You can now run the bzone executable (wine bzone.exe) to avoid the slow splash screen and run the game in single player. If you want to play multiplayer (well worth it)..then you will need an up-to-date servers.dat file in the base battlezone directory..the one that is generated will not show any servers. One can be found here: www.battlezone1.net/downloads/
9) In MP, excessive FPS causes problems with other players..so limiting FPS by enabling 'Sync to Vblank' in Nvidia / ATI control settings is helpful (it will just cap at your refresh rate).
For some reason, Wine doesn't seem to cope well with mixed-mode CDs so CD audio / music doesn't seem to happen..
Worth noting that Ken Miller, one of the original programmers, is at work creating a 1.5 patch which addresses many of the current problems and necessary tweaking.
by Sgt.Nops on Saturday November 15th 2008, 6:05
This is a common problem with Battlezone, u have to rename the anim folder even if u play on Win2000 or WinXP.
I guess there will be no solution.
>The game screen is in a box in the lower left hand corner.
The solution that worked for me, was to install the BZ 1.4 patch and set the game resolution to my screen resolution.
That way the game menu still appear in a box at the top left but the game is fullscreen.
>There are glitches in the sound.
For me it helped to go into winecfg and change the audio setting for
,i guess its Hardware-Accelleration(Sorry i got the german version.),
from full to emulation.
by Sgt.Nops on Saturday November 15th 2008, 16:58
i set allow windowmanager to decorate/controll windows to Off
by Sgt.Nops on Saturday November 15th 2008, 17:03
For multiplayer i use the Battlezone installation from
bzfederation.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&op=getit&lid=84
1.4N ( newest release )
For Singleplayer i use the original Battlezone CD
by sammy on Sunday December 21st 2008, 15:14
I have a "anims" folder, and when i start BZ I get a black screen with only the cursor and nothing else. If i remove the anims folder, BZ doesn't even start.