Heroes Of Might And Magic 3 Windowed Mode

This page is for the original version. For the remake, see Heroes of Might and Magic III HD.

  1. Heroes Of Might And Magic 3 Gog Windowed Mode
  2. Heroes Of Might And Magic 3 Windowed Mode Download
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Developers
Linux
Publishers
Linux
Release dates
WindowsMarch 3, 1999
Mac OS (Classic)December 21, 1999
LinuxDecember 20, 1999

Heroes Of Might And Magic 3 Gog Windowed Mode

Can I play heroes of might and magic 3 in windowed mode? Iv been told it works if I change my desktop colour to 16 bit, but iv got windows 8 and there doesn't seem to be an option to change it. Thanks for any help. Add this to the comand line: /nwcgrail. Make sure to put space between the exe and the /. It would look like this: C:3DOHeroes3HEROES3.EXE /nwcgrail also make sure the Start in: do not have any. Alt+F4 when ingame (dosen't work unless you put it to 16bit which I can't) Put the heroes 3 launcher into steam and then put launch option '-windowed' and '-w' dosen't work. Ive tried to download some patches from the old forum posts and the computer removes them because of malware. Fanstratics – Heroes 3 “spiritual successor” in dev by Gregory Fulton (1545)x ERA Gaming build v1.31 update with HD mod BattleQueue (1297)x Courtyard Town v1.0 – new spells, units, potion using and many more.

  • 1Availability
  • 2Essential improvements
    • 2.2Mods
  • 3Game data
  • 6Audio settings
  • 7Network
  • 8Issues fixed
  • 9Other information
⤏ Go to series page
Subseries of Might and Magic
Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest1995
Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars1996
Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia1999
Heroes Chronicles2001
Heroes of Might and Magic IV2002
Heroes of Might and Magic V2006
Heroes of Might and Magic V: Tribes of the East2007
Might & Magic Heroes VI2011
Might & Magic Heroes VI: Shades of Darkness2013
Heroes of Might and Magic III - HD Edition2015
Might & Magic Heroes VII2015
Might & Magic Heroes VII: Trial by Fire2016

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Celestial Heavens forums for game series

Availability[edit]

SourceDRMNotesKeysOS
Retail DRM depending on release location, usually SafeDisc v1.50.020 DRM[Note 1]
GOG.com Includes multiple bonuses
SafeDisc retail DRM no longer functions properly on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Mac OS and Linux[edit]

The Mac OS and Linux versions of the game are no longer sold, and existing copies of those are hard to run on modern systems. The easiest solution for running the game on Linux or OS X is buying the Windows version and running it under Wine. Further information on how to do that can be found on AppDB. Alternatively, VCMI can be used to run the game.

DLC and expansion packs

NameNotes
Armageddon's Blade On Mac OS only available in Complete Edition.
The Shadow of Death On Mac OS only available in Complete Edition.

Essential improvements[edit]

Skip intro videos[edit]

Modify registry settings[3]
  1. Go to the configuration file location.
  2. Change the value of Show Intro from 0 to 1.

Mods[edit]

HoMM3 High Resolution Project[edit]

Higher resolutions along with 32-bit color support and more fixes.

In the Wake of Gods[edit]

An unofficial expansion pack adding further units, resources and easier modding possibilities. The official English website is located under Celestial Heavens. Currently isn't in development any more.

Horn of the Abyss[edit]

Another unofficial expansion pack adding more features, units, resources and another town. The official thread on Heroes Community.

VCMI[edit]

Not actually a mod, but an attempt at rewriting the whole engine to make it customizable, portable and fully cross-platform. The official website of the project is here.

Game data[edit]

Configuration file(s) location[edit]

SystemLocation
Windows HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEWow6432NodeNew World ComputingHeroes of Might and Magic® III1.0[Note 2]
Mac OS (Classic)
Linux
It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.

Save game data location[edit]

SystemLocation
Windows <path-to-game>Games[Note 3]
Mac OS (Classic)
Linux

Save game cloud syncing[edit]

SystemNativeNotes
GOG GalaxyAs of GOG Galaxy version 1.2, and special HoMM III Complete patch 4.0 (CS)

Video settings[edit]

In-game settings.
Graphics featureStateNotes
Widescreen resolution 800x600 only; use Heroes3HD for resolutions up to 4000x4000.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen Use Heroes3HD.
4K Ultra HD Use Heroes3HD.
Field of view (FOV)
WindowedDesktop must be in 16-bit colour mode (press F4) or use the Heroes3HD mod.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS

Input settings[edit]

Keyboard and mouseStateNotes
RemappingSee the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller supportSee the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Audio settings[edit]

Audio featureStateNotes
Separate volume controlsMusic, Effects
Surround sound
SubtitlesCutscenes only.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

LanguageUIAudioSubNotes
English
CzechRetail only.
French
Polish
RussianOfficial localization by «Buka Entertainment». Retail and GOG-version.
SpanishFan translation, download.

Network[edit]

Multiplayer types

TypeNativePlayersNotes
Local play8 Hot seat
LAN play
Online play

Connection types

TypeNativeNotes
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Issues fixed[edit]

Game crashes unexpectedly after some time[edit]

This is caused by a bug in the game, experienced only on multi-core or hyper-threaded processors. Newer GOG.com versions do not have this issue. It can also be resolved by using the HD mod.
Modify exe files[4]
  1. Download ImageCFG.
  2. Go into the installation folder and execute:
imagecfg -u Heroes3.exe
imagecfg -u Heroes3.icd
imagecfg -a 0x1 Heroes3.exe
imagecfg -a 0x1 Heroes3.icd

Notes

Another means of fixing sound can be found here.
Turn off in-game music[citation needed]
Set CPU affinity[4]
  1. Open the task manager.
  2. Set the CPU affinity for the game process to one processor.

Notes

This needs to be repeated every time when running the game.

Other information[edit]

API[edit]

Middleware[edit]

MiddlewareNotes
InterfaceSDLLinux only

System requirements[edit]

Heroes of might and magic 3 windowed mode mod
Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS)95
Processor (CPU)Intel Pentium 133 MHz
System memory (RAM)32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)425 MB
Video card (GPU) DirectX 7.0a compatible
Mac OS
Minimum
Operating system (OS)8.1
Processor (CPU)PowerPC 603e 180 MHz
System memory (RAM)64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)425 MB
Magic
Linux
Minimum
Operating system (OS)Kernel 2.2.x
Processor (CPU)Intel Pentium
System memory (RAM)32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)425 MB
Sound (audio device)OSS Compatible

Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRMdoes not work on Windows 10[1] and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]
  2. When running this game without Administrator elevation, 32-bit programs writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE will be redirected to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareClassesVirtualStoreMACHINESOFTWAREWow6432Node (more details).
  3. 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. Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of - Microsoft Community - last accessed on 2017-01-16
  2. Microsoft - MS15-097: Description of the security update for the graphics component in Windows: September 8, 2015 - last accessed on 2018-02-16
  3. Verified by User:Expack3 on 2019-05-28
  4. 4.04.1HoMM 3 crashing quite a lot; Windows Vista - GOG.com

Contents

  • MMArchive v1.3.1
  • Def Tool v3.4.2

Map Editor Patch v3.3

Map Editor Patch makes new features (new monsters, artifacts etc.) fully-functional in Map Editor and adds new functionality like editing objects' appearance, copying a part of map from one place to another, events binding etc.
English version
Russian version

Map Editor Help v1.2

Updated Map Editor help containing information about things added in WoG.
English version
Russian version

32BitPatch

Lets you run Heroes 3 in windowed mode under any color depth set in screen properties. It can be installed on any Heroes 3 version, including Heroes Chronicles.
(c) Bourn and me

Darker Interface Colors

I never liked the way Heroes 3 interface looks due to player colors not fitting in the interface. Extract this little archive into your Data directory and the interface will look much better.

New Battle Grids

Choose the one you like and put it into the Data directory. I recommend the third one.

Synchronized Creatures Sounds

Some creatures produce sound in the wrong moment. Like, when Air Elementals are hit, first comes animation and then they produce the sound. This fixes them. Extract into the game folder.
Fully-featured M&M and Heroes 3 archives editor. Supports all archive types except '.hwl'.

Heroes Of Might And Magic 3 Windowed Mode Download

Lod Favorites

Favorites for h3sprites.lod and h3bitmaps.lod with categorized list of files, currently only available in Russian. Made by Black Phantom, with my edits.

LodCompare v1.3.1

Obsolete, fully incorporated into MMArchive. Lets you compare two lod/vid/snd archives and see which files have changed. Lets you create a new archive containing only those files. Thus you can minimize size of a mod by distributing only this archive as a custom LOD to be loaded by my patch or by merging it with user's archive using LodMerge.Source code (Delphi 2006)

LodMerge v1.1.1

Lets you merge two lod/vid/snd archives together. Source code (Delphi 2006)

SimpleLod v1.3

A simple way to add files into .lod archives of Heroes 3. Source code (Delphi 2006)
Shows .def files, lets you extract frames and make a def-list for Def Tool.
Lets you create .def files. It can also help with editing interface pictures.

Def Tool v2.1.1

Old version of Def Tool. Combine and Uncombine buttons can be useful. It can help you prepare palette for def frames with better quality.
Txt tables editor for Heroes 3 and M&M.

RSBinkPlayer v1.2.5

Convenient .bik and .smk player. Can show Heroes 3 videos.

Fnt Editor

An old program for editing Heroes 3 and M&M fonts.

Dialogs Editor for !!DL reciever

!!DL reciever lets you create custom dialogs for WoG TE / Era / 3.59. No help, sorry. The development has been discontinued. New version may eventually come out, but only for new dialogs system of WoG 3.59.

Portraits Manager

Lets you change heroes portraits easily.

Mon Power

Calculates strength of monsters. The output values somewhat resemble AI Value and Fight Value. Only accounts for basic parameters (ignores Speed, shooting etc.)