Running the original Homeworld on Windows 7 or Windows 8 or Windows 10 widescreen

Today I was feeling nostalgic and decided to replay the classic original Homeworld game, which was released in 1999. I remember the graphics, story and music with such fondness, I thought I would see if it runs on Windows 8.1 x64 with an Intel HD 3000 onboard graphics card. It is still great, this is how I got it running:

• Download Homeworld from http://coreduo.me.uk/homeworld-1999/ (abandonware)
• Extract using 7zip, and then extract the .img file using WinImage (I was unable to mount this directly)
• Install the game, which takes about 30 seconds on an SSD
• Install the patch included in the download
• Find a no-CD for the game, assuming that you do not have the CD 

Now, on running this game, and enabling OpenGL mode, I had several issues:

• There was severe screen flickering when using OpenGL
• Resolution was not widescreen
• Blackscreen on startup 

These issues were resolved as follows:

Screen Flickering

• Add /triple to the shortcut to start the game. If this keeps happening, try removing /triple again.
  

Resolution fix

• Edit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sierra On-Line\Homeworld
• Check screenHeight and screenWidth to match your resolution 

Blackscreen

• Set compatibility mode to Windows 95 or 98 

Note that d3d mode can be used, but I found that this has bad mouse lag in the Build menu. I found some other tweaks online and eventually used the following shortcut:

C:\Sierra\Homeworld\homeworld.exe /triple /heap 1073741824 /enableSSE /disableAVI /pilotView

Note that the pilot view switch gives lets you ride on the back of a ship by pressing q.

I had a lot of issues switching between display modes. The easiest way to do this is via the registry. Just switch these 2 registry keys around, for OpenGL:

For Direct3d:

However, d3d takes some time to show the menu, and then has lag in the build menu which makes it unusable for me. OpenGL has no issues other than some initial flickering when first loading. It is basically a question of messing around with the registry and shortcut until you find the optimal config.  I would also suggest, if you run into issues, delete the entire key at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sierra On-Line\Homeworld and run it again. It will go back to defaults, switch to OpenGL, and then set the resolution again in the recreated key.

Check out this post for more info on the remake and prequel to this classic game:

http://andrewhemphill.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/homeworld-bound/

Here is the widescreen screenshot from my laptop: