Battlezone Command-Line Options

These are known-working command line options. The command line handler recognizes a bunch of network-related options but none of them seem to work so they are not included here.

/gdi

Render to a window instead of full-screen.

/win

Render to a window instead of full-screen.

/rawinput

Enable raw mouse input. This removes mouse acceleration and DPI scaling so it may be too sensitive with high-DPI mice.

/norawinput

Disable raw mouse input. This enables mouse acceleration and DPI scaling.

/demo

Put the game in demo mode. This shows a splash screen after launch (bzonead1.bmp) and before exit (bzonead2.bmp), disables multiplayer, disables credits, disables the Soviet campaign, and limits the American campaign to the first two missions.

/d3d

Use hardware rendering regardless of "3D Card" graphics option.

/sw

Use software rendering regardless of "3D Card" graphics option.

/resave

On loading an outdated mission file, automatically re-save the mission as the latest format.

/asciisave

Save BZN and SAV files in text format. This is the default setting for debug builds.

/binarysave

Save BZN and SAV files in binary format. This is the default setting for non-debug builds.

/shellmap

On loading a mission, write out a shell map BMP from the terrain.

The resulting image will be 108 pixels wide and 89 pixels tall as required by the multiplayer shell.

/shellmap:<size>

On loading a mission, write out a shell map BMP from the terrain.

The resulting image will be <size> pixels wide and <size> pixels tall.

/shellmap:<width>,<height>

On loading a mission, write out a shell map BMP from the terrain.

The resulting image will be <width> pixels wide and <height> pixels tall.

NOTE: due to an unexpected interaction with the game's command-line parser, the height parameter after the comma does not get parsed as part of the shellmap command so the map will always be square. :(

/largemap

On loading a mission, write out a large map BMP from the terrain.

The resulting image will be 8 pixels per terrain grid in the playable area.

/largemap:<resolution>

On loading a mission, write out a large map BMP from the terrain.

The resulting image will be <resolution> pixels per terrain grid in the playable area.

The highest useful resolution value is 128 as terrain uses 256x256 pixel textures that cover 2x2 grid squares. The resulting image file will be extremely large, though.

WARNING: on larger maps, high resolution values can fail memory allocation and crash.

/nobodyhome

Skip mission load. This yields the same result as loading a TRN file from the command line.

/nointro

Skip the intro movie.

/forcefeed

Enable force feedback if supported by compatible hardware.

/nods

Disable sound.

/nods3d

Disable 3D sound.

/edit

Enable terrain editing (Ctrl-E) and object placement (Ctrl-A).

/startedit

Start in object placement mode, deferring mission start. Use this when editing a mission to prevent the mission from running.

/console

Enable the debug output console. This opens a text window that prints various messages that may be of modder interest.

<mission>

Bypass the shell and launch the specified mission file (BZN) or terrain file (TRN).