Liquid War (v5.6.2) - Command line parameters




Introduction
============


  When you launch Liquid War 5, you can use command line options. If you have
  no problems launching Liquid War, this section should not interest you very
  much.

  You can use several options at the same time. The basic syntax for options
  looks like this:

  lw -option1 -option2 parameter2 -option3 parameter3 -option4 -option5

  Note that most of the options are legacy options which where usefull with the
  initial releases of Liquid War, when you had to run in a Windows DOS box, and
  when there were still plenty of 486 computers with only 8Mb ram...



Version checking
================


  These are basic options which can be usefull to figure out which release of
  Liquid War is installed.

  * "-v" : returns the version number of the program.

  * "-h" : displays a short description and copyright information.



Changing default paths
======================


  Very usefull options, especially if you can not install Liquid War in default
  directories or want to put the game in a special place.

  * "-cfg myconfigfile.cfg" : causes Liquid War to use the specified config
    file.

  * "-dat mydatafilefile.dat" : causes Liquid War to use the specified
    datafile. This might be a very interesting option if you run Liquid War on
    a GNU/Linux box where you do not have root access and therefore can not put
    the datafile in /usr.

  * "-map mycustommapdir" : causes Liquid War to use the specified directory as
    the user map directory. The user map directory is where you can put plain
    bitmaps to be used as maps.

  * "-tex mycustomtexturedir" : causes Liquid War to use the specified
    directory as the user texture directory. The user texture directory is
    where you can put plain bitmaps to be used as textures.

  * "-mid mycustommusicdir" : causes Liquid War to use the specified directory
    as the user music directory. Any midi file placed in this directory will be
    added to the list of available musics.

  * "-server myliquidwarserverfile" : causes Liquid War to use the specified
    file as the server executable. This option has no effect for now since the
    server is not launched by the client.

  * "-mapgen mylwmapgenfile" : causes Liquid War to use the specified file as
    the "lwmapgen" executable. "lwmapgen" is an utility by David Redick which
    generates random maps automatically for Liquid War. You might wish to
    change this option if random map generation does not work for some reason,
    or if you want to use your own map generator.



Troubleshooting switches
========================


  These options give you control on how Liquid War treats initialisation
  errors, how much memory it should reserve, what kind of video mode sit should
  not choose etc...

  * "-vga" : This option forces Liquid War to use your video card as if it was
    only a basic VGA card. This option is required if you play Liquid War from
    Windows NT.

  * "-no400300" : This option disables the VGA 400x300 video mode. I created
    this options for I know that some video cards/monitors don't support the
    400x300 mode.

  * "-silent" : With this option, Liquid War will not play any sound. It will
    not search for any sound card. This can be interesting if you don't have
    any sound card or if Liquid War doesn't handle your card correctly.

  * "-nowater" : Causes Liquid War not to load any water sound. Use this if
    Liquid War runs short of memory, and you should gain about 850kb.

  * "-nosfx" : Causes Liquid War not to load any sound fx. Use this if Liquid
    War runs short of memory, and you should gain about 150kb.

  * "-nomusic" : Causes Liquid War not to load any midi music.

  * "-mem n" : The parameter "n" sets the amount of memory (in Mb) Liquid War
    will allocate to do all its calculus. If this number is too small, you
    won't be able to play on all the levels. If it is too high, Liquid War may
    not start at all or crash while you are playing. The default value is 8. If
    you play Liquid War from Windows and Liquid War refuses to run because this
    parameter is too high, then try and give more dpmi memory to Liquid War.

  * "-nojoy" : This option disables joystick support.

  * "-noback" : Causes Liquid War not to load the background image. Use this if
    Liquid War runs short of memory, and you should gain about 300kb.

  * "-notex" : Causes Liquid War not to load any texture. Use this if Liquid
    War runs short of memory, and you should gain about 750kb.

  * "-auto" : If you set this option, Liquid War won't generate any error while
    allocating memory or loading data.

  * "-safe" : With this option, you will play with a very reduced version of
    Liquid War. It looks rather ugly but should work in a DOS box with only 4Mb
    of DPMI memory. Use this if you experience serious memory or device
    problems. If Liquid War doesn't start with this option turned on, I really
    don't think I can do anything for you...

  * "-nice" : With this option, Liquid War will use a mode which is between the
    default mode and the "safe" mode.

  * "-check" : With this option, Liquid War will stop as soon as it detects
    something strange while initializing.

  * "-stop" : If you set this option, Liquid War will prompt you for a key when
    the init process is completed.

  * "-c" : This is a weird option, if you turn it on, the game will only use
    fonctions which are programmed in C langage. The default behaviour is to
    use some functions I rewrote in assembly langage, so that the game is a
    little faster.



Debug options
=============


  These options are usefull if you want to debug the game and trace what's
  happening.

  * "-netlog" : Dumps all the network traffic on the standard output. This can
    help finding problems when trying to connect to the server in a network
    game.



Server options
==============


  The server command line options are described in the section which deals
  which network games in general. IMHO you need to understand how network works
  in LW before trying to tweak the server 8-)



Other options
=============


  Everything else 8-)

  * "-capture" : Activates the capture mode. In this mode, the game will dump a
    .bmp file on the disk several times per second, which is usefull if you
    want to create an mpeg movie of your game session afterwards. You can also
    activate this mode interactively by pressing F9 within the game.

  * "-metaserver url" : redefines the URL of the meta-server. Usefull if you
    want to use your own meta-server.

  * "-nobeep" : Disables the system beeps that the application might fire.
    These beeps are mostly used on the server to notify clients connections.

  * "-tombola" : Activates a special mode where scores are not displayed
    normally. Instead, the game displays 3 random numbers between 1 - 500.



lwmapgen options
================


  The external lwmapgen program by David Redick accepts a number of command
  line options. You can type:

  liquidwar-mapgen --help

  to get a list of all available options under UNIX. Under Windows the command
  would be:

  lwwinmap --help

  Note that lwmapgen is called automatically by Liquid War when you click on
  the "Random map" button.

  The idea behind lwmapgen is that you choose a function which sets the type of
  map generated, and then pass various arguments to this function. If you do
  not explicitly choose a function, one will be picked up for you randomly, and
  all other parameters will use default values.

  The most usefull and common options are:

  * "--help" : displays help.

  * "--out filename" : save bitmap to filename.

  * "--size n" : bitmap size (an integer between 0 and 5).

  * "--list" : list all available functions.

  * "--function function_name" : which function to use.

  Here's a typical use of lwmapgen:

  liquidwar-mapgen --size 3 --function hole --out test.bmp

