Warzone 2100

Warzone 2100 4.3.5, the last release with a GL 2.1 renderer, is our package, and it runs on the PS3 with the right picture and sound after a set of big-endian, AltiVec and driver fixes. Its played session (2026-10-25, a skirmish) had a 38 fps median and 5.4 s of stutter a minute. As a console game it is a poor fit: mouse and keyboard only, a sparse 1999 interface, small at 1080p (Options > Video > Display Scale helps). Stable warzone2100 4.3.5-1+ps3.644; the user played it next to the PC build on 2026-10-20.

Packages and patches

warzone2100, warzone2100-data, warzone2100-music (packages/warzone2100); in no suite (deployed by name). The recipe’s header has the settings and the PC’s RAM numbers.

How it performs

• Played (2026-10-25): 38 fps median, 1% low 17, 5.4 s of stutter a minute, clean sound (1.8 faults a minute); the picture as the game looks (no PC copy: our 4.3.5 build).
• Smoke runs (2026-10-20): the map load ran from 43 s to 80 s after the start (gameLoad to the replay file in game.log), so screenshots need to be taken after about 90 s; the recipe counts its shot points from Started writing replay file (SHOT_RE).

Known problems

• Mouse and keyboard only; the interface is small at 1080p.
• Textures are limited to 512 pixels (0010).
• The LOD distance option does nothing on GLSL 1.20 (0009 drops the bias whatever the setting).

Traps for the checks

• Mesa’s software S3TC decoding is wrong on big-endian (llvmpipe and softpipe under qemu: green comes back 0, so DXT textures look magenta), although the game’s DXT blocks are byte-identical to the amd64 build’s. Under qemu use texturecompression=0; the RSX decodes DXT in hardware.
• The team colours change from run to run. The skirmish lobby shuffles them with rand() (resetPlayerConfiguration in multiint.cpp, seeded with the time) unless the config has colourMP (default -1, random), and the skirmish json has no colour key. A yellow base next to a pink one on a PS3 | PC sheet is not an endianness bug; the recipe pins player 0 to pink.
• The loading screen is the map preview, a tall column in the middle with the start positions and a row of white “stars” along the bottom: not a broken 3D view.

Investigations

• 2026-10-20 the black 3D view: etcpak and a miscompile (0004, 0007).
• 2026-10-20 the white-noise music (0008).
• 2026-10-20 the dark 3D view: the RSX’s fragment TXB (Mesa 0045, 0009).

Research

What the surveys and plans said about it, newest first; each line names its source, the section and the date.

• 2026-10-15, the user’s first wish list (backlog.txt, commit 7d58e3d), “2. GPU driver and game support”: listed as probably out of reach: GL 3.x+ only (with GZDoom and 0 A.D.). Release 4.3.5, the last with a GL 2.1 renderer, was ported since.