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Black & White 2

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Black & White 2
Black & White 2 cover
Developers
Lionhead Studios
macOS (OS X) Robosoft Technologies[1]
Publishers
Electronic Arts
OS X Feral Interactive
Release dates
Windows October 7, 2005
macOS (OS X) January 6, 2009[2]
Reception
Metacritic 75
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Point and select
Genres Building, Strategy, RPG
Art styles Cartoon
Themes Fantasy
Series Black & White
Black & White 2 on HowLongToBeat
Black & White 2 on IGDB
Black & White 2 on MobyGames
Black & White 2 on Wikipedia
Black & White
Black & White 2001
Black & White 2 2005

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

Black & White 2 is a singleplayer bird's-eye view building, strategy and RPG game in the Black & White series.

General information

Black & White Community - A forum and downloads site for the series

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SafeDisc DRM[Note 1] and CD key for installation.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Mac App Store (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
macOS (OS X)
Origin (unavailable)
Origin
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
A demo for Windows is available here.
The Windows version of this game is not available digitally.

Version differences

The Collector's Edition includes the exclusive tiger creature, later included in the expansion pack, as well as a making-of DVD.

Monetization

Type Notes
Expansion pack The expansion pack includes the turtle creature, new units, islands and spells.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Battle of the Gods
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Essential improvements

Patches

v1.1 Patch

Fixes some serious bugs and crashes.

v1.2 Patch

Patch v1.1 needs to be installed first.
The most notable change is the ability of skipping the tutorial lands, along with more bug and crash fixes.

Unofficial patches

v1.42 Unofficial Fan Patch

Patch 1.2 is required.
Removes SafeDisc DRM, enabling the game to run on Windows Vista and later.
General fixes on modern systems to do with hardware detection limiting graphical options.

Battle of the Gods Fan Patch 1.1 - only for the expansion

Removes SafeDisc DRM, enabling the game to run on Windows Vista and later.
General fixes on modern systems to do with hardware detection limiting graphical options.

Utilities

Tiger Unlocker

Unlocks the creature exclusive to the Collector's Edition to be available after creating a new game.
For the base game only - the Battle of the Gods expansion already does this.

Wolf Model Fix

Fixes an issue with the Wolf's mesh.

Skip intro videos

Move, delete or rename files[citation needed]
  • Move, delete or rename the following files from <path-to-game>\Data\Splash:
Splash.tga
splash_intel.tga

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Black & White 2\Settings.ini
macOS (OS X)

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Black & White 2\Profiles\
macOS (OS X)

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Origin
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.

Video

In-game general video settings.
In-game general video settings.
In-game advanced video settings.
In-game advanced video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
HUD is stretched
Multi-monitor
HUD is stretched
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
UI elements does not scale with resolution and are ultra small in 4K. Also possible side effects are the HUD getting even more stretched.
Field of view (FOV)
Editor FOV only.
Windowed
See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Checkbox only.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Use the Graphics Card Control Panel to Turn On V-Sync on the Program, This will be normal FPS Speed for B&W 2 including BOTG
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Main menu capped 33fps
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Windowed

After doing this use any borderless applications to play with no borders on fullscreen from here.
D3DWindower[citation needed]
  1. See D3DWindower for further instructions.
  2. Find <path-to-game>\white.exe.
  3. Go to Options, Common and check Use Background Resize.
  4. Run it with D3DWindower by pushing the fifth button.

Notes

Bloom has to be disabled in order for this to properly work.
Activating the emulation is not needed. Running the game directly through the launcher will work.
Run any borderless applications before running D3Dwindower or else the game will crash.

Input

In-game input settings.
In-game input settings.

Audio

In-game audio settings.
In-game audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
[5]
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Polish
Local retail version only.
Spanish

VR support

3D modes State Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision
See Helix Mod: Black & White 2.
vorpX
G3D, Z3D
User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Issues fixed

Mouse lag

The mouse doesn't respond to slower movements and some tasks, such as building roads, become overly difficult.
Logitech fix[citation needed]
This will only work on newer Logitech mice and requires Logitech Gaming Software.
  1. Open Logitech Gaming Software.
  2. Click on the mouse at the bottom.
  3. Click on Customize pointer settings.
  4. Set the Report Rate to 125
Razer fix[citation needed]
This will only work on newer Razer mice and requires Razer Synapse Software.
  1. Open Razer Synapse Software.
  2. Click on the mouse at the bottom.
  3. Click on Performance settings.
  4. Set the Polling Rate to 125
SteelSeries Fix[citation needed]
This fix requires Steel Series Engine 3 Software.
  1. Open the Steel Series Engine 3 Software.
  2. Click on your mouse in the list.
  3. Find the Polling Rate section in the lower right of the window.
  4. Use the slider to set the Polling Rate to 125
Redragon Mouse Fix[citation needed]
This fix requires Redragon Gaming Mouse Software.
  1. Open the Redragon Gaming Mouse Software.
  2. Select the "Main" Category on the left side.
  3. Find the USB Polling Rate slider in the middle of the screen.
  4. Use the slider to set the Polling Rate to 125

Graphical glitches

On modern hardware parts of the terrain may disappear.
Might cause in-game audio to lag or stutter briefly when keys are pressed on the keyboard.
Game data location may change to: %PUBLIC%\Documents\Black & White 2.
Run white.exe in compatibility mode for Windows 98/Me.[citation needed]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Shader Model support 1.1
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
This 32-bit-only macOS game does not work on macOS Catalina (10.15) or later.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 4 1.6 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 3.5 GB
Video card (GPU) 64 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Shader model 1.1 support
Supported chipsets: ATI Radeon 8500/9100/9200/9250/9500/9550/9600/9700/9800/X300/X600/X700/X800/X850, nVidia GeForce 6200/6600/6800/FX5200/FX5500/FX5600/FX5700/FX5800/FX5900/FX5950/PCX5300/PCX5900/Ti4200/Ti4600/Ti4800
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.4.8
Processor (CPU) 1.8 GHz Intel
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 5.1 GB
Video card (GPU) 3D accelerator
128 MB of VRAM
Intel GMA graphics cards are unsupported.


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[3] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[4]

References