FAQ

Here's a mini FAQ with some info on troubleshooting, and basic questions you might have about the game.

Click on a link below to skip to the question you want to know about:

General questions

How do I use the console?
How do I add colors to my name?
What are the HP bonuses medics give to your team?
I downloaded a demo (.dm_83). How do I watch it?
I've heard of this Heron Spawntimer. Is it cheating?
How do I record a demo?
How can I minimize the game?
How to disable automatic downloads from a server?
How do I start the game running a specific mod?
What are ventrilo and teamspeak?
Are there bots for ET?
How do I make an AVI from a demo?
I keep dying so quickly! Got any good tips for me?

Troubleshooting

Help! ET keeps freezing up and crashing!
When I try to see the list of servers, it crashes or updates slowly.
My resolution keeps resetting to 800x600!
All my menus and chat have French text now!
Every time I play a game it starts recording a demo!
I get some error about com_hunkmegs.
I get this error: "Could not load OpenGL subsystem".
I get this error: "cannot write to hunkusage"
I get this error: "Valid CDKey is not reaching GuidAuth Server"

Q. How do I use the console?
A. You can bring down the console window by hitting the ~ key. (The key to the left of the "1" key on most keyboards). The console can show you a record of all the chatting people have done and all major events that have happened (e.g. "Dynamite planted at fuel dump.") You can scroll up using PGUP to view stuff that was said. Also, after a game is over and you're on the screen that says "Allies won" or "Axis won", you can bring down the console and then scroll up to see a printout of your stats.

The other major function of the console is for entering commands. So for example, "kill" is one command that lets you commit suicide. So in the console, type in "/kill". Notice there is a slash at the beginning: this is required to let the game know that you are typing in a command.

Q. My resolution keeps resetting to 800x600!
A. Yeah this is a bug... To fix this, create a file called "autoexec.cfg" using some text editor like notepad, in your "etmain" folder, for example:

C:\program files\wolfenstein - enemy territory\etmain\

Then, say you want a 1600x1200 resolution, then write in these 3 lines:

set r_mode -1
set r_customwidth  1600
set r_customheight 1200

Q. How do I add colors to my name?
A. Click here.

Q. What are the HP bonuses medics give to my team?
A. Click here, there's a table of HP bonuses in the section about medics.

Q. When I try to see the list of servers, it crashes or updates slowly.
A. The in-game server browser is crap. I suggest you download a program called the "All-Seeing Eye". It is very handy- let's you create a list of favorite servers, you can also see what countries the servers are from, what mod they are running, and what players are on each server.

Q. I've heard of this Heron Spawntimer. Is it cheating?
A. The short answer is no. Heron isn't like a cvar that can easily be detected. It's an external program, so no one knows if you're using it. Is it unfair/lame? Yeah, pretty much. On the other hand, it's a well-known program available to anyone. Anyone who has been playing ET for a decent amount of time probably already knows about Heron. So in that sense, it's not unfair. Anyways it's your decision.

BUT, be careful! Heron may be considered cheating in some leagues. As I said, it's not possible to detect Heron in any easy way. However, if one team seems to be always on time for when the enemy spawns, they might get suspicious. So, they might analyze the demo of the game and try to look for anything that would suggest someone is using Heron. The RtCW ClanBase cup has already recently made Heron illegal. Maybe other leagues/cups will follow their example, maybe not. So make sure to check the league website before you use Heron in any matches.

By the way, you can download Heron here.

Q. Help! ET keeps freezing up and crashing!
A. Well, there are a lot of things that could cause it to crash, but here are some possibilities:

  1) Did you overclock your CPU? Excessive overclocking can cause it to overheat and make your PC unstable.

  2) Do you have the latest drivers for your sound card, video card, and possibly even mouse/keyboard? If not, download them :)

Q. How to disable automatic downloads from a server?
A. You can try skipping this by bringing down the console (press ~) and then type in:

   /cl_allowdownload 0

Q. I get some error about com_hunkmegs.
A. Most likely your com_hunkmegs cvar is too small. Set your com_hunkmegs to 72, or 25% of your RAM whichever is bigger. So, bring down the console (press ~) and type:

  /com_hunkmegs 72

Q. I get this error: "Could not load OpenGL subsystem".
A. Go to your video card vendor's site and try to get the openGL drivers.

Q. How can I minimize the game?
A. You could press ALT+ENTER, but that will force you to have to reconnect to the server. The best option is to download ET Minimizer. Read about it here.

Q. All my menus and chat have French text now!
A. You probably connected to some server or downloaded a mod which came with a french language pack. Search your ET directories and look for some .pk3 file that has "Fr" somewhere in it. For example, one language pack which many people have had trouble with is "WolfET_Fr_Alpha2[RW].pk3"

Q. How do I start the game running a specific mod?
A. So, say you want to host a game running ETPro instead of etmain (which is the default).

First, you should download etpro. Even if you already have it, just download it again from this location, because the version that gets automatically downloaded from servers when you connect to them doesn't always include all the files you need:

http://bani.anime.net/etpro/download.html

Next step, check to see if there is a shortcut to ET on your desktop. If not, create one. Then, right-click on the shortcut and go to properties. In the field called "target" you will probably see something like this:

"C:\Program Files\Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory\ET.exe"

So just, add "+set fs_game etpro" after that, so it looks like this:

"C:\Program Files\Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory\ET.exe" +set fs_game etpro

Starting ET in shrub is pretty much the same procedure, except just modify the shortcut (no need to download anything).

Note, you could also just join a shrub pub, and then disconnect. Now the game will be running in "shrub mode" so if you host a game it will be a shrub server.

Q. How do I record a demo?
A. Go into your Options- Controls menu to set up your demo recording controls. I believe the default is to press F12 during a game to start demo recording. You can also set it up so that demo recording automatically begins at the start of each game. To find more about cg_autoaction, go here.

Each mod has its own folder for saved demos. So for example if you are playing on a shrub server, demos will be saved in one folder. If you are playing on etpro, it will be saved in another.

To play back a demo, you go to "Replays" on the main menu. However, if you just started ET up, then the currently enabled mod is etmain. So, it will display all the demos from your etmain folder when you go to Replays. If you want to watch a demo you recorded on an etpro server, you need to enable the etpro mod. To do this, you can either use the fs_game cvar as explained in the previous question, or you can play on an etpro server, then disconnect and go back to the main menu (now etpro is the enabled mod).

Once your demo is recorded, you can go into "Replays" on the main menu to watch the demo. When you look in your replays folder, you need to be using the same Mod as when the demo was recorded. For example

Q. I downloaded a demo (.dm_83). How do I watch it?
A. The easiest way is probably to just put it in your \etmain\demos folder. Then start up ET and go to "Replays". The demo you downloaded should appear in the list.

Q. What are ventrilo and teamspeak?
A. These are programs that let you chat to other players while playing ET, using a headphone with a microphone attached. If you are in a clan, it's required that you use voice comm because it really helps to talk quickly during a game. On pubs, voice comm is almost never used, although some pubs do have a teamspeak or ventrilo server which is available to the public, so people can hop on if they want.

Q. Are there bots for ET?
A. Yes, there are bots you can play against so you can play ET as a single-player game. They are pretty cool, although the AI is still under development, so don't expect them to act as smart as a real person.

To play with the bots, first of all download the Bobots and install the windows version (or whatever OS). It should create another link on your desktop with a modified icon that says "BB" on it. Use that shortcut to get into the game. Then, Host Game, and set Game Type to "Campaign". Then, in the list there should be something that says "[RW] Bobots Campagne" or something like that. Launch that.

Now once you are in the game, you can start adding bobots. To do that, you should use the "addbot" command. Here's a description of it that I found:

/addbot [team] [class] [name (optional)] [skill 0-5]
e.g.:
  /addbot allies medic 1
  /addbot axis fieldops BOBO 3

The [team] is either "allies" or "axis"... I think you can also make bobots spectator but that seems like kind of a pointless feature...

The [class] can be "medic", "engineer", "fieldops", or "covertops". As far as I know there's no soldier class implemented.

Q. I get this error: "cannot write to hunkusage"
A. Find every hunkusage.dat file in your ET directory (there may be more than one) and delete it. if you can't delete it, reboot your computer in safe mode, delete it and then reboot in normal mode. This should fix the problem.

Q. How do I make an AVI from a demo?
A. There's multiple ways to do it, but here's one way..

While you are playing back a demo which you recorded, press F4. This spits out a bunch of still frames into your screenshots folder, labeled something like shot0001.tga, shot0002.tga, etc. Note, you can do "/cg_draw2d 0" to get rid of the HUD if you want.

Now you just need some way to take all those individual shots and assemble them into an AVI file. For this, I recommend Quake Video Maker (QVM).

Now, all you have to do is create a new video and for "Sequence Format", select all the screenshots that you want to put into your video.

Q. I get this error: "Valid CDKey is not reaching GuidAuth Server"
A. You have a virus. Format your hard drive and then burn your computer.

Just kidding... Just delete the "etkey" file in your etmain directory, restart ET, and then type "/cl_punkbuster 1" in the console. This should fix it.

Q. Every time I play a game it starts recording a demo!
A. You have autorecord turned on for your autoaction. What you need to do is change your cg_autoaction variable. You can either just do this through the options menu in Controls, or do it the cool way using your autoexec.cfg file :)

The values for cg_autoaction are:
  1: autorecord
  2: autoscreenshot
  4: autostats

If you want to do multiple things, just add the numbers together. For example for autorecord and autostats, that's 1+4 = 5. If you want all 3 things, that's 1+2+4 = 7.

Q. I keep dying so quickly! Got any good tips for me?
A. Well, if you're dying because your enemy is more skilled than you, then there's not a whole lot you can do except keep practicing. As they say, the best defense is a good offense, kill your enemies before they kill you. If your shooting skills are weak, the only thing you can do is to work on it. (Read the shooting section for more info).

However, many times you might be evenly matched with your opponents- maybe even better than them- but you still find yourself making lots of stupid mistakes and dying. This can be really frustrating. The best thing to counter this is to be very paranoid :) Constantly be alert and aware of what's around you, don't just run around like rambo with your guns blazing. Be intelligent and have a plan for what you should be doing at each stage. Stay somewhat close to teammates as much as possible so that if a fight starts, you won't be caught alone.