How-To Replay Viewer
We have a replay viewer available, that you can use to view a replay in the browser. In order to draw the graphics it requires some files from StarCraft: Brood War, so you must have that installed locally (with the 1.16.1 patch). You are therefore required to own a legal copy of Brood War!
The current state of the game is such 1v1 games should work. UMS triggers and team games are not supported yet.
Help us improve the quality!
By letting us know of any issues you experience you can help us improve.
There are basically three types of issues:
1. You cannot watch a replay (e.g. “fatal error: decompression failed” or similar)
2. You can watch replays, but the replay is buggy / out of sync
3. There is an issue with the GUI (e.g. elements not displaying correctly)
- For issues of type 1, include your patch_rt.mpq file and indicate how you obtained your copy of Brood War (CD, download from Blizzard, other…)
- For issues of type 2, include the replay and indicate at what time in the replay you noticed the issue.
- For issues of type 3, include a screen shot and indicate your browser version and operating system.
Please send your bug report to dev5(a t)openbw.com
The engine has bugs; you might have a replay that it plays incorrectly. If the game looks strange (or matches the out of sync symptoms above), try to replay it in StarCraft: Brood War, and if the games are clearly different then we would like the replay so we can fix the issue (please send to dev5(a t)openbw.com).
If you get a white screen with some “fatal error” text, then it is most likely an unimplemented feature (but if it says something like “attempt to read past end” then we would like the replay).
There might be some graphical glitches. These do not affect the game, they’re just graphical bugs and will be fixed at some point.
There is not yet any way to show the fog of war.
Known bugs / missing features
The following issues are known and need not be reported:
- Zerg devourer
- fog of war missing
- (player) vision toggle missing
- shadow of lifting/landing buildings
When viewing a replay, the most obvious sign that a game has gone out of sync is a ton of idle units, usually standing around production facilities, a lack of things happening and a buildup of resources for the players. Unfortunately a replay does not seem to contain any information that can be used to check whether we are in sync.
Instructions
Note:
The replay viewer does not require Windows or any executables to run. You just need the indicated MPQ files.
- go to the replay viewer
- Specify the three indicated MPQ files from your local Brood War directory
- if you want to watch your own replay: drop a valid Brood War 1.16.1 replay into the dotted area.
- if you don’t do the above step you can click the “Play Demo Replay” button to watch a default replay.
- The replay should now start playing, and you should see in-game information in the info bar at the bottom
Short Video Tutorial
Hotkeys / Controls
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| ‘h’ | Show this help dialog. |
| ‘n’ | Toggle no-spoiler mode (hides the progress bar). |
| ‘u’ or ‘a’ | Increase game speed by factor 2. |
| ‘d’ or ‘z’ | Decrease game speed by factor 2. |
| ‘p’ or space | Pause/unpause the game. |
| backspace | Rewind 10 seconds. |
| arrow keys | Move up/down/left/right. |
| ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘4’ | show/hide production / army composition / upgrades / research tab. |
| ‘5’ | show/hide info graphs. |
| click in minimap | Move to the location indicated in the minimap. |
| click on unit / drag box | Selects the clicked unit or all units in the box. |
| shift-click unit | Adds / removes a unit from selection. |
| right-click drag | Move the map. |
| drag and drop | Drag and drop a replay file into the replay viewer at any time. Even if another replay is currently playing. |