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BFME Setup

Installation

Prerequisites

Aight, listen up. Before we start, you'll need some basic tools:

  • 7-Zip or other unarchiver.
  • WinCDEmu or other disk emulator.
    Support for mounting SCSI drives is required.
  • Radmin VPN for multiplayer purposes.

You will also need clean copies of the original game and its expansion. How you choose to procure them is none of my business. However, if you have no reservations about forever tarnishing your eternal soul, I shall teach you of the ancient ways:

  • The Battle for Middle-earth II base game is available here.
  • The Rise of the Witch-king expansion is available here.
  • The keygen (blasphemy!) is available here (alternative source here).
  • The No-DVD Image (heresy!) is available here (alternative source here).
  • The official RotWK Patch 2.01 is available here (alternative source here).
  • Finally, the (unofficial) RotWK Widescreen Enhanced is available here.

Procedure

  1. Install Battle for Middle-Earth II. When it prompts you for a serial, use the keygen.
  2. Install The Rise of The Witch-King. When it prompts for a serial, use the keygen.
    If you obtained your copy of the game from a different (shadier) source, do not use any cracks provided with that game. If you do this, the multiplayer will not work. Respect the process.
  3. Extract the No-DVD Image - RotWk_Maxi_TheSmokingMan.rar - to a folder of your choosing. Inside the archive, there are two files: .mdf and .mds. Mount the .mdf file.
    You will need to have this file mounted every time you start the game so put it in a folder you can locate easily.
  4. Install the RotWK Patch 2.01.
    Requires admin privileges.
  5. Install the RotWK Widescreen Enhanced.
  6. Find the RotWK Widescreen Enhanced launcher in the Start menu and run it.
  7. You're done. Gratz.

Quality of Life

Widescreen Resolution Fix

The game was designed for 4:3 screens. Because of this, you will see big black... brackets at the edges of your screen (assuming you don't ironically own a 4:3 monitor). This can (thankfully) be remedied by adding the resolution parameters to the game launch shortcut. To do this:

  1. Navigate to your 'RotWK Widescreen Enhanced' shortcut.
  2. Right-click it and select Properties from the dropdown.
  3. Find the Target field, add a space to the end of the string, then type in the following:
    -xres [screen's x axis resolution] -yres [screen's y axis resolution]
  4. The end result should look something like this:
    "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king\lotrbfme2ep1.exe" -mod WSEmod.big -xres 2560 -yres 1440

Disable Intro Animations

Navigate to your game directory (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king\) and go to data\movies. Locate the following files and delete them:

  • CS01.vp6
  • EALogo.vp6
  • NLC_LOGO.vp6
  • TE_LOGO.vp6

Troubleshooting

Game Doesn't Start

Sometimes the game's AppData folder is not properly created when the game is installed which will prevent the game from loading. To fix this:

  1. Download this archive (alternative source here).
  2. Extract the folder within to a convenient location.
  3. Copy the folder you extracted.
    "My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files"
  4. Click Win+R, type %APPDATA% into the text box, and press Enter
  5. Paste the extracted folder into this location.
    Confirm you want to overwrite the folder, if asked.
  6. Start the game again.

"No CD" Error

Several different things can be the cause of this error. Some (hopefully) helpful things to check below:

  • I hope you didn't crack the game in some shady way like I explicitly told you not to...
  • Make sure the No-DVD Image is properly mounted. If you mounted the .mdf file, try mounting the .mds instead to see if that helps.
  • The game must be ran without admin privileges.
  • Your CD emulation app should support SCSI drive emulation. Alternatively, try using a different CD emulation app.

Good luck.

Firewall Exception Error

The game sometimes fails to add itself to Windows Firewall's exceptions list. If that happens, you need to add it manually:

  1. Navigate to the game directory.
  2. Find the game.dat file; hold Shift, right-click it, and select Copy as path from the dropdown.
    Or, if you have the game installed in the default location, you can just copy the path from here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king\game.dat
  3. Search for the old Control Panel and open it. Change the view (top right corner) to Icons.
  4. Find Windows Defender Firewall on the list and open it.
  5. Select Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall in the sidebar.
  6. Click Change Settings button.
  7. Click Allow another app...
  8. Click Browse.
  9. Paste the path copied earlier into the File name field and click Open.
  10. Click Add.
  11. Click OK.
  12. Run the game.

Or, if you like to live on the edge, disable Windows Firewall altogether while playing multiplayer.

d3dx9_29.dll Missing

You probably used an alternative installer and not the one provided above. No worries, easily fixable.

You need to install Microsoft's DirectX Redist (June 2010). The official installer is available here.

Helpful Resources

Shoutout to GameReplays. Would not be able to still play the game if it weren't for them.