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Conflict Zone, workaround for patch 1.5


About This File

The installer for Conflict Zone v1.5 is no ordinary archive and actively patches the game executable, and also transcodes a large number of audio files. This process doesn't work properly on anything newer than Windows XP and causes a number of problems:

[*] The installation fails (but claims to succeed) on modern operating systems, breaking the game. It will no longer start.
[*] The audio format for background music, in-engine cutscenes and mission briefings rely on an outdated MP3 codec that is disabled by default. In essence, this means every piece of music or mission briefing is now mute. Some audio files (such as unit responses) will still play because they are WAV files and weren't converted by the v1.5 installer.

As a side note, my retail copy of the game shipped with v1.1 and runs just fine audio-wise. The audio sliders in the game's options menu also don't seem to work quite right anymore; have to nudge them at every startup to set the correct volume. Why MESA decided to overhaul the entire sound system as part of a patch will remain a mystery...

But v1.5 does contain important bug fixes, which is why I have made this workaround. I've ran the installer in a WinXP VM, made some small changes to the executable so it runs out-of-the-box on modern Windows and also adjusted the volume of three files (alarm, healing, repair) because they were way too loud compared to the rest of the sound effects. This package also contains ijl15.dll (Intel JPEG library) required to start the game.

Step-by-step instructions:
[1] Install the retail copy of the game as normal, but make sure to select every component to be copied to the hard drive! The minimal installation won't work.
[2] Copy the contents of this workaround's game folder to your installation of Conflict Zone, overriding all files when prompted.
[3] Run the batch file in "fraunhofer_codec_fix.zip" as an administrator. This should fix the audio issue.
[4] Some people say you'll have to run the game in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP2, but that was never the case for any of my machines.

Tested with two PCs running Win11 24H2 and video cards from different manufacturers.





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