How to: Play on PC

This is a guide for setting up and playing War Robots on your PC via MEmu, a free Android emulator. If you already have an existing account on an Android device, you can follow these instructions to sync your account over to your PC.

To date, I haven't found any emulators that even come close to dethroning MEmu: Bluestacks runs half as fast, Droid4x has a terrible interface (although it's still better than Bluestacks' UI), Genymotion is so difficult to use that you might as well give up now, and no other emulators have controls that rival MEmu's. I will update this article if and when I find any reasonable MEmu alternatives.

Before starting
Please note that playing with a keyboard and mouse is officially allowed. See Thread:71373 for details.

Android emulators are inefficient, and require a computer several times as powerful than a phone or tablet to play WWR at the same frame rate. WWR is a fairly demanding game, so if your computer is very old, chances are that it will run WWR at mediocre frame rates (10-15 fps), so don't be surprised if you find it harder to aim with certain weapons (such as the Orkan); especially in intense battle situations. As a rule of thumb, your score will be proportional to your frame rate.

With that being said, the game should be perfectly playable on modern PCs, likely running even smoother than on a comparably recent Android device. You might also find it convenient for things like managing your hangar, collecting WP, typing in clan chat, etc.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you are already playing WWR on your phone, you will want to sync your current progress on your phone to WWR on your PC. To do this, make sure you have your Google Play Games account setup on your phone before you proceed.

Setup MEmu
Download MEmu 2.6.6 (link) and install it. DO NOT USE MEmu 2.7.0 OR ABOVE, as the WASD movement controls were broken by this update. Then log in with your Google account, making sure to use the same one on your Android device if you want to sync your WWR progress. Run Google Play Games application within MEmu environment to make sure.

Install WWR and sync progress
Search for the game, and download and install and run it. Click Menu button in WWR then click "Google Play Games" button. A dialog will come up asking if you want to sync your local progress. Press OK if you want to use your existing account and cancel if you want to start over a new account.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Check the screenshot above and make sure it is the same as the one you get when you press "Google Play Games". Some people have sync'd their new profile onto their existing one by mistake and lost all their progress in the game. If the message is different, then make sure you have done the following before clicking "Google Play Games" button. If you lose all of your progress in the game, you will need to contact Pixonic with the following information.
 * You have setup your Google Play Games account on your phone.
 * You have setup your Google Play Games account on your MEmu environment.
 * 1) The nickname that was used (please, provide the exact spelling including all symbols, small and capital letters).
 * 2) Your hangar level
 * 3) The approximate amount of your silver, gold and Workshop points
 * 4) Number of slots unlocked in your hangar
 * 5) Data about your active robots (robots & their levels, weapons equipped & their levels). Please be as detailed as possible so we can assure we find the correct account.

Set up controls
In order to play WWR on your computer effectively, you'll need to use your mouse to aim (right click to lock/unlock the cursor) and your keyboard to control everything else. Both Bluestacks and MEmu have GUI's for customizing controls. One important difference is that MEmu allows you to aim without holding down the mouse button, which may not seem like much but definitely helps over the course of a 10 minute match.

It is also possible to play with a controller. Just map your controls as shown below and use "JoyToKey" to assign the keys.

Here's one example setup for MEmu: You can do pretty much the same thing in Bluestacks, or if you're extra lazy then just navigate to the following file and open it in a text editor:

C:\ProgramData\BlueStacks\UserData\InputMapper\com.pixonic.wwr.cfg

and replace everything with this and save: [Origin] [Keys] Space = Tap (86,82) 1 = Tap (80,84) 2 = Tap (82,70) 3 = Tap (90,71) 4 = Tap (92,85) W = SwipeHold Up (11,80) S = SwipeHold Down (11,80) A = SwipeHold Left (11,80) D = SwipeHold Right (11,80) Q = Tap (86,92) E = Tap (94,45) [Guidance] Space = Fire all weapons 1 = Fire weapon 1 2 = Fire weapon 2 3 = Fire weapon 3 4 = Fire weapon 4 W = Forward S = Backward A = Left D = Right Q = Lock on target E = Use Ability [OpenSensor]
 * 1) ALWAYS_SEND_UNMAPPED_KEY

Improving performance
First off, if you're not reaching a stable 30 FPS on MEmu, do yourself a favor and buy a computer that's younger than you are. Until then, there are a few things you can do (in decreasing order of effectiveness): sc config vmms start= disabled bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off pause shutdown /r /t 0 sc config vmms start= auto bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto pause shutdown /r /t 0
 * Reduce the resolution in the MEmu settings.
 * Close all other demanding applications on your computer to conserve processing power for WWR.
 * Enable virtualization in your BIOS/UEFI settings (here is one guide on how to do that).
 * Increase the memory limit in MEmu options (see this for Bluestacks)
 * For Windows 8+, if you've installed the Hyper-V feature, you'll need to turn it off prior to running MEmu. This will give something like 20x better performance. Here are some command scripts you can use to create .bat files (run as admin) to help turning this on and off as needed (reboot required)
 * Hyper-V Off:
 * Hyper-V On

Congratulations! You can now play WWR on your computer and crush all those tablet noobs!

Improving Graphics
1. Download and install GLTools on MEmu. Link: http://rgho.st/private/7HLBZXbr2/9069d63c2e960745f089c488b949b7b6

2. Open GLTools, go to WWR, check "Enable custom settings" and "Use fake GPU info" and set "Fake GL_VERSION" to "OpenGL ES 3.2"

Bug fixes for MEmu
To fix your friends list, do the following (NO LONGER WORKS AS OF WWR 1.70) To fix not being able to receive invites, just disable Google Play Store and re-enable as needed.
 * 1) Disable Google Play Store
 * 2) Uninstall updates to Google Play Games
 * 3) Download and install Google Play Games 3.5.17

You should also turn off notification sounds in the emulated settings (or no in-game sound after an invite).

If your controls are stuck at a slow pace, then quickly tap a WASD control while holding down the stuck key and you should return to a normal pace. (ie. WA if W key is stuck)

If the WASD keys get stuck in one direction in the middle of a battle, open the keymappings and re-save them. Then press one of the keys assigned other than the WASD that is stuck (i.e. "1" for fire primary weapon or D if W is stuck). It should reset the key mapping and you will be able to move around again.

If your weapons keep autofiring when you activate the shooting button with right click, a workaround is to remap your hangar slots to specific keys so you don't have to deactivate the shooting button.