deepstrasz
Map Reviewer
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2009
- Messages
- 22,301
IMO, quite negligent difference and of course, mehAI.
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Warcraft 3 Classic Remastered v1.3.1
Warcraft 3 Classic Remastered
- Author(s)
- Naruga
- Size
- 415.97 MB
- Rating
- Downloads
- 592
- Created
- Feb 12, 2026
- Updated
- Mar 8, 2026
- Resources
- 1
- State
Pending
This bundle is marked as pending. It has not been reviewed by a staff member yet.
A simple high-resolution texture mod for WC3 Classic graphics. It remains faithful to the original visuals in every respect. While also improve in-game UI and other stuff.
Did you know that, With Reforged released, blizzard has been taking little care of classic graphics?
You might think that, they didn't touch it at all. But in reality, blizzard has been downgraded classic graphics for years.
Blizzard choose an ancient BC3 format for Reforged compression.
There is BLP format, which is what the original game is made of.
During the conversation from BLP to BC3, image quality gets butchered.
The less pixel a image has, the worse it gets. So for icons, it only has 64*64 pixels. They became a total nightmare. Other textures are affected too.
This is not what people think: Warcraft 3 Classic is 25 years old, should it look blurry on a modern display?
It's been intentionally hurt by Reforged team.
So here goes Classic HD (blizzard's HD) ?
What blizzard tring to do,is using a terribly trained AI model, to do a terribly 4x or 8x upscale.
Which means 93.75% and 98.44% information is "fabricated" by AI.
that kind of AI model can only restore information it learned from its training data. Most fantasy texture in Warcraft 3 can not be recognized by such model at all. What we need is a restoration model that learn image degradation and revert the process so It can handle any image it never "saw" before.
The unit and building texture are just another mess. Reforged team use a soft and denoising AI model, likely realESR family. Because they don't resolve any real details at all. The night elf buildings take a hit and become cartoon style. It's not that realESR models are all bad, but Blizzard choose a worse one.
So, Warcraft 3 Classic Remastered took a total different approach. At first it seems impossible to restore all Warcraft 3 textures. As there are so many of them.
The files is organized as these types:
Unit and buildings
Terrain
Tree
Icon and UI
VFXs
VFXs with alpha channel
There are 5000 to 6000 of them. It takes very long to sort them out.
We use a faithful and rich in detail AI model to upscale the RGB channel.
Then for every transparent texture, we use different models to restore the alpha channel. Or maybe use simple cubic filter to preserve the looks.
After the initial upscale process, I check the results in game, tested some maps, build every units to see if it was right.
Some textures were not well upscale by one model, so I choose another. Luckily, there's only few of them. They were fixed manually.
When all textures are finished.
It's now possible to play the original classic graphics at 4K display without any blurry and artifacts.
View attachment 574669View attachment 574670
Left: Classic Remastered Right: Reforged UI with AI HD icons
View attachment 574671
Top: Classic Remastered icons
View attachment 574672
Down: Classic icons
Building comparison (Actually no need to zooming in so close....)
View attachment 574675
Then I take a look of the UI.
Warcraft 3 2.0 patch remove the side panels for classic HUD. So I took a step further, remove the top side bar too.
View attachment 574664
A new selection circle is added.
View attachment 574674
I also make upresed cursors, HUD.
The menu cursor is reverted to classic too. Why not?
View attachment 574668
Then I noticed that poorly compressed screenshots of campaign background is used in classic graphics.
As you already have 3d rendered campaign background. Why look at a low res screenshot? Let's fix this.
View attachment 574667
There's a iconic human vs orc background when you load credits from RoC and TFT.
It was changed to Trall and tauren chieftain artwork. Let's fix that too.
View attachment 574666
Speaking of RoC and TFT, many players remember the game as it's TFT. So let's make the score screen more familiar. The classic spellbreaker, warden, crypt lord and shadow hunter maybe?
View attachment 574665
So I took as many looks as possible. I hope you enjoyed the improved Warcraft 3 Classic. I will learn from any feedback too.
Did you know that, With Reforged released, blizzard has been taking little care of classic graphics?
You might think that, they didn't touch it at all. But in reality, blizzard has been downgraded classic graphics for years.
Blizzard choose an ancient BC3 format for Reforged compression.
There is BLP format, which is what the original game is made of.
During the conversation from BLP to BC3, image quality gets butchered.
The less pixel a image has, the worse it gets. So for icons, it only has 64*64 pixels. They became a total nightmare. Other textures are affected too.
This is not what people think: Warcraft 3 Classic is 25 years old, should it look blurry on a modern display?
It's been intentionally hurt by Reforged team.
So here goes Classic HD (blizzard's HD) ?
What blizzard tring to do,is using a terribly trained AI model, to do a terribly 4x or 8x upscale.
Which means 93.75% and 98.44% information is "fabricated" by AI.
that kind of AI model can only restore information it learned from its training data. Most fantasy texture in Warcraft 3 can not be recognized by such model at all. What we need is a restoration model that learn image degradation and revert the process so It can handle any image it never "saw" before.
The unit and building texture are just another mess. Reforged team use a soft and denoising AI model, likely realESR family. Because they don't resolve any real details at all. The night elf buildings take a hit and become cartoon style. It's not that realESR models are all bad, but Blizzard choose a worse one.
So, Warcraft 3 Classic Remastered took a total different approach. At first it seems impossible to restore all Warcraft 3 textures. As there are so many of them.
The files is organized as these types:
Unit and buildings
Terrain
Tree
Icon and UI
VFXs
VFXs with alpha channel
There are 5000 to 6000 of them. It takes very long to sort them out.
We use a faithful and rich in detail AI model to upscale the RGB channel.
Then for every transparent texture, we use different models to restore the alpha channel. Or maybe use simple cubic filter to preserve the looks.
After the initial upscale process, I check the results in game, tested some maps, build every units to see if it was right.
Some textures were not well upscale by one model, so I choose another. Luckily, there's only few of them. They were fixed manually.
When all textures are finished.
It's now possible to play the original classic graphics at 4K display without any blurry and artifacts.
View attachment 574669View attachment 574670
Left: Classic Remastered Right: Reforged UI with AI HD icons
View attachment 574671
Top: Classic Remastered icons
View attachment 574672
Down: Classic icons
Building comparison (Actually no need to zooming in so close....)
View attachment 574675
Then I take a look of the UI.
Warcraft 3 2.0 patch remove the side panels for classic HUD. So I took a step further, remove the top side bar too.
View attachment 574664
A new selection circle is added.
View attachment 574674
I also make upresed cursors, HUD.
The menu cursor is reverted to classic too. Why not?
View attachment 574668
Then I noticed that poorly compressed screenshots of campaign background is used in classic graphics.
As you already have 3d rendered campaign background. Why look at a low res screenshot? Let's fix this.
View attachment 574667
There's a iconic human vs orc background when you load credits from RoC and TFT.
It was changed to Trall and tauren chieftain artwork. Let's fix that too.
View attachment 574666
Speaking of RoC and TFT, many players remember the game as it's TFT. So let's make the score screen more familiar. The classic spellbreaker, warden, crypt lord and shadow hunter maybe?
View attachment 574665
So I took as many looks as possible. I hope you enjoyed the improved Warcraft 3 Classic. I will learn from any feedback too.
Previews
Contents
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2025
- Messages
- 71
Vision Mod
This work is much higher quality than Blizzard's ClassicHD I can immediately notice the difference. Thank you for this!
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2008
- Messages
- 302
Wait so does this upgrade the graphics of the entire game? Or is it a WIP?
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2025
- Messages
- 12
Warcraft 3 Classic Remastered
All textures of course
- Joined
- May 25, 2004
- Messages
- 1,516
Warcraft III Classic Remastered User Manual
1.24 to 1.29: Mostly incompatible, only icons can be loaded
1.30 to 1.31: Only UI, icons, and terrain can be loaded.
2.0.4: Full Compatible, Made for classic graphics. Do not use the Reforged "Classic HD" skin.
- Joined
- May 25, 2004
- Messages
- 1,516
This is a fantastic MOD, however it does remove custom UI settings for custom maps. It also messes with the REFORGED Cinematics.
- Joined
- May 14, 2021
- Messages
- 2,390
"Made for Classic graphics. Do not use the Reforged 'Classic HD' skin".
The author doesn't guarantee this mod will support the Reforged graphics as it was made with the Classic graphics.
Also, I would advise not using this mod as certain custom maps with custom assets (like UI) can conflict the original ones.
EDIT: Or you can just remove the "ui" folder and nothing else as Naruga said.
Last edited:
- Joined
- May 25, 2004
- Messages
- 1,516
Exactly, it’s an awesome mod, but even with Reforged (not classic HD) having the mod can mess up certain things not listed.
I gave 2 examples above and was unaware that the mod was causing the issues. The post above was creating awareness.
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2025
- Messages
- 12
Warcraft 3 Classic Remastered
I think you can completely rename "ui" folder. Most custom maps will conflict with mod because they replaced original textures.
- Joined
- May 25, 2004
- Messages
- 1,516
Would this work/improve the Warcraft III - Legacy?
- Joined
- May 14, 2021
- Messages
- 2,390
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2025
- Messages
- 12
Warcraft 3 Classic Remastered
None of any classic TFT version support dds.
I made for reforged version because it has more available RAM.
Only small blp texture like icons will load in 1.29
I made for reforged version because it has more available RAM.
Only small blp texture like icons will load in 1.29
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2017
- Messages
- 184
Melee Campaign Heroes
This if funny, but the reason why don't you're working on Blizzard - that you are smart.
