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Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Revision as of 20:49, 21 June 2021 by Nessy (talk | contribs) (Let us show the RTS classics some love. Taxonomy additions & clean up.)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 cover
Developers
Westwood Pacific
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Release dates
Windows October 25, 2000
Reception
Metacritic 84
IGDB 90
Taxonomy
Monetization Expansion pack
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres RTS
Themes Sci-fi
Series Command & Conquer
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 on HowLongToBeat
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 on IGDB
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 guide on StrategyWiki
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 on MobyGames
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 on Wikipedia
Command & Conquer 1995
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 1996
Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor 1997
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun 1999
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 2000
Command & Conquer: Renegade 2002
Command & Conquer: Generals 2003
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars 2007
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 2008
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Uprising 2009
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight 2010
OpenRA (unofficial) 2010
Command & Conquer (2013) Cancelled
Command & Conquer Remastered Collection 2020
Renegade X (unofficial) EA

Key points

Multiplayer community is officially maintained by XWIS, with instructions on their website.[1]
Small but dedicated community.

General information

Community maintained multiplayer support by CnCNet (only Yuris Revenge expansion)[2]

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SafeDisc DRM[Note 1].
Windows
Origin
Origin
Bundled with other games in the franchise up to Tiberian Twilight.
Included with EA Play.
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge Bundled with the The First Decade and Ultimate Collection compilations.
Windows

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.006 for Red Alert 2 fixes general bugs, network and exploit issues.
Patch 1.001 for Yuri's Revenge fixes bugs, crashes and a problem when multiple CD drives are plugged in.

LAN patch (fan made)

The LAN patch lets you play LAN on Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 (and their expansion packs) in Windows 2000 and later by changing IPX protocol to UDP.

Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection Fixed Launchers (Origin)

An unofficial patch that provides a slight enhancement to the default launchers provided with the Origin release (fixes registry entries and allows command line arguments to function properly).

It can be downloaded from moddb.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\*.ini[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\*.sav[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Origin

Video

In-game options screen.
In-game options screen.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen
See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Isometric.
Windowed
Add -win to the shortcut target.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
videos limited 15 fps .rest of game seems to be limited to 60 fps
120+ FPS

Widescreen resolution

For changing resolution open files RA2.ini and RA2md.ini with any text editor and type your resolution there:

[Video]
ScreenHeight=XXXX
ScreenWidth=XXXX

or

Another way to change resolution is to add the line beneath the [Video] lines.
AllowHiResModes=yes
This will let you change the resolution in the game menu to any supported by your computer.

Where ScreenHeight and ScreenWidth are your desired resolution.

Input

In-game key map settings.
In-game key map settings.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Can only change scroll speed
Mouse sensitivity
For scroll speed.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Some non-English languages might have forced subtitles enabled.[5]
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Korean
Ukrainian
Fan translation and full dubbing by TSF, download.

Network

In-game network settings.
In-game network settings.

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
8 Uses IPX protocol. Requires LAN patch to be replaced with UDP.
Online play
8

Connection types

Ports

Protocol Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP 3840, 4005, 4808, 4810, 4995, 7000-7002
UDP 1234-1237
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

Issues fixed

Game does not start (Origin)

Disable Origin In Game[citation needed]
  1. Select the My Games tab in Origin.
  2. Right-click Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge and select "Game Properties".
  3. Check the "Disable Origin in Game for this game" option.
  4. Click OK and launch the game.

"player already have the same serial" error

This issue may occur when using the Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection version from Origin.
Add missing registry value[citation needed]
  1. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Westwood\Yuri's Revenge
  2. Make a new string called Serial
  3. Enter anything as the string text (each player must have a unique entry).

"***FATAL*** String Manager Failed to Initialize Properly" error

Setting up compatibility settings[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>
  2. Right click on the Ra2.exe file and select "Properties".
  3. Go to the "Compatibility" tab and enable Compatibility Mode (set it to "Windows 98/ME") and "Run this program as an administrator".
    • The options in the normal Compatibility view cannot be selected. Click "Change settings for all users" to make the modifications.
  4. Apply the changes and launch the game.

Notes

This will fix the base game only. For Yuri's Revenge, repeat these steps for RA2MD.exe

Black screen with switchable graphics

This occurs when the game engine tries to render in VRAM.

Disable the Compatibility Mode of the game's RA.exe executable then copy the files from the .zip at https://github.com/CnCNet/cnc-ddraw/releases/latest to your Red Alert II installation folder, replacing those present. This also allows higher and wide-screen resolutions than the Agrit fix below.

If the problem persists only in Yuri's Revenge when exiting from playing to the menu, try to set

renderer=opengl

in ddraw.ini, auto or direct3d9 may be causing the problem.

Another fix is to download Aqrit's ddwrapper and extract the ddraw.dll and aqrit.cfg files into the RA2 folder, where ra2.ini lies. Next, ensure that only these settings are set to "1" in aqrit.cfg:

FakeVsync                = 1
NoVideoMemory            = 1

Alternatively, simply download and extract the contents of this preconfigured fix into the RA2 folder. Also, consider using the performance fix as well.

Game is purple/green colored and displays only on the other half of the screen

This happens sometimes on newer versions of Windows (7, 8, 8.1 and 10). To fix this, download Aqrit's ddwrapper and extract the ddraw.dll and aqrit.cfg files into the RA2 folder, where ra2.ini lies.

Some Windows elements flicker from behind the game

This happens if you have downloaded Aqrit's ddwrapper and extracted the ddraw.dll and aqrit.cfg files into the RA2 folder and have set the ForceDirectDrawEmulation to "1". To fix this set ForceDirectDrawEmulation to "0":

ForceDirectDrawEmulation = 0

Lag/low FPS

Modify the RA2.ini file[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>
  2. Open RA2.ini.
  3. Under the [Video] section, add VideoBackBuffer=No to a new line.
  4. Save the file and launch the game.

Notes

This will fix the base game only. For Yuri's Revenge, repeat these steps for RA2MD.ini
cnc-ddraw applies this fix
Use Command and Conquer Graphics Patcher[6]

Game runs too fast

Before using this fix, make sure the in-game "Game Speed" slider is adjusted properly
Use the -SPEEDCONTROL command line argument[7]

Hero units in "Hollywood and Vain" mission lack their unique lines

Patch 1.01 cut the voice lines due to legal troubles
Use Hero voicelines restoration mod[8]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DirectDraw 7
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink Video
Multiplayer Westwood Online

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95
Processor (CPU) 266 MHz
System memory (RAM) 64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 350 MB
Video card (GPU) 2 MB of VRAM
DirectX 7.0a compatible


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[3] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[4]
  2. 2.0 2.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References