Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

Command & Conquer

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 • Link[edit]

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc DRM^{[Note 1]}.
Origin		Bundled with other games in the franchise up to Tiberian Twilight. Included with EA Play.

SafeDisc retail DRM no longer functions properly on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

DLC and expansion packs • Link

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

Essential improvements • Link[edit]

Patches • Link[edit]

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) • Link[edit]

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) • Link[edit]

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 • Link[edit]

Configuration file(s) location • Link[edit]

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

Save game data location • Link[edit]

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

Save game cloud syncing • Link[edit]

System	Native	Notes
Origin

Video • Link[edit]

In-game options screen.

Graphics feature	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 • Link[edit]

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 • Link[edit]

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		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Audio • Link[edit]

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 • Link

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

Network • Link[edit]

In-game network settings.

Multiplayer types • Link

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

Connection types • Link

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Ports • Link

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 • Link[edit]

Game does not start (Origin) • Link[edit]

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

"player already have the same serial" error • Link[edit]

This issue may occur when using the Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection version from Origin.

Add missing registry value^{[citation needed]}
Go to `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Westwood\Yuri's Revenge` Make a new string called `Serial` Enter anything as the string text (each player must have a unique entry).

"FATAL String Manager Failed to Initialize Properly" error • Link[edit]

Setting up compatibility settings^{[citation needed]}

Go to <path-to-game>
Right click on the Ra2.exe file and select "Properties".
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.
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 • Link[edit]

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 • Link[edit]

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 • Link[edit]

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 • Link[edit]

Modify the RA2.ini file^{[citation needed]}

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