Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

Developer(s)	Westwood Studios
Publisher(s)	EA Games
Engine	Modified Tiberian Sun engine
First release date	October 23, 2000

Command & Conquer

Command & Conquer	1995
The Covert Operations
Command & Conquer: Red Alert	1996
Counterstrike
The Aftermath
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun	1999
Firestorm
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2	2000
Yuri's Revenge
Command & Conquer: Renegade	2002
Command & Conquer: Generals	2003
Zero Hour
Command & Conquer: The First Decade	2006
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars	2007
Kane's Wrath
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3	2008
Uprising
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight	2010
Command & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection	2012
Command & Conquer (2013)	2013

Key points

Multiplayer community is officially maintained by XWIS, with instructions on their website.

Small but dedicated community

General information

EA's Official Command & Conquer site

Command & Conquer Wiki - A wiki for everything Command & Conquer related

Availability

Source(s)	Store unlock	Notes
Retail
Command & Conquer: The First Decade		Comes bundled in.
Command & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection		Comes bundled in.

Improvements

Patches

• Official Patch 1.006. General bug, network and exploit fixes. [1]

LAN patch (fan made)

This is a small patch that lets you play LAN on Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 (and their expansion packs) in Windows 2000 and above by changing IPX protocol to UDP. [2]

Game data

Game files location

	Location
Windows (Retail)
Windows (The First Decade)	C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\Command & Conquer The First Decade\Command & Conquer Red Alert(tm) II\RA2
Windows (The Ultimate Collection)

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Origin
GameSave Manager

Video settings

In-game options screen.

Graphics option	Native	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		Add -win to the shortcut target.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)

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

Where ScreenHeight and ScreenWidth are your desired resolution.

Input settings

In-game key map settings.

Input Settings	Native	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		Can only change scroll speed
Controller support

Issues and Fixes

In-game network settings.

Crashes

"***FATAL*** String Manager Failed to Initialize Properly" This error can be resolved on all versions of Windows by setting RA2md.exe and Yuri.exe to run in Windows 98/ME compatibility mode and/or forcing to run as administrator (in compatibility tab) for all users.

Black screen with switchable graphics

This occurs when the game engine tries to render in VRAM. To fix this, 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.

Improve graphical performance

To improve performance for modern video cards, add this line into the [Video] section of your RA2.ini and/or RA2md.ini files:

VideoBackBuffer=No

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Windows 95	Windows NT or above
Processor (CPU)	266 MHz	450 MHz
System memory (RAM)	64 MB	128 MB
Video card (GPU)	2 MB DirectX 7.0a-compliant GPU	2 MB DirectX 7.0a-compliant GPU
Hard disk drive (HDD)	350 MB free	350 MB free