Repository files navigation

1. Game Startup is (very) slow

   The game takes awfully long to start because the official launcher tries to get the latest "Comrade News" from files.ea.comwhether or not the gui interface was requested (-ui). And wait until the connection times out, before starting the game.

2. LAN play: "CD key is already in use" (%CDKEY%)

   LAN play requires each player to have a different CD Key.Steam no longer populates the%CDKEY% variable in the registry(is it due to EA's servers shutdown ?).

   This is a problem because each time the game is run by Steam; Steam will write "%CDKEY%" as the user's CD key.Every (Steam) players will therefore end up with the same CD Key: "%CDKEY%" and are unable to LAN play with each others.

   The registry value is read on game launch. It is uneffective to change it after the game is ran by Steam.

3. Online play: emulation and DLL injection

   You can no longer play online nor co-op without using 3rd party service that emulate gamespy such asrevora/CnC:Online

   Requiring an additional launcher to be able to use their service.

   While"Launchers inception" (Launcher which starts another Launcher) is despised by many it remains a matter of personal preference.But for me the core issue was that their launcher didn't work with the Steam version nor with Linux/Proton when I tried it.

• Start Red Alert 3 process almost instantly(Issue 1)

• Fix the CD Key registry value if needed for LAN play before starting the game(Issue 2)

• Addons: revora/CnC:Online without their launcher(Issue 3)

  Seexan105/CnC-Online for more details.

• Compatible with 🐧 Linux/Proton

• Splash screen customisation: none, random, ...

Copy the files in the game directory and replaceRA3.exe

RA3.exe --help to display all arguments.

Most of the orignalRA3.exe cmdline arguments were kept:

📄RA3.json (required):

• lang?: string (auto)

  Which language to start Red Alert 3 with.

  Default (auto) will query the registry valueHKCU/Software/Electronic Arts/Electronic Arts/Red Alert 3/language.
  If no value is set then it defaults to "english".

• borderless?: boolean (false)

  Runs Red Alert 3 in borderless fullscreen.
  This superseeds the cmdline arguments-win and-fullscreen

• upheaval?: boolean (false)

  Starts Red Alert 3 with the infamous mod "upheaval" if it's present in the%GAMEDIR% or in%Documents%/Red Alert 3/Mods/Upheaval

• keygen?: boolean (true)

  Check the CD Key value in the registry.
  If it's empty or equals to "%CDKEY% generates a random CD Key and write it to the registry.

• splash?: boolean (true)

  Display a splash screen while the game is loading similar to the originalRA3.exe

• timeout?: number (10)

  Failsafe timeout in seconds. This is mostly for the splash screen.
  eg: There was no event dispatched from the game (Linux/Proton) or if an injected DLL crashed the game on startup.

• splash_image?: []string (["Launcher/splash.bmp"])

  Splash screen filepath. When more than one, a splash screen is selected at random.

  Either absolute or relative path.
  NB: relative toRA3.exe andnot the current working dir

• addons?: []{ path: string, required?: boolean }

  List of addons to inject to the game process.
  Whenrequired is set totrue and if the injection failed, alert the user and kill the game process.

  Either absolute or relative path.
  NB: relative toRA3.exe andnot the current working dir

{"addons": [    {"path":"Launcher/opencnconline.dll","required":true }  ]}

Connected to C&C:Online under 🐧 Linux/Proton 9.0-2 (Fedora)

• Golang v1.23
• go-winres installed in%PATH% env var for win32 manifest & cie

Runbuild.cmd
Output files are located in./build