README.md

Welcome back, Commander 🫡.

Red Alert 3 is one of my favorite game but it's in a sorry state since EA shut down their servers for the game.

This project is an open source re-implementation of the original game launcher RA3.exe aimed at addressing and mitigating some of the issues that have emerged since EA servers were shut down.

Issues due to EA shutting down their servers

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.com whether 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 as revora/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.

Features

• 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)

  See xan105/CnC-Online for more details.

• Compatible with 🐧 Linux/Proton

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

Installation

Copy the files in the game directory and replace RA3.exe

Steam

Note

In order to fix the issue with %CDKEY% (Issue 2) RA3.exe will need elevated privileges.
Because the CD Key value is in the registry under HKLM which is write access protected.

If you run the game via Steam, you may want to consider always running RA3.exe with elevated privileges
by right clicking RA3.exe > properties > Compatibility > check "Run this program as an administrator"

Wait... why does it need admin right and Steam does not ?!

Steam has its own windows service running in the background with system privileges (`steamservice.exe`) to do these kind of operations silently without the end user noticing.

Command Line Arguments

RA3.exe --help to display all arguments.

Most of the orignal RA3.exe cmdline arguments were kept:

flag	type	description
xres	number	Sets resolution width
yres	number	Sets resolution height
xpos	number	Sets horizontal offset of the window
ypos	number	Sets vertical offset of the window
win	boolean	Runs the game in windowed mode
fullscreen	boolean	Runs the game in fullscreen mode. Combine with -win for borderless windowed mode
noaudio	boolean	Disables game audio
noAudioMusic	boolean	Disables game music
silentLogin	boolean	Forces the game to immediately log in to a multiplayer account
modConfig	string	Runs the game with selected mod (has to point to its .skudef file)
replayGame	string	Plays replay file

Tip

-modConfig path

If "path" is not an absolute path then it will look for any .skudef file corresponding in %Documents%/Red Alert 3/Mods

eg: %Documents%/Red Alert 3/Mods/Upheaval/Upheaval_1.16.skudef > -modConfig Upheaval

Config File

📄 RA3.json (required):

• lang?: string (auto)

  Which language to start Red Alert 3 with.

  Default (auto) will query the registry value HKCU/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.

Caution

Unfortunately requires elevated privileges because the key is located under HKLM which is write access protected.

• splash?: boolean (true)

  Display a splash screen while the game is loading similar to the original RA3.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 to RA3.exe and not the current working dir

Note

Image should be a 640x480 BMP file.

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

  List of addons to inject to the game process.
  When required is set to true and if the injection failed, alert the user and kill the game process.

  Either absolute or relative path.
  NB: relative to RA3.exe and not the current working dir

Tip

Example: You can use this option to load xan105/CnC-Online.

Restoring the online features of Red Alert 3 without relying on the revora/CnC:Online launcher.

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

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

Building

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

Run build.cmd
Output files are located in ./build