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@FunkyFr3sh

 

I just played for 15 mins without a crash. It might just be random luck - or it might be that turning off one of my cores in my OS (not draw.ini) worked. If so, it should help others out, too. :D

 

I'll be sure to report more results, naturally.

Edited by Hippox77

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Hi, FunkyFr3sh. You helped me setting up RA1 for online play, although, I was using another nickname back then in that chat. <3

 

Yeah, affinity was set to 'cpu0' using the 'redalert1.com' build. However, I can disable one of the cores manually from my OS, via 'msconfig.exe'. There might be incompatibility between draw.ini and Arda?

 

....

 

@FunkyFr3sh

 

I just played for 15 mins without a crash. It might just be random luck - or it might be that turning off one of my cores my OS (not draw.ini) worked. If so, it should help others out, too. :D

 

I'll be sure to report more results, naturally.

 

oh nice hehe

 

yes, the game from redalert1.com does set the affinity to cpu0 automaticly :) But the redalert1.com pack doesnt work with arda :( The Original CD version doesnt do that

 

ddraw should work with arda as far as i know, but its also ok to set the affinity to cpu0 only by hand :) Just make sure you do that everytime you start the game, since it wont save the setting hehe

 

I made a ra95.dat for you quick, it sets affinity automaticly, but im not sure if it works with arda since i dont have it installed right now :)http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?72val6f3jdfvbb7

 

with this file arda should also work with the redalert1.com pack (maybe you need to delete ra95.exe to make it working)

Edited by FunkyFr3sh

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oh nice hehe

 

yes, the game from redalert1.com does set the affinity to cpu0 automaticly :) But the redalert1.com pack doesnt work with arda :( The Original CD version doesnt do that

 

ddraw should work with arda as far as i know, but its also ok to set the affinity to cpu0 only by hand :) Just make sure you do that everytime you start the game, since it wont save the setting hehe

 

I made a ra95.dat for you quick, it sets affinity automaticly, but im not sure if it works with arda since i dont have it installed right now :)http://www.mediafire...72val6f3jdfvbb7

 

with this file arda should also work with the redalert1.com pack (maybe you need to delete ra95.exe to make it working)

 

Yeah, I actually didn't use the draw.dll for the CD installation that I made. Because I thought I'd already tested for multi-core problems with the redalert1.com build, but as you said that doesn't work properly. And ''manually'' disabling a CPU core unit does seem to work, without extensive testing, that is.

 

And thanks for the file, friend. :P

Edited by Hippox77

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On another possible Arda issue/bug. I found that if I selected 'run without expansions' from the Arda launcher options, Arda itself doesn't get initiated in-game. This is with the TFD build. **Just ignore this post if this is discussed already.**

Edited by Hippox77

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On another possible Arda issue/bug. I found that if I selected 'run without expansions' from the Arda launcher options, Arda itself doesn't get initiated in-game. This is with the TFD build. **Just ignore this post if this is discussed already.**

 

You misunderstand. Arda is the 'expansion', although the Arda menu also clearly reads "extension".

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You misunderstand. Arda is the 'expansion', although the Arda menu also clearly reads "extension".

 

hahah, I see. Silly me. But it still be a nice feature. ;)

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As I have understood, Arda needs to be installed on top of an unmodified Red Alert that has been patched version 3.03, but how exactly am I supposed to install RA in Windows 7 x64? I keep getting those incompatibility errors when I try to install the game using the original installer. So far I have only been able to play by using the redalert1.com version, but it seems I need a clean install to avoid crashes in skirmish matches. Thank you for your help. :)

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@Hippox77: For me, RA works best if I do not set the CPU affinity, but your experience may vary depending on processor and what not. If I set the affinity, the sound gets jerky, the video playback hangs for over a second and the game crashes randomly.

 

I referred to Arda as "extension" (opposed to the expansions Counterstrike and Aftermath), so the launcher menu does what I intended it to do. I put the launcher into Windows 7's Games folder, so I can start the original version and the Arda-extended one. To disable CS and AM, enable portable mode and disable the expansion disks in arda.ini (this is explained in the manual).

 

@Agent_M: Yeah, it's a little problematic to install RA95. Copy the folder "Install" to your harddisk and install Nyerguds' 3.03 patch into that folder. This should do it, even though you can't enable NoCD mode because the combined main.mix isn't included.

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@AlexB

 

That's interresting. I got none of those issues with affinity, at all. But with affinity off, it definitely crashes the game on my machines. Is the same story with my AMD Athlon x64 X4200+ machine.

 

Hmm, I should really have read your entire manual before posting anything. That's stupid of me. But thanks for the hint.

 

@Agent_M

 

Why not use Dosbox to install it? It's easy. Just youtube it. It installs the RA95 version, too.

 

On other news:

 

I'm right now using Arda with the 'redalert1.com' version with AM+CS from FunkyFr3sh's 'Redalart95.tk'. With his modified ra95.dat that has affinity permanently on. I've deleted the Draw.dll because I don't really need it, and it *might* cause trouble with Arda, I thought. I might need it for the FPS lock, though. I just made a .bat file that closes explorer.exe, so no colour issues. (On a side note: I turn 'Back buffer in Video memory' off. It causes scroll stutter for my machines.)

For LAN play, this seems to be working excellently with Arda. :-)

 

Edit: *Deleted some nosense text, I wrote.*

Edited by Hippox77

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Thanks for the help. I did as instructed and copied the install folder from the original cd to my hard drive. I then patched the game, installed Arda, increased the resolution a bit and added TLF files as instructed in the Arda manual. So far everything is working fine, except the Counterstrike missions. Sometimes the game crashes when starting a new CS mission, sometimes it doesnt. Arda only displays an error message that says it has encountered an internal error. The crash keeps repeating itself, but I have found a way to get past it. I have made virtual images of my cds and mount them using a program called Alcohol 120%. It seems that once the crash has occurred, the only way to get rid of the repeating crashing is to mount another Red Alert disk (Allied, Soviet or Aftermath) and then launch the game. Then I just exit the game, mount the CS cd image and launch Arda again. By doing this, the CS missions work properly, but what really causes the crash in the first place is beyond me.

 

These are my log files:

debug.txt

except.20120616-030456.txt

syringe.txt

 

@Hippox77

 

In fact I do have DOSBox installed on my computer, but it never occurred to me to use it to install RA for Arda, since I thought it would only install the DOS version of the game, not the Win95 version... :rolleyes:

 

@AlexB

 

Do you think it would be a good idea to update the Arda manual and add instructions for installing RA using DOSBox or by manually copying the files to the hard drive?

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Well my freeze up happens during in-game play (skirmish), there are no log files generated because it's freezing up.

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@Iran

 

I had those freezes too, but the ddraw.zip posted by FunkyFr3sh fixed the problem. I just finished one skirmish match and everything worked flawlessly.

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DDraw.dll fixes most of the crashes (or freezes), which can also happen in original RA after a short time.

 

@Agent_M: I've seen that problem before. It's either because of a non-original exe file which contains some changes (possibly a no-CD patch) colliding with Arda, or Arda's movie mix unloading function.

 

I want to keep the Arda manual as short as possible. Installation of the original game is out of scope, because it is not specific to Arda, but I'll update certain information like the recommendation to use ddraw.dll.

 

@Spyda46: I'm trying to get things done (and at least the country bonus problem should be fixed already), but at the moment my time is limited. No estimates yet.

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DDraw.dll fixes many problems like colour glitches, freezes, crashes, it adds a button with paletted ingame screenshots to the game and you dont need compatibility settings anymore. But it also causes one new problem: The Mouse in RA can begin to stutter and even disappear when you use ddraw.

There is a Mousepatch from Hifi for that which you can find here:

 

http://hifi.iki.fi/cnc/ra/patches/ra303_fix_cursor_bug_v2.exe

 

But this patch fixes only the disappearing of the Mouse, not the stuttering of the Mouse and that is the one and only big problem with CnC DDraw, which has still to be fixed, because Hifi does not know how he could fix it completely ...

 

Maybe AlexB makes a better Mousepatch for cnc-ddraw which fixes the disappering of the mouse and also the stuttering and lagging of the mouse by updating RA´s Mousecode and integrates that into Arda :)

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DDraw.dll fixes many problems like colour glitches, freezes, crashes, it adds a button with paletted ingame screenshots to the game and you dont need compatibility settings anymore. But it also causes one new problem: The Mouse in RA can begin to stutter and even disappear when you use ddraw.

There is a Mousepatch from Hifi for that which you can find here:

 

http://hifi.iki.fi/c...rsor_bug_v2.exe

 

But this patch fixes only the disappearing of the Mouse, not the stuttering of the Mouse and that is the one and only big problem with CnC DDraw, which has still to be fixed, because Hifi does not know how he could fix it completely ...

 

Maybe AlexB makes a better Mousepatch for cnc-ddraw which fixes the disappering of the mouse and also the stuttering and lagging of the mouse by updating RA´s Mousecode and integrates that into Arda :)

 

When 'mousehack' is on in DDraw.ini my mouse feels sluggish, but with it 'off' I haven't had any issues, yet. Probably not what you're referring to, though.

Edited by Hippox77

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Hello everyone!

 

The Ares 0.2 RC is out and until people start to insult us because there are still bugs, I got a little spare time. So I looked up stuff and did several things.

 

Because I still don't know that much about the game's internals, I have to understand which function does what and which object saves which property where (and of course, what all the other object settings do). This takes much time, but it doesn't look like progress is being made.

 

Currently I'm trying to understand how the base planning logic works. I think I can remove the AI check for aircraft before teching up quite easily, but I cannot estimate whether the AI will behave like a small-minded idiot trying to spend all money to get a tech center while the human player overruns him with infantry because the AI doesn't have any units to defend its base. We'll see. Most likely I'll enable this in the next version.

 

The country bonuses should finally be fixed, as well as the revealing tool tip on fakes. With a little bit of luck I can get the next version out this week.

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The Ares 0.2 RC is out and until people start to insult us because there are still bugs

There are still @#%&*!! bugs you %>?^!!, why can't you release a >*! version that &(@?#!!! works??? And also, !?<%&@(!! just for good measure...

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Ok, that is enough. See ya in a month. ^_^

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I think I can remove the AI check for aircraft before teching up quite easily, but I cannot estimate whether the AI will behave like a small-minded idiot trying to spend all money to get a tech center while the human player overruns him with infantry because the AI doesn't have any units to defend its base.

 

Very unlikely, given the AI's habit of building/training units ASAP. They'll most likely continue to build a Barracks before a WF as usual, and block their Ore Trucks in with swathes of infantry. ;)

 

One thing that does continue to baffle me though is the AI's persistence in building Kennels, but then their absolute refusal to acknowledge the option to train Attack Dogs!

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The AI assigns each infantry type a certain value. Rifle gets 3, Grenadier and Flame Thrower get 5, Rocket gets 2, Engineer and Tanya get different values depending on the game situation. All others get 0. Sum up all numbers and chose a random number between 1 and the sum. Subtract the infantry type values until the random number would get less than zero. Build the corresponding infantry type. So infantry with a "share" of 0 will never get build.

 

It can be changed, but I don't know how "smart" the AI is not to attack the enemy base just with dogs.

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I found it funny how Westwood made the AI in Playstation RA1 build ton of dogs and they use them in what you expect AI to do.... Just throw everything at you!

 

But I noticed that AI dogs will sprint across the map while the player dogs typicaly sprint for a bit but stop.

 

I think I am right but not sure because I never use them! XD

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I believe if you scroll across the map and tell a dog to attack, it will sprint all the way too. AFIAK dogs sprint one they have a target (they might even be a projectile during that phase).

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