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AlexB

Looking for Testers

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This will be my 1st post here. I found this site from C&C Comm center in a topic concerning Arda. Being an old school mod creator, I decided this was worth looking into for the new features that were innaccessable when I was modding 10 years ago. I successfully installed arda and was able to boot up RA just fine with no hiccups. However, I am at a bit of a loss in one aspect. I was expecting to see new INI files or something to edit all this new stuff, but there does not appear to be any. So how does it work then? Just use the syntax provided in the guide and add them myself to an existing Rules.ini? Also, how do I change it to Hi-Res? I see options in the launcher but 640x480 is the only option. Is this a Rules.ini entry? Copy the syntax from the guide? Thanks for any help!

 

 

-EDIT-

Okay couple more questions:

 

 

"A newly added themes.ini controls the in-game music tracks. Red Alert supports up to 256 music tracks."

 

Where is Themes.ini ?

 

"You can add more sounds to Red Alert. If you add the IDs to sounds.ini, you can use these IDs later on."

 

Where is sounds.ini? Do I create it myself and add something such as:

[sounds]

0=BOOM1.AUD

1=BOOM2.AUD

etc...

 

Went to boot up a skrimish with my mod i've been working on and it crashed. Debug Logged attatched. I had my mix file named SC-001 but renamed it to expand3 after reading that can be done now.

 

-EDIT-

Renamed it to sc-001 and it worked. AS soon as i built a power plant it crashed. uploaded debug2.rar

debug-ROB.rar

debug2.rar

Edited by Sonic
Merged 2 back to back posts from same user

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Hi ROB,

you will have to create the new INIs for themes and sounds yourself. Arda does not add any new contents through INI files, so they don't exist.

At the moment you will have to set the resolution settings in arda.ini yourself, as described in the manual.

 

Looking at the except.txt it appears this is the same problem that seems to occur if you don't use an original ra95.dat file. It crashes when trying to unload the movie mix file, which might indicate you are using a NoCD-patch. Which RA95 version are you using?

For the other crash: There is no sign in the log file an exception occurred. Arda closed normally. Do you use ddraw.dll?

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I'm not using a nocd patch. I emulate from daemon tools with iso. Not using tfd either. I do have nyerguds 3.03 installed too. I don't know the origin of my isos either, they have been on my pc for a while in storage. You recomend maybe reinstalling using redalert1.com.version?

I removed my mod files and just tried regular. I was able to start a skrimish and fully builld but the game crashed again when I tried to start an aftermath mission. Another thing, I have to run the launcher in 640x480 or ra will not work. I think that's my tv though its touchy with certain resolutions and certain exes.

I never changed or touched ra95.dat so idk why that would happen. Any reccomendations? But while mod testing in vanilla sometimes the game crashes and ra95.dat is to blame per error report.

 

Sorry on my phone cant edit prev post. I don't know about draw.dll, never heard of it. Reading back in this thread it seems that fixes crashes. Ill have to check when I'm home if I have it. And what's with affinity? Setting cpu to zero? Thays foreign to me also. Where and how could I do that?

Edited by Sonic
Merged 2 back to back posts from same user

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First you should use ddraw.dll alone. it might fix most of the problems.

The version I recommend is the original exe, because that's the version I tested.

You could try to set the resolution to 800x600 (or to any other resolution you graphics card and/or monitor supports) in arda.ini.

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I did some research. Lemme see if I got this. Ra95.dat is actually a renamed ra95.exe so I should put it back as exe then delete the other exe? I did learn about draw dll also, soundz good!

 

-EDIT-

 

I got ddraw.dll working now in 1920x1080 with arda. As far as I can tell I have an unmodified ra95.exe, unmounted all RA discs from Daemon and tried playing and it would not launch, so...

 

When I click Aftermath Missions, it still crashes. Sounds like somone else here has that problem too.

 

I also integrated my current -just for fun- mod with it. I customized 5 weapons and 3 projectiles, they work perfectly.

 

I think i figured out why it crashed when I named my .Mix file Expand3, because Expand3 would superceed Expand2, and my expand 3 did not have any expand2 essentials.

 

I have not actually played a skrimish longer than 15 minutes so I cant report if it crashes then or not, like it has for others.

 

Oh, and my RA Directory does not even have RA95.Dat ?? Wounder if thats normal.

 

This is looking very good so far, I am impressed!

 

-EDIT-

 

After Days of testing and a few crashes here and there, I got this figured out pretty good I think. I got my Mod complete that implements ARDA and wanted to release a beta, however I got a crash during a LAN test play that I think can be ironed out before I release it. I attatched the debug log, looking at it im sure its something obvious im just missing. And on a Good note I can report ARDA works with LAN and custom mods with DDRAW.DLL, all but that crash of course, which was weird, the games just abrubtly shut down on both computers at the same time.

LAN CRash Debug.rar

Edited by ROB

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I know I already mentioned this but have looked at the broken code where you try to ally with an AI but they don't do nothing and get ignored by other AI?

 

The ally function only works in RA1 2.00 but in 3.03 it is completely disabled! I hope to be able to ally with the AI in future versions! :)

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Not intending to spam this topic, just wanna provide you as much feedback as possible.

I completely reinstalled ra using my old discs to ensure an unmodified ra95.exe. when I change resolution in arda.ini or ddraw.ini arda seems more likely to crash.

Arda seems to read mu counterstrike disc iso from daemon but will not read it when I burned to a disc. Crashed when clicked counterstrike missions.

Loading aftermath and counterstrike missions seems very inconsistant in general.

Arda also crashed when starting the 2nd solo mission of either campaign with correct discs inserted. Also randomly closes skrimish games with no error message.

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Hi ROB,

I'll try to find out what's happening, but debug.log files do not help to find the reasons for crashes. I'd need the except.txt files.

Is NoCD mode enabled or disabled? What are the drive letters of the virtual drive and the real drive?

 

Hi Chad1233,

I don't know how it worked earlier and I don't know what they changed between these versions. Can't say anything about this. Same for the paranoid feature. I might have found something (this doesn't mean anything) related to it, though.

 

 

Next version will take some more time. I was working on understanding the game, which led to some internal changes I have to test first. And I found a bug caused by the reloading feature, which also tries to reload for Demo Trucks right after they blew up. I plan to get it done by this weekend.

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Chad1233: In Version 3.03 the ally function is not completely disabled, you can still ally with other humans but not with the AI!

And this has a reason why they did that: If you can ally with the AI, you could simply ally with every Computer and they will always accept your alliance but a human has to accept it first. In a LAN game with Humans and AI you could ally with every AI and get a big advantage and if you are faster than your human opponent, he can´t ally with them because you did first. And also in a Skirmish game you could ally with every AI except for one and they won´t attack you but you can attack them with Force Fire (CTRL).

Now you know why they disabled it for alliances with the Computer :)

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Hi ROB,

I'll try to find out what's happening, but debug.log files do not help to find the reasons for crashes. I'd need the except.txt files.

Is NoCD mode enabled or disabled? What are the drive letters of the virtual drive and the real drive?

 

Hey AlexB,

 

The Physical drive I use is E: and the virtual drive is L:

 

I have NoCD mode disabled.

 

I'll have to run some more tests and see what type of crashes I get. Cant say I particulary noticed any except.txt files in the debug folder but I'll keep and eye out and get them to ya.

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@Bullet I know the allying function was not completely disabled and that you could ally with Players. :P Also there's a reason why I want the ally function to work with AI because I would like to have some fun skirmishes without being stuck to free for all or have all of them gang up on me... Be very neat if you could choose where you want to spawn and have pre-allied teams like in Yuri's Revenge!

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Here are some excepts, mostly from crashing trying to start a 8 player skrimish on mega maps.

 

I also started tinkering with the add missions ability,works for the most part, however:

 

MissionID]►MissionList= (integer)

The number this mission will appear in. Use 0 for Counterstrike, 1 for Aftermath. Defaults to 0.

 

 

I put 1 but the mission hows up in the counterstrike missions list.

excepts.rar

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Hi all,

I finally added most of the stuff I wanted to get done. Some new features had to be removed, because implementing them would take much more time. It's mostly bugfixes, re-organization and some light additions. While I start to update the manual tomorrow, enjoy some pixels.

 

HoverHealth.png

 


Hi Bullet,

I added a new option to turn of the exception handling (the dialog that appears if something crashes). Possibly some of the crashes will just go away. Arda stops on any exception it encounters, even if the original game caused them, thus the majority of excepts should come from the game itself, not Arda. Finding bugs like that was the point of adding the except thing in the first place. (Though I still have to find the reason for the radar crash.)

 

Hi ROB,

most of the crashes seem to happen while unloading mix files. I added some logging to see what's going on there.

Looks like I swapped the values for the manual. The MissionList= is 0 for Aftermath and 1 for Counterstrike. I'm not sure whether this is a good way, though. Afaik there was the idea to add a third New Missions button above all the others, so an upside down order might be the most logical thing to do. If such a list isn't needed, it would be pointless. I'll have to think about it a little more.

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Hey Alex, nice work, glad to see a new version soon!

 

I started to think it was a mix loading problem. I had all my mod contents in Expand3.Mix, about 7mb, so I repacked it in to 2 , Expand 3 and 4 but it did not seem to effect it.

 

The more changes I make using ARDA, the less stable it seems to be. Specifically, loading skrimish maps, there are very few maps left I can actually load and play on, most of them crash right away.

 

I also have a request that you may or may not be able to implement:

 

Is it possible to customize explosions? Like, Piff, PiffPiff, Frags, Pops, etc...

 

I would like to customize which explosion SHP and which AUD are used for a specific explosion type and the damage intervals, And even possibly add new explosions to use. Something like:

 

Explosions.ini

 

[Explosions]

0=Piff

1=FRAG

 

etc..

 

[Piff]

Explosion=xxxx.SHP

Sound=xxxx.AUD

 

[FRAG]

Explosion.Interval1=xxx.SHP

Sound.Interval1=xxx.AUD

Explosion.Interval2=xxx.SHP

Sound.Interval2=xxx.AUD

 

 

Also, have you discovered what the intervals actually are for each warhead? For example, HE rockets up to 100 Damage (Not FROG!), use a certain SHP and AUD, (cant remember which specifically). But then if you increase the damage above 100, the explosion and sound change.

 

Thinking about it more, the type of projectile also is a variable, so this may be more difficult than it seems at 1st glance.

Edited by ROB

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What is new in this Screenshot AlexB? I do not see anything special in this picture :(

And which new features you mentionend, had to be removed again?

Edited by Bullet

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@ROB: The death explosions and sounds for units have been requested already about three or four pages ago. The damage-aware warhead explosions would be solved best by adding an animation list like in the later games, but I have to look into this further first.

 

@Bullet: That's the information I want to publish for now. (And I didn't say the image contains any new features in the first place. ;)) Just be patient.

I don't want to name features I'm experimenting with, because it would just put pressure on me or disappoint people if I can't finish them. I took out the MPEG video feature for the time being (shouldn't affect anyone), all other things are unreleased as of now.

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Hmm, I read through the entire thread a week ago, guess I didn't remember that part :(

 

On another note, since I repacked the Mix files some of the maps that did not work before are working now. Skrimish settings also seem to have an effect whether it will crash or not.

I also found 2 other bugs that dont crash the game. I added a completely new sound track and disabled the vanilla one. Apparently this disables intro.aud from being the title music and instead the game selected the last track from my list as title music; and it continues to be the title music even after disabling it and adding an additional track last on the list thinking the last track is title music by default. And if I abort a skrimish, the sound volume is boosted to the max at the game menu and next time I start a game.

 

I hope you make a feature that makes it possible to add additional turret buldings ^_^

 

Keep up the good work! Im enjoying experimenting with this. I also have a lareg amount of except crash logs if you think they will help you any further. Mostly from crashing skrimish games at the start.

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t_HoverHealth.png

Ok, that last time was a little unfair. Of course there is a new feature, but it might not appear as new one by today's standards. The important part of the screenshot can be seen above. Though Volkov and Chitzkoi are selected, the health bar of the enemy tank is displayed. It is the default in modern games and it can help tremendously to decide what unit to attack next without having to deselect your own units first. This feature cannot be turned off at the moment, but it respects the EnemyHealth tag already. Good addition or unneccessary gimmick?

 

EnterOrca.png

The shadow of the past: This image shows two new features, both affecting aircraft this time. As you can see, I recreated the Orca from Tiberian Dawn here. It doesn't have any rotors, which can be controlled by the new Rotors tag. You can put 0, 1 or 2 there; the latter is used by the Chinook.

A second feature is the alternate image used for the aircraft when it reaches a certain speed. TD's Orca was the only unit that could use this feature, and it was hardcoded to a speed of 11. In Arda, you can use the new PitchSpeed tag on any aircraft to make helicopters tilt towards the direction in which they are flying.

 

t_InfestedOre.png

This is no Visceroid. (It's the Blob and wife on their way to church.)

But it appears to be, because it loops through all image frames no matter of its facing, just like the original Visceroids do. Still, it isn't a real Visceroid, because it doesn't wander around on its own. You can use the new Animates tag for... well, I don't know.

 

Another new tags is Crusher=, which does the same as it does in TS and later. You can set this to yes on ants and they will run over infantry, just as in real life. (Not pictured)

 

The country bonuses should be fixed once and for all, the fake structures will hide their true nature from the enemy and aircraft will not show more ammo pips than they can hold ammo. A bug has been fixed that caused a crash whenever a Demolition Truck detonated. The MPEG feature has been deactivated to see whether it causes more problems than benefits. I also added some logging to the function that is supposed to unload the movie mixes; maybe this gives a hint. Apropos, there's a new tag called NoExcept in arda.ini. If you experience many crashes, try to set this to yes. It prevents Arda from catching exceptions, including the ones in the original game (some seem to happen when drawing Tesla zaps).

 

If you set this in arda.ini, you will get the beta Tesla Tank, courtesy of Nyerguds (big Thanks!).

[Hacks]
TeslaTank.Image=TMRJ

 

You can download the latest revision here. An updated manual is available, too.

I'll do some more fundamental research in the next few days, but I'm still working on some new features I'll post about soon. Have fun for now, and please report back if the crashes stop when NoExcept=yes is set. If it doesn't help, please report back also. :D

 


ROB: That's the problem as with almost everything else in the game. The game expects certain things to be in certain spots. The intro is track 22 and the credits theme is track 23 at the moment. The sound problem should be an original game problem and I'm not sure what I can do about it yet. New buildings cannot be added, and it is still out of reach because I have yet to understand most of the building objects. Another problem is that new buildings cannot be prerequisites, because the system is limited to 32 bits (only the first 32 building types count at all). More problems than solutions.

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Hey AlexB finally we see some progress which will make us happy for the moment ^_^

I see some new useful features although stability has the first priority.

While you are at it, can you make a tag for disabling the white selection squares for the own units?

It is enough when you see the healthbar of your own units, you dont need that white selection square, its just disturbing and is not looking good

when you select 50 units or so and everywhere are these white selection markers, its like a big chaos.

Apropos selecting units i think units which can be selected at once is limited to 63 or so. Maybe you can increase that? Would be awesome :)

And i think the features you are still working on will be the scrolling through the sidebar with the mousewheel :P

 

Keep up the good work! :thumbsup:

Edited by Bullet

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am probably being a bit dim here but when I try to run launcher.exe I get MSVCP100D.dll is missing (i have the VC++ redists installed vcredist_x86 and dotnetfx40 - apparently that dll is a debuggers version?

 

also yeah I think mouseover health is a good idea, good also if it affects your own units for choosing what vehicles a mechanic can repair :)

also allying with Skirmish AI's would also be cool, I had an old .exe based on the old version of Red Alert (where all the explosions were the single sprite) and you could ally with Skirmish AI's like humans, and they automatically allied back.

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Hi codeine, seems like I didn't rebuild the launcher properly... Does Arda work if you put

Syringe.exe "ra95.dat"

(with quoutes) in the address bar and press return?

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If you download and install the mini-release over the current installation, the launcher should now work.

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yeah it's working fine now, just gave it a blast in 1280x720, not having to scroll the sidebar all the time is much better :)

am going to test the wall placements next (edit works fine too, changed the adjacent to 5 to make it easier)

 

you can't change the crate percentages in RA's rules.ini like you could in TS ?

 

edit also i think i read there's a screenshot hotkey but when I search I can only find the info about messing with palettes : (

Edited by codeine

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