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Frequently Asked Questions
Download the external dependencies and extract them into the main OpenRA folder.
No. OpenRA is completely standalone. When you run the game for the first time it will download a minimal copy of the game files that it needs to run or extract the game-files from the CD.
OpenRA is a clean-room implementation of the original Westwood engine based on [reverse engineering](Reverse Engineering) the game-files without any disassembling, DLL injections or binary patches of the original executables. This is a completely Free/Libre and Open Source real-time strategy engine whose default mods depend on the original game files.
Since Electronic Arts have released both C&C and RA as Freeware we mirror stripped down version separately therefore saving EA bandwidth by hosting only the ~15MB of files that we need to run the game, instead of making everyone download the 700MB game ISO CD image. Those game assets are not covered by OpenRA's GNU General Public License. We assume the files are available for individual use and may not be put for commercial gain.
You are right. This is in fact intended. OpenRA is not a clone. We introduced many features found in today's RTS games. The changes include:
- Careful rebalance of the factions and units
- Power YAML game logic parser instead of simple INI rules
- New units: such as sniper, flak truck and Volkov
- Right-click orders to avoid miss-clicks
- Fog of War hides enemy units
- Spectator mode and replays for e-Sport events
- Support for mods and mini-games
- Tabbed build palette which allows queuing
- Bounties for kills and unit ranks
- New effects: e.g. tank husks and aircraft trails
If you want the true legacy experience visit our friends at Play Red Alert 1 Online and Command & Conquer Gold: Project 1.06. They use the Open Source CnCNet - Command & Conquer Online Service for matches and chatting via the internet.
See Branches and Releases for more information about the release process.
For others to join your game, you must forward a port in your router for them to connect to. By default, OpenRA uses TCP port 1234. This can be be configured in the Create Server dialog. If you have a router that supports Universal Plug and Play tick the allow UPnP checkbox. Please keep in mind that you also need to allow connections in your software firewall.
We're sorry to hear that. Please follow the steps below to collect the basic information we need to help you.
- Game Version: You can see this on the main menu
- Crash Log: Depending on your operating system, this will be in a different location
- Windows:
My Documents\OpenRA\Logs\exception.log - Mac OSX:
~/Library/Application Support/OpenRA/Logs/exception.log - Linux:
~/.openra/Logs/exception.log
Before you post this information on the forum or IRC, please read the first line of the exception.log and check the common issues below. If you have a problem that is not mentioned here, please let us know on http://bugs.open-ra.org.
If the exception mentions a out of sync, please also post syncreport.log, which you will find in the same directory, and get everyone else who was playing the game to post it, too. The sync log is only useful if we have multiple players submit their log. You can use http://www.quickdiff.com/ to find the part that caused the desync exception.
This error occurs if the game cannot start OpenGL. This could occur for a number of reasons, depending on your operating system and graphics card
- Update your graphics card driver to a recent version. In particular, the Intel drivers that are bundled with Windows ("Vendor: Microsoft Corporation") do not include any OpenGL support. See your graphics card manufacturer website to download the latest drivers.
- You have an old graphics card that doesn't support OpenRA. Although OpenRA may look like an old game, we make use of modern hardware capabilities. We require Shader Model 2.0, which means that nothing before about 2004, and some more recent cards will not work.
- Compiz causes issues with OpenGL applications on Linux. This is a bug in Compiz itself, which they appear to have no interest in fixing. You will need to disable Compiz before running OpenRA.
If you are sure that none of the above issues apply, create a forum thread or see us on IRC.
This error occurs can occur if you have outdated graphics drivers under Windows. See the point above on updating them.
If your mouse cursor, fog or icons do look corrupted try using the Cg Toolkit renderer. Start OpenRA.Game.exe with the command line parameter Graphics.Renderer=Cg or change your Settings. It turned out that this was a bug in the GL renderer which has been fixed in release-20121019.
CnC is unplayable and in RA trees, submarines, shock troopers, tesla tanks, badger bombers and all ballistic stuff like missiles, cannon shells ... won't render properly. Instead there are random animations of stuff being blown up or infantry replacing trees. The badger bomber being replaced with 4 burning infantry...
Known issue with 64-bit Catalyst 10.8 driver. Try downgrading to 10.7 to fix the problem.
OpenRA is a work in progress, and we are doing our best to improve performance. To help us fix this, we will need some information from you.
- Enable the performance graph (from the main menu → Settings → Debug → Show Performance Information) and note your average Tick and Render times in a game.
- Your perf.log from the logs directory above
- Your computer specs (CPU and Graphics card are most important).
Please make a forum post or a bug report with the above information.
Please report yours to http://bugs.open-ra.org with the following crucial details:
- What you were doing when something broke
- What you expected to happen
- What actually happened
- If it's a crash, the contents of exception.log.
No. While there are currently no checks in place for this, it is advised that you only run identical versions of the game when playing multi-player games. While the network protocol may not change, differences in unit behavior between versions can cause desynchronization between clients.
This depends on:
- Voxel support
- Isometry and 3D terrain
- SHP file format changes
which is a huge lot of work and currently not on the agenda. You patches are welcome however.
Have a look at:
- http://svn.ppmsite.com/ for Voxel and SHP Renderer
- https://github.com/zzattack/ccmaps-net for the 3D terrain rendering
- https://github.com/katzsmile/OpenRA for SHP(TS) rendering
Get involved. There are a few ways you can do this.
- Fork the repository and start hacking. Fix that issue that's been annoying you. Have a look at Compiling to get started.
- Add feature requests to our bug-tracker and place bounties on them if you want someone else to work on it.
- Join the community: The forums as well as IRC chat are a great place for future mod discussions and game-play ideas.