C&C RA poor Performance

[Hyperion]

Hi everyone,

 

when i played skirmish mode against my friend or 2-3 AI enemys, my game went freaking slow after some time the game starts. The game speed is set to maximum, but every unit or building constrution move on like half of the speed or slow motion.

 

Temporarly i fixed this issue for a short time, when i press the windows-button to bring up my desktop. After i switched back after a few seconds, the game runs in normal (full) speed, but shortly after, it slows down once more until i press W-Button again.

 

I am using Windows 7 64 bit and have only skype and, for LAN-Play Hamachi running while playing.

 

Any way to fix this? Its realy annoying :/

[pichorra]

you can try to use the CnC-DDRAW

 

Instalation: copy ddraw.dll to your RA directory.

[Ferret]

Disable "Back buffer in Video Memory" in ccsetup.exe (or rasetup.exe) which and be found in your C&C95/RA1 directory.

[Nyerguds]

Don't do BOTH though. cnc-ddraw kinda REALLY needs that back buffer

[Hyperion]

ah, the first tree people i expecting to answer me quickly

 

i choose method 2 from godly-cheese to disable back buffer in video memory (however, this was not a ranking, but a random choice

 

i tested it in a quick play in skirmish mode and the game speed is finally set to normal (full) speed. Problem solved. Unfortunaly my game crashed after 5 minutes (and 666 credits left oO... spooky) and freezes my computer

maybe i should try the suggestion from pichorra to use the ddraw file to fix this. i already use the solution to fix the weird colors in windows 7 from pichorra with the reg-file. can i still use the ddraw-file, because the file try to fix it too?

 

i had another, little problem with LAN-Play. Can i post it right in here or make a new topic?

 

ah, and thanks for the quick reply and help

[Nyerguds]

Eh, post it here, while we're helping anyway.

[Hyperion]

okay, the problem with LAN-Play is solved (somehow). i couldn´t see the other players, but could join their game. now i can see everyone like normal, don´t know why, but its okay

 

only one question left to answer...

 

i already use the solution to fix the weird colors in windows 7 from pichorra with the reg-file. can i still use the ddraw-file, because the file try to fix it too?

[Nyerguds]

The registry thing is a kind of "compatibility mode" that fixes the problem.

 

CnC-DDraw completely removes the problem's core, which is the fact C&C and RA use DirectDraw. So cnc-ddraw is in no way affected by the registry thing. It'll work just fine, and will even make the registry fix unnecessary.

[Hyperion]

so, i can simply delete the reg-file and the settings in the registry are set back to normal? i don´t want unnecessary files or settings on my pc.

[pichorra]

if you want to do this, feel free, but wach out! messing Windows Register is very very dangerous!

[Hyperion]

ok, i leave the reg-file in the folder. the ddraw works with it too. yeah, i think all the problems with performance, scrolling and weird colors are solved. thanks a lot

ah, btw. is there any option to turn the game window back to full size after install the ddraw file?

[Iran]

Check out the ddraw.ini file inside your RA folder, you can set a few options like whether fullscreen is enabled or not.

 

[ninja edit by Nyerguds. I'm pretty sure you meant ddraw.ini, and he was talking about RA, not C&C95]

[Nyerguds]

the .reg file itself does nothing though. The only thing it was needed for was importing the settings into the registry. Since it makes a full copy into the registry you can delete the file right after that.

 

 

By the way, did you use the ddraw.dll from the ddraw site, or the experimental one on the cncnz forum?

[Hyperion]

@ Maikel

 

What option can i set to do this? already tried set windowed mode to false, but that was unplayable. i guess you guys can help there before i crash the file

 

@ Nyerguds

 

about the ddraw-file. i loaded the ddraw from pichorra´s link. so, it is from the ddraw side, i quess. why you asking?

[Nyerguds]

Because the site starts with linking to the experimental one on cncnz. The actual current official release is at the bottom of that page.

 

btw, what was "unplayable" about setting it to full screen?

[Hyperion]

then i have the official current version of the ddraw below on that page, "Latest development snapshot"

 

Ok, i tested the windowed mode by setting it to false and it worked now somehow. Yesterday i start the game and it stuck on a quarter of the screen with black surrounding. i could hear the game sound but couldn´t see the game, just my open windows below. Now on game start, i get an error message each time i start the game:

 

"Warning - you are critically low on free disk space for saving games. Do you want to play red alert anyway?"

 

when i click ok, the game work fine.

 

i hope this isn´t normal. it would be a little bit annoying to always check that dialog on start up.

[Nyerguds]

Oh that. The problem is that the system to check that only works correctly on disks up to 2 GB. So it ignores the large numbers and only checks the lower ones. Often, putting MORE on the disk makes it wrap around to thinking the disk is completely empty again.

 

I know in C&C1 this error message prevented you from saving games once you went ingame.

[Hyperion]

eeh, does that mean, the game thinks my CD is full (which is in fact another game-CD currently in my device) and maybe pretent me from saving the game? this would be bad news.

i want to remind, that this "error" happens, because i set windowed mode to false earlier to toggle fullscreen again. When i switched back to "true" the error-message still pops up on start up. This message will show up everytime until i delete the ddraw-file and install it again. i tested it earlier. however, this would result in windowed mode again.

 

well, either error-message or windowed mode? Or maybe i misread something here?

 

btw, thanks for all that help anyway

[Hyperion]

well, nevermind. The error-message doesn´t show up anymore and i can play on fullscreen without any problems. Saving the game on campain works too. looks like my problems solved itself once more

 

I think that all problems are solved thanks to you (and the game itself to solve them self o.o)

 

Maybe you could rename all postings topics to "C&C RA+ poor Performance [sOLVED]" because it would be more clearly, that i talk about red alert 1 and not C&C1. Also is always good to read, that some problems are finally solved

[Nyerguds]

eeh, does that mean, the game thinks my CD is full (which is in fact another game-CD currently in my device) and maybe pretent me from saving the game? this would be bad news.

Um what? CDs are read-only. They're ALWAYS full. This is about your HARD DISK. The game needs to be able to write temporary files to run the game, and also needs to be able to write savegames. You need to have at least 16 MB (I think) free for it to run. This has nothing to do with the CDs...

 

The fact it showed up when adding the dll was simply because the size taken by the dll was exactly enough to tip the scale.

 

You should see it like this... if you have 20.000.000.000 bytes (20 gigabytes) free on your computer, but the program only looks at the last 9 numbers of that, then it ignores the "20" and thinks you have "000.000.000" bytes free. That's pretty much what happens here.

 

So in this case, filling one more byte on your disk will make sure you still have 19.999.999.999 bytes free. So, ignoring everything above 9 numbers, the program will suddenly see you have "999.999.999" bytes of free disk space and stop complaining. That's probably what happened to you, simply from doing other things on your PC.

 

 

Note that the actual amount it checks is 2 GB, and the cut-off happens in binary notation, so without some calculations you can't really see at which free disk space amounts it'll complain. It does mean that if you ever add about 2 GB more stuff on your disk it might show the message again.

[Hyperion]

Um what? CDs are read-only. They're ALWAYS full. This is about your HARD DISK. The game needs to be able to write temporary files to run the game, and also needs to be able to write savegames. You need to have at least 16 MB (I think) free for it to run. This has nothing to do with the CDs...

 

Okay, this is kinda embarrassing. THIS was really a misunderstanding-.- sorry. read - think - post...

 

Is there any permanently fix for the error-message, if it appear again, beside add or delete more trash on my PC? And is it pure luck, that i can currently save my game, because the right number of free disk space?

[Nyerguds]

Yeah, hacking the exe to skip the check...

[Hyperion]

okay, and is this safe to do this? and how?

[pichorra]

Nyerguds is Professional on that! =D

[Nyerguds]

I'll look into it when I got some time -_-

 

Hyperion: an exe file is, besides its Windows-specific header, quite simply a giant script of CPU commands your PC has to execute; each command being a block of about 1 to 5 bytes (though there are longer ones). With a disassembler like IDA, you can convert the bytes into readable commands, allowing you to look at the flow of the script. With some training, it's possible to see what the program does, and change it, by correctly changing certain bytes in the exe

 

The fact the "get filesize" is probably an external call to a Windows library makes this one easier, since those library imports actually have names, unlike anything else in the converted bytes script.