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Was there LAN support on Red Alert?

590 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  FiX, 
L
I can't remember if it was C&C or Red Alert that didn't have LAN support. Can someone give me a heads up on that? I got my annual leave about to crank up and I want to play my brother on this classic old school RTS (if i can get my hands on a copy).

cheers
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B
The original C&C (1995)? This was taken from it's Wikipedia page:

Quote:


As a result of changes to the IPX protocol libraries for the Windows XP and Windows 2000 environments, however, network play through this method has been rendered unavailable, except for matches that are played over parallel or serial link. Westwood Studios had to released a patch that disabled the game's LAN function to prevent the malfunctioning protocol from crashing the game on startup. This problem was later solved when an alternative version of the patch was released by a community member[1]. The patch converts the game's network traffic to the UDP protocol.

Despite the fact the combination of the community-controlled XWIS servers and the unofficial network patch enabled online play again, the method to start a game through an external application remains tedious, and the system only supports 2-player games. Several attempts have been made to enhance and facilitate multiplayer gaming. In 2009, an anonymous community member calling himself "CnCNetServer" released the CnCNet[2] application for this purpose. It works with a server which sends the game's packets to all other players that are logged in, but which intercepts and replaces packets so the game uses online IP addresses in its LAN player list. The game then runs a normal LAN game, the only difference being that the opponents are online.

Hope that helps.
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Syjeklye
both C&C and Red alert have lan functionality. Red Alert was my first multiplayer (more than one computer) computer game. So I know for sure it has lan capability. You have to enable ipx/spx protocol though.

the game also works a ton better on an older computer, or maybe even try a virtual machine running windows 98 or something. It's difficult to get it to work on xp, vista and 7; then when you do, it is usually going so fast the computer kills you instantly.

but yeah, totally has LAN capability to the max
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L
hi guys!

yea thanks for those replies!

i managed to download (legit!!) the game for free (if anyone's interested i can provide the link). It's so old they're giving it away for free to promote RA3! but it was like 1 gig for both the soviet and allies mission discs! They've given you a patch to play on xp machines flawlessly too. I had to download another fix to enable lan play. If you use hamachi then you're laughing!

I played with my brother last night. The machines we use now are a bit too powerful as Syjeklye mentioned. It was running so fast! Games were over in about 15 minutes. Nukes were built in a couple of minutes so it became a bit of nuke fest. I remember when i was in highschool this was was so high tech with so many units on offer and so much stuff to build! But looking at it now after playing a stack of other RTS games its so woefully insufficient. On one hand i was ecstatic to go back to my early gaming days but i think i expected too much from 1997.

Oh well. RA will always have a special place in my heart.

Thanks for your help guys!
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R
Quote:

Originally Posted by lem View Post
hi guys!

yea thanks for those replies!

i managed to download (legit!!) the game for free (if anyone's interested i can provide the link). It's so old they're giving it away for free to promote RA3! but it was like 1 gig for both the soviet and allies mission discs! They've given you a patch to play on xp machines flawlessly too. I had to download another fix to enable lan play. If you use hamachi then you're laughing!

I played with my brother last night. The machines we use now are a bit too powerful as Syjeklye mentioned. It was running so fast! Games were over in about 15 minutes. Nukes were built in a couple of minutes so it became a bit of nuke fest. I remember when i was in highschool this was was so high tech with so many units on offer and so much stuff to build! But looking at it now after playing a stack of other RTS games its so woefully insufficient. On one hand i was ecstatic to go back to my early gaming days but i think i expected too much from 1997.

Oh well. RA will always have a special place in my heart.

Thanks for your help guys!
No doubt. Red Alert was my favorite game back then. Everyday when I got back from school, I would spend like hours playing.

Its hella funny when you try installing the game on today's systems, the game goes hella FAST! Speedhax? -LAWL!

Even though the game is old, the one thing that I still play today is the music soundtrack. The music by Frank Klepacki is really good.

When I compare and play the current RA3, the game feels soo different to the point of being boring/unexciting. The music...recycled with nothing unique or new. The Westwood team really knew how to make games back then. I need to find a mint condition of the game one day as a collection.


The game has lan support.
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I have RA2 and find it sad with the inconpatabilities of 64 bit operating systems, I have to set up a virtual machine just to play RA2 over lan.
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