Red Alert 2

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Red Alert 2 is the sequel the game Red Alert, though it has been officially designated as non-canon by Electronic Arts. It's story, though continuing straight on from Red Alert's Allied campaign, makes no mention of GDI and instead has a puppet Soviet ruler called Romanov who has been installed by the Allies, who, though an aristocrat and a member of the communist party (which is actually an oxymoron), was an advocate of peace. Ever since an artificially psychic Yuri became his chief advisor, his relations to the US have deteriorated, and some signs have shown he is not acting in good faith. After he attacks America, President Dugan orders a full-scale retaliation, which fails because Yuri remotely disables the ICBM silos. RA2 has a more funny and cinematic style compared to it's prequel and Tiberian Sun, but also better FMV acting. It has an expansion pack, Yuri's Revenge. Though it uses the TS engine, several logics have been removed from it.

EXE Switches

The following switches can be applied to ra2.exe from a command line to achieve certain functionalities:

-WIN 

Runs the game in a window (as opposed to full screen)

-16 

Forces 16-bit color mode

-480 

Sets the screen height to 480px when 640x400 resolution is selected

widthXheight 

Runs the game with the specified resolution (e.g. 1024X768)

This doesn't seem to work anymore, as it is overridden by the ScreenWidth/ScreenHeight statements in ra2(md).ini (which in itself is overridden by the Yuri's Revenge shell screen, which is hardcoded to 800x600).

-MESSAGES 

Allows incoming messages from outside the game (WOL)

-STEALTH 

Hides players names in multiplayer LAN and Internet games

-NETGEAR 

Enable additional NetGear logic (helps with NetGear based LAN configurations)

-MPDEBUG 

Runs the game with Multiplayer Debug Mode enabled (See screenshot.)

There will be a number written in the top left corner while ingame, it is not known what it represents.

Also, there will be two new key assignment functions under Options - Keyboard in the Debug option:

Multiplayer Debug Info, pressing the assigned key in-game will toggle the output of extra Multiplayer Debug status to the screen.

Game Sync logging, toggles the logging of multiplayer info files (this seems to be responsible for the SYNC*.txt file writing, which are created by default in all multiplay games).

-SOCKET 

Specifies a network socket number (between 0 and 16383)

-DESTNET 

Destination network address (IP format, nn.nn.nn.nn)

-noaudio 

Switches all audio off (useful for players with sound card issues)

Warning: If used with Yuri's Revenge, it crashes the game without any messages/log records, just as soon as the logo bik is supposed to play.

-nostr

Starts the game without reading the .CSF file, see FATAL Error.

Note: Doesn't do anything on Yuri's Revenge.

-str 

As above but the game will read the .CSF file (default)

(How is this testable?)

-jabber 

Disables reading of the .CSF file, see FATAL Error.

Note: Doesn't do anything on Yuri's Revenge.

possibly used to load CSF files with Language set to "Jabberwockie".

GrabPatches 

Launches the game and gets it only to check for an updated version (patch)

Note: Doesn't do anything on Yuri's Revenge.

-CD 

Specifies CD-ROM from which to run the game (0 or 1, but 2 can be used if YR is installed)

-record 

Creates a game movie file (defaults to SESSION.IPB) in the Red Alert 2 directory¹

-play [filename] 

Plays a game movie file (IPB format)

Obsolete Ones

These might work in earlier games, but are obsolete in RA2:

-X 

DOS 1.19+ compatability mode

-O 

DOS 1.07 compatability mode

-h, /h 

Would trigger the help file

-?, /? 

Would output the command line options

Unknown Ones

-ATTRACT

-NOROUTER 

Sounds network-related (traffic may be "routed" through a device called "router")

-DROP= 

Sounds network-related (connections may "drop packets" if they are bad)

Footnotes

¹ ↑ Note that these aren't movies per say, but rather re-enactments of the battle. Therefore, any change to the game between the recording and playing of the "movie" file will damage it in unforseeable ways. e.g. if you recorded yourself how you destroyed a base with five Grizzlies, then made buildings immune to damage, and then played the recorded movie, the Grizzlies in it couldn't destroy the building and the actions on screen would make no sense at all.