red-alert-in-linux

Fix for Red Alert 2 / Yuri's Revenge (CnCNet) on Linux Wine + Wayland that renders only when you move the mouse, runs at ~1 FPS, then freezes, and takes forever to sync with other players.

Tested on: Omarchy 4.0.3.1 (Arch-based, Hyprland on Wayland/XWayland), vanilla Wine 11.17 and Steam Proton Experimental (non-Steam game), hybrid Intel Iris Plus + NVIDIA MX230, Internet Archive red-alert-2_202103 dump + CnCNet client 9.3.3.

Symptoms

• Game/launcher opens and even connects to a lobby match.
• In-game pixels only repaint under the cursor; the rest stays stale/black.
• After a while the picture stops updating entirely.
• Syncing with other players is very slow; debug.log ends with Game loop finished. Average FPS = 1.
• debug.log also shows Checking hardware region fill capability...Failed! and SetDisplayMode: 1280x800x16.

Root cause

1. The dump ships an old ts-ddraw (ddraw.dll, 42 KB) forced into exclusive fullscreen (renderer=opengl, fullscreen=true, windowed=false, SingleProcAffinity=No in ddraw.ini).
2. Exclusive fullscreen + Wine's built-in DirectDraw (wined3d) on XWayland stops delivering repaint events, so the backbuffer only updates on mouse-move expose events, then stalls. At 1 FPS the netcode's FrameSync packets stall too, which looks like "slow connect".
3. cnc-ddraw changelogs explicitly mention fixing low FPS and Wine FPS limiter bugs that this setup hits.

Fix: replace ts-ddraw with cnc-ddraw v7.1, run it borderless-windowed, force full redraw, pin to one CPU, and tell Wine to use the native ddraw.dll.

Quick fix

# 1. Apply the renderer fix (backs up ddraw.dll/ddraw.ini to Backup/)
./scripts/fix-rendering.sh "/path/to/Red Alert 2"
# If omitted, it auto-detects ~/Downloads/red-alert-2_202103/Red Alert 2

# 2. Launch stably (single-core, vsync off, Intel iGPU)
./scripts/launch-ra2.sh "/path/to/Red Alert 2"

# Variants:
./scripts/launch-ra2.sh --nvidia      # try discrete GPU instead
./scripts/launch-ra2.sh --gamescope   # nested compositor, best isolation on Hyprland
./scripts/launch-ra2.sh --direct      # skip CnCNet launcher (offline/skirmish)

Reference config used: config/ddraw.linux-wayland.ini. The ddraw.dll / ddraw.ini part of the fix is runner-independent: it applies whether you launch via vanilla Wine or via Steam/Proton.

Steam (non-Steam game + Proton Experimental)

If you run CnCNetYRLauncher.exe as a Steam non-Steam game (this is the setup this fix was verified against after the Wine run):

1. Steam > Add a Non-Steam Game > Browse to CnCNetYRLauncher.exe.
2. Right-click the shortcut > Properties:
   • Target: "/path/to/Red Alert 2/CnCNetYRLauncher.exe"
   • Start In: "/path/to/Red Alert 2"
   • Compatibility: check "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" > Proton Experimental.
   • General: uncheck "Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game" (the overlay hooks the same DirectDraw path and can reintroduce stalls).
3. Set Launch Options exactly:

   WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw=n,b" PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 taskset -c 0 %command%
   

   • WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw=n,b" loads this repo's cnc-ddraw instead of Proton's built-in ddraw (the Proton equivalent of the wine reg step).
   • PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 keeps DirectDraw on wined3d (DXVK does not handle this game's ddraw path).
   • taskset -c 0 pins the pre-multi-core engine + spawner to one CPU, matching singlecpu=true in ddraw.ini.
4. Run ./scripts/fix-rendering.sh "/path/to/Red Alert 2" first if you have not already: the game-dir files are shared regardless of runner.

Each non-Steam shortcut gets its own prefix under ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/<id>/pfx; no manual prefix setup is needed. Verify with debug.log: Game loop finished. Average FPS = 50-60, not 1.

What the fix changes (ddraw.ini)

Setting	Before (broken)	After	Why
ddraw.dll	ts-ddraw (42 KB)	cnc-ddraw v7.1 (402 KB)	Fixes Wine FPS-limiter / low-FPS bugs
fullscreen + windowed	false + false (exclusive)	true + true (borderless)	Exclusive mode stalls repaints on XWayland
border	true	false	True borderless window
maintas	false	true	Keep aspect when stretched
renderer	opengl (forced, stale ts-ddraw)	opengl (cnc-ddraw)	Tested Wine/XWayland path; gdi is fallback
minfps	0	-2	Force full redraw; fixes mouse-move-only painting
singlecpu	No / unset	true	Pre-multi-core engine freezes/desyncs otherwise
nonexclusive	true	true (kept)	Don't grab exclusive mode
Wine override	none	ddraw = native,builtin	Actually load cnc-ddraw instead of Wine built-in

RA2MD.ini [Video] is left alone (Video.Windowed=False, BorderlessWindowedClient=False) so cnc-ddraw owns windowing.

Slow connection / desync note

Most of the "slow connect" is the 1 FPS stall: every client must exchange FrameSync packets each frame, so one stalled renderer holds the whole room. After this fix, if sync is still slow:

• In the CnCNet client use a nearby tunnel (lowest ping), keep PortPool reachable (default UDP 16665); UPnP or a manual UDP port-forward helps.
• Keep singlecpu=true + launch via taskset -c 0 (this repo's launcher).
• Close Discord overlay / screen recorders that hook DirectDraw.

If it still fails

Problem	Try
Black screen with renderer=opengl	renderer=gdi in ddraw.ini (slower, very stable)
Tearing	vsync=true (adds input lag)
Game too fast / flicker	maxgameticks=60 (then 30/25/20/15)
Crash on start	resolutions=1, delete Screenshots/, run --direct once
Window focus/Alt-Tab weirdness	noactivateapp=true
Still stale frames on Hyprland	--gamescope, plus window rule below

Hyprland (optional, reduces blur/tearing hooks on the game window):

windowrulev2 = noblur, class:^(.*ra2.*|.*gamemd.*|.*CnCNet.*)$, title:.*
windowrulev2 = fullscreenstate 0 2, class:^(.*ra2.*|.*gamemd.*)$, title:.*

Restore

GAME_DIR="/path/to/Red Alert 2"
cp --remove-destination "$GAME_DIR/Backup/ddraw.pre-fix.dll.bak" "$GAME_DIR/ddraw.dll"
cp --remove-destination "$GAME_DIR/Backup/ddraw.pre-fix.ini.bak" "$GAME_DIR/ddraw.ini"
wine reg delete 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\DllOverrides' /v ddraw /f

Layout

config/ddraw.linux-wayland.ini  tuned cnc-ddraw config for Wine/Wayland
scripts/fix-rendering.sh        download cnc-ddraw, backup, apply config, set wine override
scripts/launch-ra2.sh           stable launch: taskset, GPU choice, gamescope, direct mode

Upstream: cnc-ddraw https://github.com/FunkyFr3sh/cnc-ddraw, CnCNet https://cncnet.org. This repo only ships config + scripts, not the game.