Compiling

This page assumes you’re going to be building from sources. If you just want to play the latest stable version without working on the game itself, simple go for the packaged binary Installation.

1. Get the source

   git clone git://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA.git

2. Build it (with msbuild, make or Visual Studio 2010 C# Express, MonoDevelop if you like a IDE)
3. Enjoy.

The game won’t start if it can’t find some external dependencies. You can find them in thirdparty/ folder which has to be copied into in OpenRA root folder. Windows might need some extra DLLs that you can just copy from OpenRA’s binary packages.

You will also need the MIX files from the original game CD. These should be placed in $openra/Content/$MOD/. The easiest way to get these files now is to install the release version of OpenRA (http://open-ra.org/download/) and run it. On the first run the game will ask whether you want to download a stripped down version automatically (this is recommended as there currently is no use for the FMV) or copy them from the original game CD. Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn have been released by EA Games as freeware. You can download the CD-Images:

• Tiberian Dawn:
  • GDI Disc
  • NOD Disc
• Red Alert:
  • Allies Disc
  • Soviet Disc

Note for users of 64-bit Windows: The original RA installer is 16-bit and so won’t run on 64-bit operating systems. This can be worked around by using the Red Alert Setup Manager. Make sure you apply the no-CD protection fix so all the files needed are installed to the hard drive.

We run in windowed mode by default, even at “full screen”, because the debugging experience is much nicer (you don’t lose your device when you Alt+Tab, etc)