Install and start RED+

RED+ is RED, the Red Faction level editor, with Direct3D 11 rendering and many fixes and additions, most of them to lighting. The package is the editor on its own. It runs from its own folder inside your Red Faction folder and uses the game you already have. It does not touch your maps unless you save them.

What you need

• Windows 10 or 11.
• A graphics card that supports Direct3D 10 or better.
• A working Red Faction 1.20 install, the same one Alpine Faction or Dash Faction runs on.
• The RED.exe of Red Faction 1.20 (North America) in that install. RED+ checks the file and does not start with any other version. Installing Alpine Faction or Dash Faction does not replace RED.exe.

The fallback renderer, which RED+ uses only when the Direct3D 11 renderer cannot be loaded, needs the Microsoft DirectX End-User Runtime, as Alpine Faction does.

Install

1. Open your Red Faction folder, the one with RED.exe in it.
2. Unzip the RED+ archive into that folder. You get a new folder with RedPlus.exe in it. This is the RED+ folder.
3. Keep the RED+ folder as it is, and do not move single files out of it. RED+ looks for all of its files in that one folder.

RED+ also finds the game when the RED+ folder ends up one level deeper, for example inside an extra folder that your unzip tool made.

Put the RED+ folder where you can write files. RED+ keeps its logs and your settings in it.

Start RED+

Double-click RedPlus.exe. It has no window of its own: it starts the editor and closes.

For a desktop shortcut, right-click RedPlus.exe and choose Send to, then Desktop (create shortcut).

The first time you start RedPlus.exe, Windows SmartScreen may stop it. See Antivirus and SmartScreen warnings.

The first start

The first time you start RED+, it makes RED_4gb.exe in your Red Faction folder, next to RED.exe. This is a copy of your own RED.exe that can use up to 4 GB of memory, where RED.exe is limited to 2 GB. RED+ runs the editor from this copy. It is not in the archive: RED+ makes it from your RED.exe, and only if there is no RED_4gb.exe there already.

Apart from RED_4gb.exe, RED+ writes into your Red Faction folder only the textures you import and the files some tools make when you use them. Files RED+ keeps and writes lists them all.

If RED+ cannot write RED_4gb.exe, the editor still starts, from RED.exe with 2 GB, and logs\RedPlus.log in the RED+ folder has a line containing running the editor in 2GB.

How RED+ finds Red Faction

RED+ looks for the game in this order:

1. RF_DIR in redplus.ini, in the RED+ folder.
2. The folder above the RED+ folder, or the one above that, if it has RED.exe in it.
3. The game folder RED+ found on an earlier start, or the one recorded by Dash Faction, the Red Faction installer, Steam, GOG or Alpine Faction.

To point RED+ at the game yourself:

1. Open redplus.ini in the RED+ folder with a text editor.
2. Find the line ;RF_DIR=C:\path\to\Red Faction near the top.
3. Delete the semicolon and put your Red Faction folder after the equals sign, without quotes. For example: RF_DIR=D:\Games\Red Faction
4. Save the file and start RED+ again.

RF_DIR comes first, even when the RED+ folder sits inside a Red Faction folder. logs\RedPlus.log names the folder RED+ used.

Messages at start

These messages appear in a box titled RED+.

RED+ never replaces a RED_4gb.exe it did not make, for example one from an earlier RED+ build. Delete it and RED+ makes its own.

Next, see Where settings live and Testing levels with Play.