This README contains instructions for playing Rainbow Six 2: Rogue Spear and its expansions. Instructions may also apply to Rainbow Six 1 as they share the same engine. These instructions have been tested on Windows 10 and 11.
The game and its expansions are no longer available for sale. Instead, they can be downloaded as torrents from archive.org:
C:\tmp
. If this is skipped, the installer will fail with an "insufficient memory" error.C:\tmp\Setup.exe
to use Windows 98 compatibility mode, and run it. Install the game to C:\Rogue Spear
. When prompted by the game, do not install DirectX. When setup completes, you can delete C:\tmp
.ddraw.dll
in C:\Rogue Spear
. This will patch DirectDraw (used by DirectX in-game) to work on modern systems. Version v0.5.1 has been tested and confirmed to work.C:\Rogue Spear\RSConfig.exe
and C:\Rogue Spear\RogueSpear.exe
to change compatibility settings:
C:\Rogue Spear\RSConfig.exe
. Select your GPU and default audio device, and click OK.VideoResolution
from the default (1600x900).Merge
to apply the config.C:\Rogue Spear\RogueSpear.exe
to start the game. The game disc will need to be "mounted" to play the game.At this point, you can run the game. The menu system will only run in 640x480 mode. Once you enter a game, the resolution will increase. To test things out, enter a Terrorist Hunt scenario in the Training mode.
As with Rogue Spear, mount the expansion CDROM and run through the setup.
If Rogue Spear is already installed, expansions will automatically target C:\Rogue Spear\mods
during installation.
C:\Rogue Spear\UrbanOperations.exe
, and apply configuration from the UrbanOpsConfig.reg file.
C:\Rogue Spear\BlackThorn.exe
, and apply configuration from the BlackThornConfig.reg file.C:\Rogue Spear\CovertOperations.exe
, and apply configuration from the CovertOpsConfig.reg file.For a mission to be available in custom mission mode, it must have been completed in campaign mode. In order to get around this, you can import existing save files which have finished the game, instantly unlocking all maps and missions.
First, back up any existing save files in C:\Rogue Spear\data\save
and C:\Rogue Spear\mods\<ModName>\save
.
Then download RogueSpearSaves.zip and extract the contents to your Rogue Spear directory.
This will unlock all missions for Rogue Spear, Urban Operations, and the Classic Missions from Urban Operations.
If desired, you can rename camp0000.cmp
and the camp0000
folder to any number to avoid overwriting your existing saves.
Additionally, you can edit camp0000.cmp
to change the name of the save file (the second line).
Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear unfortunately do not support dedicated servers. They originally used third-party MPlayer.com and The Zone (MSN) for peer-to-peer matchmaking. Playing online also requires at least two players to be connected before the game will start.
Some players use Voobly to provide matchmaking similar to MPlayer, but we were not able to get it working in testing. Instead, we decided to host a LAN game and use Hamachi to bridge our local networks. This also allows us to play the expansions, while Voobly only supports the base game.
MP GAME
in the Options menu.
PLAYER NAME
BEHIND FIREWALL
CONNECTION
to LAN
MP SERVER
in the Options menu.
JOIN PORT
to 2346
USE PASSWORD
Create Game
in the Multiplayer menu.PLAYER
if you want to play or OBSERVER
if you are simply hosting the server.Click Manual Join
in the Multiplayer menu and enter the host's Hamachi IP and port 2346
.