Replay playback does not use the player's graphics settings

[bobtista]

Prerequisites

• I have searched for similar issues and confirmed this is not a duplicate

Game Version

• Command & Conquer Generals
• Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour
• Other (please specify below)

Bug Description

-replay forces the client to instance 2, and OptionPreferences loads Options_Instance02.ini instead of Options.ini with no fallback. If that file does not exist the preferences are empty and every setting falls back to its code default; if it does exist it holds whatever a previous multi-instance session wrote. Either way the settings configured in the options menu are not the ones used.

This makes replay playback unsuitable for comparing rendering or performance changes, because the configuration under test is not the one that was set.

Reproduction Steps

1. In the options menu, set the static detail level to Very High and quit.
2. Start the game with -replay <file>.
3. Observe the window title reads Instance:02 and the log is written to DebugLogFile_Instance02.txt.
4. The detail level from step 1 is not in effect.

Additional Context

parseReplay calls ClientInstance::setMultiInstance(TRUE) and skipPrimaryInstance(), so getInstanceId() returns 2. OptionPreferences::loadFromIniFile branches on getInstanceId() > 1u and returns without falling back to Options.ini. The instance skipping is deliberate so a replay can run alongside a retail client; it is the missing options fallback that causes this.

[927AVIApolk]

If some settings aren't taken from Options.ini, it means you've set the graphics mode to High, Medium, or Low. When this option is selected, the game takes its settings from the GameLOD.INI file, which contains three parameter settings, rather than from Options.

For particles set in the settings to work correctly, you need to select a custom mode in Options.
StaticGameLOD = Custom

Otherwise,
MaxParticleCount = 2500
will not work correctly based on what's specified in the game settings. This is a pitfall of the engine.

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If the replay isn't displayed correctly, you need to restart the game completely. The replay gets lost if you press "Restart" while viewing the ECS replay. When restarting, the replay cycle may be disrupted and display the data shown in the replay incorrectly. This is based on my observations.