I get a blank screen when I try to play command and conquer

[ASDFUSasasdfea]

I bought the CnC ultimate collection, and now when ever I try to play it i get the launcher, I select the game or add on I want to play and a giant black screen pops up.  I have cleared the cache, I have run the origin client as an administrator, and tried to start the game as an administrator.  I have given the service its own administrator account which I have since retracted because frankly you don't need that kind of access to my computer.  When I check the event viewer I see application stopped interacting with windows... which leads me back to thinking its a running privileges issue but I feel like I have addressed that pretty thoroughly.  I am running windows 8.1 and I submitted a help ticket.. and no surprise ... no response.  I have looked at other forum topics along the same lines (mostly referencing what I described and tried to address above as the cause).

I am running a quad core processor, 8 gb of RAM,

Integrated graphics card 4 Gb of ram

nothing spectacular, but more than adequate to run games that are 6-20 years old.  I got RA2 to work for about an hour, now I get the same black screen.  This is my first experience with Origin, honestly I am just trying to play the game I paid for. 

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@ASDFUSasasdfea

The Ultimate Collection is quite a lot of games. You mentioned RA2, but besides that, you never mentioned exactly which Command & Conquer game you are talking about. Do you mean the very first game?

Command & Conquer 1, Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Sun have all been upgraded with community-created unofficial patches that fix a lot of their bugs and compatibility problems. For Red Alert 2 there's a more general patch that solves a lot of its graphics problems. You can find them here:

Command & Conquer 1:

• Nyerguds' C&C95 v1.06c revision 3 patch (which also adds bonus missions originally exclusive to the Playstation and Nintendo 64 versions of the game)

Red Alert 1:

• Funkyfr3sh's automatic Red Alert 1 patcher/installer (The thread also has briefing videos for the expansion missions, converted from the Playstation version of the game)
• Nyerguds' main.mix cleanup for TFD/TUC (Not really needed, but cleans up about a gigabyte of unnecessary files in the RA1 folder. Unpack in the game folder, run "patch_main.bat", let it finish, and then delete the files you extracted.)

Tiberian Sun:

• Funkyfr3sh's Tiberian Sun patch

Red Alert 2:

• The graphics system patch DDWrapper is known to solve a multitude of graphics problems, including the "black screen" issue.
  Download the zip file and extract "ddraw.dll" and "aqrit.cfg" into your game folder. Then, open the configuration file "aqrit.cfg" in Notepad, change the "ForceDirectDrawEmulation" option to 1, save the file, and try running the game again.
• If you still have problems with RA2 even after this, I advise installing the CnCNet installer for RA2/YR. It comes with a bunch of automatic fixes, and has a configuration tool which offers more choices in graphics fixes than just DDWrapper, so if one doesn't work you can just try if some of the other options do the trick.

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@ASDFUSasasdfea

The Ultimate Collection is quite a lot of games. You mentioned RA2, but besides that, you never mentioned exactly which Command & Conquer game you are talking about. Do you mean the very first game?

Command & Conquer 1, Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Sun have all been upgraded with community-created unofficial patches that fix a lot of their bugs and compatibility problems. For Red Alert 2 there's a more general patch that solves a lot of its graphics problems. You can find them here:

Command & Conquer 1:

• Nyerguds' C&C95 v1.06c revision 3 patch (which also adds bonus missions originally exclusive to the Playstation and Nintendo 64 versions of the game)

Red Alert 1:

• Funkyfr3sh's automatic Red Alert 1 patcher/installer (The thread also has briefing videos for the expansion missions, converted from the Playstation version of the game)
• Nyerguds' main.mix cleanup for TFD/TUC (Not really needed, but cleans up about a gigabyte of unnecessary files in the RA1 folder. Unpack in the game folder, run "patch_main.bat", let it finish, and then delete the files you extracted.)

Tiberian Sun:

• Funkyfr3sh's Tiberian Sun patch

Red Alert 2:

• The graphics system patch DDWrapper is known to solve a multitude of graphics problems, including the "black screen" issue.
  Download the zip file and extract "ddraw.dll" and "aqrit.cfg" into your game folder. Then, open the configuration file "aqrit.cfg" in Notepad, change the "ForceDirectDrawEmulation" option to 1, save the file, and try running the game again.
• If you still have problems with RA2 even after this, I advise installing the CnCNet installer for RA2/YR. It comes with a bunch of automatic fixes, and has a configuration tool which offers more choices in graphics fixes than just DDWrapper, so if one doesn't work you can just try if some of the other options do the trick.