Minor Game Issus

[StandSure90]

Hello all, running into an issue I have all the games form the ultimate collection up and running however I'm having minor issues...

For C&C and RA 1 whenever I exit the game I get a black square in the top left of my desktop and it prevents me from doing anything whatsoever, I have to signout of windows and then sign back in for my desktop to return to normal.

only other issue is TS and FS the menu lags, I select campaign and so on fine no issues like the menu buttons not being there and so forth, but then it just takes forever to load a game or go from one menu to another.

All games are playable no issues there, I believe it may be resolution related  my laptop screen is 1366X768. 

Im running windows 8.1

any help or advice would be appreciated.

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@StandSure90

• Iran is actually the nickname of the person who did most of the fixes in the game. I advise you to go to the forum of CnCNet with any actual issues you may have; it's where most of the people involved hang out nowadays.

• The C&C95 graphical glitches are all explained in the manual provided with the patch, a file called "cc95v106c_r3_en.rtf" in the game folder. The glitches have no impact on gameplay at all, and disappear completely by just opening and closing the options menu. It's caused by the fact the mission is smaller than the resolution you're playing on, so it's indirectly caused by the high resolution patch, but since the maps get larger in the later missions, on resolutions around 1024x768 (I guess 1280x720 fits better on most people's PCs nowadays) it should only happen on the first few missions.

• Might be better to just install the freeware version and not get Origin involved where it doesn't have to be, yes. Be sure to take the "Single player missions" download under "All downloads" on the CnCNet page.

[Nyerguds]

@StandSure90

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)
  Note that this patch fixes two quite common and completely fatal game crashes (top-of-map reconnaissance crash, stealth crash), so installing it is strongly advised.

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.

[StandSure90]

I have updated the games with the patches below.

The issue I have now is that RA1 crashed and said send to Iran for debugging, made me laugh a little, so I've had to uninstall then reinstall.

The CnC 95 I applied the patch you supplied below and it caused the game to show random troops and glitched movements of enemy vehicles inside the shroud.

I haven't tried the TS FS just yet, but I think if the issues persist Ill have to uninstall them via origin then reinstall via CnCnet. 

thank you for you reply bud.

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@StandSure90

• Iran is actually the nickname of the person who did most of the fixes in the game. I advise you to go to the forum of CnCNet with any actual issues you may have; it's where most of the people involved hang out nowadays.

• The C&C95 graphical glitches are all explained in the manual provided with the patch, a file called "cc95v106c_r3_en.rtf" in the game folder. The glitches have no impact on gameplay at all, and disappear completely by just opening and closing the options menu. It's caused by the fact the mission is smaller than the resolution you're playing on, so it's indirectly caused by the high resolution patch, but since the maps get larger in the later missions, on resolutions around 1024x768 (I guess 1280x720 fits better on most people's PCs nowadays) it should only happen on the first few missions.

• Might be better to just install the freeware version and not get Origin involved where it doesn't have to be, yes. Be sure to take the "Single player missions" download under "All downloads" on the CnCNet page.

[StandSure90]

Just an update all the games work fine without having to do anything after install from origin, it was just a one off thing, all I done to fix it was restart the laptop, my guess it is because I'm on windows 8.1 currently until my PC is back up and running which is windows 10, at which point I'll probably have to patch them and so forth.

Thanks for your help and time

[EA_Darko]

@StandSure90 Great to hear that it's working for you. Enjoy the game. 

[Nyerguds]

@StandSure90

Well, just a small word of warning... if you don't patch C&C95, those two fatal game crashes I mentioned on it are pretty much unavoidable in later missions.

You can somewhat avoid the recon bug by simply not going near the top of the map, ever, with units with lots of sight range, though in GDI mission 6 this is really hard to do; there's a reason this was often dubbed the "Commando bug" before we figured out its exact cause.

The other one will just take you by surprise whenever you scroll over a stealth tank. Especially on the GDI campaign there's very little you can do against that since they'll just pop up with no warning, since that's what Stealth Tanks do, and for Nod you constantly see the effect that causes the crash, so unless you're ridiculously careful with scrolling over them, the only way to avoid it is to never build them.

Of course, if you really want to avoid the minor refresh problems in the first game... just switch the resolution back to 640x480 after installing the patch.