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Calebio1997's avatar
Calebio1997
8 years ago

Command & Conquer Generals/ZH Crash on Startup "Serious Error"

I've been trying to work around an issue that many people with the Ultimate Collection seem to be having.  It pertains particularly to Generals and Zero Hour.  After downloading it and installing it, the games' shortcut opens and I choose Generals first (although choosing Zero Hour changes nothing).  The screen flashes to black, seems to revert to the desktop, then the game crashes and gives me the infamous "you have encountered a serious error."  Naturally, I went looking for a solution and found the options.ini fix, which I had used in the past on a previous PC.  However, this time it didn't work.  Running it in any version of Windows XP or Vista did nothing, and neither did running it as an administrator.  Since I've done this a few times before, I tried to exhaust every possible alleyway I knew to go down before contacting EA support (for obvious reasons).  I contacted them last night and was told to go into "msconfig" and safe/clean boot my PC.  I followed those instructions and disabled some programs on startup through msconfig and task manager, to no avail.  Still the same problem.

The only thing about my situation that seems unique from other people's is that after the first attempt on replacing the options.ini file with the correct one, the game still crashes, but with a different error.  That time, the "serious error" switched to a "directx v8 error".  Not sure why that error appears, as I have the most current version of directx.  Anyone else had any success with getting around this problem?  I've attached the crash report files for both games as well.  

My system:

-Toshiba Satellite S55t-A

-Intel core i7-4700MQ

-16GB RAM

-Intel HD Graphics 4600

6 Replies

  • plokite95's avatar
    plokite95
    8 years ago

    @Calebio1997

    You most likely do not have DirectX 9.0c installed on your computer.

    To resolve this, do the following:

    1. Download DirectX 9.0c redistributable from June 2010 from Microsoft’s official website.
    2. Run directx_Jun2010_redist.exe.
    3. Follow the instructions on the screen. This setup will extract the necessary files to the folder of your choosing.
    4. Once the setup closes, open the folder to which you extracted the files.
    5. Run DXSETUP.exe as administrator and follow the instructions on the screen.
    6. Restart your computer.
  • Calebio1997's avatar
    Calebio1997
    8 years ago

    Just tried that.  Seemed promising, but after a few seconds of loading the game (I got to "EA ga-"), it crashed and gave me the "serious error" again.

  • plokite95's avatar
    plokite95
    8 years ago

    Disable Origin In-Game, apply Bibber's fixed launchers and set both Origin and Generals/Zero Hour to run as administrator. Also try setting Generals/Zero Hour to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP3.

  • Calebio1997's avatar
    Calebio1997
    8 years ago

    Sad to say this didn't work either.  I forgot to update the options.ini files in Generals and Zero Hour again after reinstalling last week.  I went through everything you guys have posted and tried it all in sequence, and I'm stuck on a DirectX error, even though I installed 9.0c.  Also, when I update my options.ini files to my PC's max resolution, 1366x768, the game returns to giving me the "serious error".

  • warlordofcrud's avatar
    warlordofcrud
    5 years ago

    Did you ever find a fix?  My issue is identical.  Drives me nuts because it was literal working earlier this week.

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