Command & Conquer graphics issue

@bestestnamest

Uhh... when you say "the old Command and Conquer" the only game that comes to mind is the very first original. And none of these issues sound like ones I've heard from the original C&C1. And the options.ini stuff is already for Generals, halfway the series; when you talk about the older games I kind of assume you mean the old Westwood generation; the first four.

Also, even the older C&C games up to and including Generals already span a whole decade of different targeted operating systems, so their issues vary very widely, so please specify exactly which issues you have with which games.

That said, 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.

As for the alt-tab issue... general consensus is simply "don't tab out".