[READ FIRST] Common Issues and Solutions

Good evening everyone,

I’ve been searching the net for answer to my problem, but haven’t been able to find something. Perhaps you guys can help me.

I’ve got a PC and a notebook, both more than enough powerful for the task, and both are connected to a router, the PC via cable, the notebook via WLAN. Both PCs run Windows 7 64-bit (the OS language is German if it matters for the solution).

Now I’m a huge fan of C&C, and some time ago I wanted to relive the legend and do some LAN matches with my buddy, so I’ve bought two pieces of The First Decade from amazon.co.uk. I’ve installed the complete series on both PCs. On each one, I’ve created a C:\My Games\C&C The First.... folders to circumvent any accessing problems which can sometimes occur as I’ve read. On both PCs I only work with the “Administrator” account, so I have full god-admin rights at any moment, so that's not an issue.

After installing, I started Tiberian Sun and Generals and finally Zero Hour once and exit (since I’ve read once that patches are best applied to a game already started once because games sometimes create configuration files or extract files needed to run and otherwise the patch cannot be applied to them, the other C&C don’t matter that much to me for LAN play) and afterwards I’ve installed the latest 1.02 patch on both machines.

Until now everything works fine, when I start a LAN game in Tiberian Sun it all goes well, even with bots. Generals works fine in LAN too when we play without bots (except for some slowdowns that occur when there are big explosions on the screen, who knows why, both machines have specifications that are far beyond the recommended specs). But, when I try to create a match with bots, it all goes dooooown.

What happens: I create a game on computer A, I specify 1 open slot, the other 6 I fill up with AI armies, or only one AI. What happens now, computer B can see the game in the lobby, can join the game lobby and can accept the game. When I try to start the game now on computer A, the countdown for computer B stops at 2 and nothing happens, the background animation keeps running and the load screen on computer A shows up. The loading bar fills completely up on computer A and nothing happens for a few seconds. Then the match starts for computer A while B is still stuck in the game lobby and can only leave it. After 1 minute or so, computer A gets the notification that there was an error with the game and asks if I want to kick computer B.

What’s up with that? It is not the very frequent “Mismatch” error I’ve read about on the net. Both machines have the identical installation, different CD – Keys and can play together without bots, but with bots not????

I've also tried the unofficial Patch 1.03 Rev 4, but that didn't change much.

Can someone help me please?

Best regards,

Hyvinmayvin