Command And Conquer Red Alert 2 Running Slow

[Gaetane Eary]

Okso after having problems with the steam version of C&C3 and Kane's wrath i decided to buy the Ultimate collector's edition of Command and conquer games. I installed all of the games and then downloaded the launcher mod and Tiberium essence for C&C3 and gave it a spin. It works well on Ultra settings and at Full FPS. But then comes Kane's wrath. I start playing the first mission at same Settings as C&C3. The Game is slow it moves at a snail pace. I tried one of the skirmish maps and it was also painfully slow. What is going on?

OK yeah my Compatibility goes with at the lowest to Windows 95 so anyway the game works thorugh origin is do i only make the Compatibility changes on the C&C3 launcher that you can use to start up both or do you I have to change the KW launcher's compatibility.

Actually it was something i found from steam but it could be applied for the origin files too. You see I have an Nvidia Geforce GTX 860M as a graphics card and the executable that runs the KW is a ".dat" extension and Uprising has ".game" file extension. The GTX 860M needs an ".exe" file extension otherwise it can't recognize the executable that runs the game even if the LAUNCHER is an ".exe". This means that when the game runs it uses the graphics card integrated into the processor which is an inferior compared to the 860M.

Next R-click your desktop and choose NVIDIA control panel from the menu, then click "Manage 3d settings", click the "program settings" tab in the right field and click "Add" to the right in the first field. The game is not in the list here so you'll have to browse our way to it, in other words, click "browse" and find the file we just made (ra3ep1_1.0), the location should be the same. Double click it!

First: Find the cnc3ep1.dat file. R-click the game in steam>properties>Local files tab>browse local files open "RetailExe" folder>open 1.12 folder> there is the cnc3ep1.dat file which is the real executable for the game, the other file is just a launcher.Second:Make a text document file and rename it to "cnc3ep1.dat.exe" in the 1.12 folder.Third:R-click your desktop and choose NVIDIA control panel from the menu, thenclick "Manage 3d settings", click the "program settings" tab in the right fieldand click "Add" to the right in the first field. The game is not in the list here so we'll have to browse our way to it, in other words, click "browse" and find the file we just made (cnc3ep1.dat.exe), the default location is:C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\Command and Conquer 3 -Kane's Wrath\RetailExe\1.12\(cnc3ep1.dat.exe)Double click it!!Fourth:Back in the NVIDIA control panel at point 2, we need to choose the GPU we want to use. From the menu choose "High-performance NVIDIA processor".Then click Apply to the lower right... (almost there :)) Finally:Go back to where we made the file and delete the file we made, yes delete it!You can now start the game and enjoy the full power of your fancy Nvidia GPU.PS:This will also work for any Red alert 3 (ra3_1.12.game ) and RA3 - Uprising (ra3ep1_1.0.game), just apply the same concept as mentioned in this post.

I got my laptop just under a year ago and it seemed ok but I've recently had problems with it running ridiculously slowly. I thought it was a problem with the Internet at first because it seemed to work for 1 or 2 minutes then stop doing anything, but it is taking ages to do anything, even something like changing the desktop background in fact I have to give up with the majority of things as they get stuck on 'not responding' and don't go any further. Anything like MediaPlayer won't even open.

I've not got loads of files - just a few photos and a few word files pretty much on there, as well as my music and have checked and there is plenty of space left on the hard drive, plenty of RAM so it doesn't seem to be a capacity problem.

I've removed any programs that I didn't think I needed or which might be causing a problem including the Macafee and Norton that came with it, the AVG free I had installed and something called Pukki which I thought may be the problem as it appeared just before the problem started but it didn't make any difference.

I also ran the malware detector - windows defender that is on the laptop and it didn't detect anything. I have tried to run the Malwarebytes software and also Avast but the laptop doesn't seem to have enough 'energy' to complete the command, i.e. I can get to the Malwarebytes homepage but when I click to download the free version it gets stuck on 'not responding'

I did have a problem with the screen going blank on login about a month or so ago but I managed to solve that using Youtube, although I don't know if it could be connected to the problems I am having now. I think a possible reason at the time seemed to be a worn out graphics card (not that I really know what that means) but it seemed to run ok after that until this sudden slowness a couple of weeks ago.

I took some more screen prints while it was stuck on not responding in case they shed any more light - when I took the screen prints before it was when I had just turned the laptop on and not asked it to do anything. I did notice when I restart or shut down the laptop I get a message 'Task Host Window is stopping background tasks' - this came up before but I thought it meant task manager and I had just forgot to close that but presume it means something different?

That message you get isn't anything to worry about. Some background stuff sometimes doesn't close right when you're shutting down & this is the computer just telling you that it's forcing them to shut down more or less. It happens to me from time to time, used to happen on my old computer all the time.

HDD - Your hard drive may be showing signs of failing. If this is the case then a fresh install of windows isn't really going to fix anything. I'd recommend trying the hard drive in another computer if possible. Something else you could do to determine if its hardware or software is split your hard drive into 2 partitions & try installing a fresh installation of windows onto the second partition. This method does require you to have approx. 10GB of free space. From there you can boot to the new installation & see if the problem persists and if it does then it's probably hardware related. Doing it this way just means you won't loose all the files & stuff you currently have on your computer, and if it did work it's easy to copy them from the old partition to the new one, you just delete the old one once done & you have all your space back.

Overheating - Maybe your fan isn't running normal? Another thing I've dealt with on one of my computers before was the thermal paste on the CPU going bad. The thermal paste is really important because it transfers heat from the CPU through the heatsink stuff to be cooled down by the fan. Without it the computer can overheat & possibly become slow. Mine did get slower when I had the problem but it would also shut down on it's own due to it being too hot, had some kind of safety shut down for high temps.

Hi thanks very much for your time and advice but that just sounds a bit too technical for me to attempt, and I don't want to do any damage to invalidate the warranty or anything. Looks like I'm going back to Currys!

For my upcoming book about RTS games, I took it upon myself to replay the entire Command & Conquer series, as I had only played bits and pieces of them back in the day. Returning to the game that defined the entire genre at the time was interesting, as it also meant going back to a different time in game design and game presentation. Whether or not the games hold up to this day is debatable, but the style is certainly timeless.

The original game (Command & Conquer, known colloquially as C&C) holds fond memories for many RTS fans, being the one that truly kickstarted the genre. Even after 25 years, the style of the game has gone from cutting edge to now a time capsule of '90s FMV and animation. The live-action scenes may be a bit hokey, but that's part of the charm.

The faction design may not have the same depth that StarCraft would achieve and set the standard for, but it does a good enough job here given the challenge of the AI. GDI units are stronger, but in a game built around counters, being able to field more units than your opponent is the greater advantage.

In a funny way, while NOD is technically weaker with all their units, they make up for it thanks to the AI and pathing in the game. You are allowed to run over infantry with heavier vehicles, and this completely breaks the balance of the game in favor of Nod. The medium tanks by GDI are too slow to reliably run over units and the scatter command can get away from them, but not with light NOD tanks. Most of my wins in the game came from a mass army of light tanks running down all the infantry, including the anti-vehicle ones. This is important as the AI for units is a bit weird when it comes to moving and shooting. Flamethrowers and grenadiers will destroy enemy infantry but require them to get close enough to target and fire on them.

The mission design goes all over with a focus on baseless missions and those when you do have to build. The AI is very aggressive when it comes to rebuilding, and your goal in every situation is to destroy the command yard to take it out.

With GDI, you must take on several bases with anti-infantry defenses without any strong vehicles, while NOD must deal with airstrikes with some of the worst anti-air defenses in the entire series. With these early games, you're not really playing a RTS battle, but a RTS puzzle that you need to solve in order to win. The GUI here, even in the remaster is still a bit clunky compared to modern examples, and not having the ability to attack-move will be one of the biggest things to get past throughout the game. The music still rocks with many classic tracks, and if you're looking for the best possible version, then definitely play the remaster released in 2020.

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