Generals Zero Hour Multiplayer
Sandra Grady
Has anybody got the steam version of Zero Hour to work with GenTool? When installing GenTool and starting the game through steam mine just has a black screen. Works fine without GenTool but without it can't play any multiplayer. Any suggestions on how to make it run?
I got it to run after downloading and running GenPatcher. I can play single player fine. I'm following up on this post now as I have created an account to play Online but I get an error when logging in, it says Registry is corrupted and has been altered. Then the online menu kicks me back to the main menu. I've searched around through the forums as best I can and looked into other things pertaining to editing the registry, moving the install location, editing the path, and the pinned topic with the same issue related to Red Alert 3, but there is nothing in that post about C&C Generals/ZH. I'm assuming it has something to do with the key, I haven't been able to find a work around. Hopefully someone can direct me to a solution.
is this a new problem with gentool? i tried to play tonight and got a black screen too. I play all the time and this is a first. I uninstalled everything and reinstalled and still black screen with gentool. (did you mean ea games not steam - because there was an update to generals on ea and i think that is what the problem is)
Mine completely crashed to white screen Friday aft after working fine earlier in the day. EA App pushed an "upgrade" and I uninstalled, reinstalled,cleared cache, ran the repair app and got to the point where I can now launch game from app but get the following error message when I tried an connect through multiplayer mode. " cannot coonect to Comand & Conquer EA servers check internet connection". Several chats to EA help and a number of assigned case numbers with no success. I suspect a bug from app upgrade. Wish they would acknowledge the issue an are working on it as supposed to waisting erveryone's time.
When my Dad plays it on our old HP PC, it runs perfectly fine. But when I play multiplayer on our new HP Pavillion, (which is meant for gaming) it has this issue. I think the computer just runs too fast???
It is even more efficient to use the Framerate-limiter in Gentool. This way you limit the Framerate and thus prevent this issue from occuring. Set the FPS at 30 for normal game speed. Gentool can be downloaded from here:
Ok so I wanted to get back into this, so I decided to give GenTool a go. I like what they've done, but the fact the tool stops the camera height fixes from working in a multiplayer game makes it absolutely useless. The game is totally unplayable when you can see a total of 2 buildings on screen. I wasted a few hours on this thinking I was doing something wrong but I final found out it seems to be by design.. I'm guessing they did it to force an even playing field in multiplayer matches? Happy to be told I'm missing something here..but if I'm right - it's utterly useless.
I'm going to stick with my way for now. For anyone reading this - this is what I've done:
1. Install Zero hour from Origin (C&C Ultimate Collection)
2. Google for GameData.ini with the camera height fix and add it to install directory "\Data\INI"
5. Finally to stop the frame rate issue, i found the Nvidia tool didn't seem to be working so I've installed something else to limit the frame rate to 30FPS (RivaTunder Statistics Server)
-tips/limit-fps-for-a-game-on-windows-10/
Me and my friend have Command & Conquer: Generals and we want to play it using wireless. My laptop is the server. I create an ad hoc wireless network and enable network discovery and sharing on both, so the computers can find each other. I also disable firewall on my laptop and his.
Once you're both on the same network of some sort and you both have identical versions it should be as simple as creating a game in the LAN lobby. You or your friend should be able to see the game on lobby list.
I was able to play on LAN using this method: "just download a client from and add some servers to your list and you will be able to play zero hour on the "multiplayer>>networks" option."Source: =20080211225847AAoydgL
My experience with a lot of gamenights (multiple games with multiple OS platforms) over the years learned that a wireless network will always cause connection troubles with one or more PCs or laptops. The best way is to connect the old fashioned way: ethernet cables with one or more switches. Routers will also work but can also cause trouble.
INSTALLATION -
I pulled a version of the game that was correctly working from an older windows laptop and used a registry entry to tell the machine that the game was installed correctly and enter my 'license key'. I see no reason that installing a new version of the game, via Origin (EA) wouldn't work though.
GOTCHAS -
I had some difficulty getting the game to load, working out which Resolutions would result in a bootable game without throwing directx 8.1 errors by modifying the 'options.ini' file in Document/Command and Conquer Zero Hour. Using the default Macbook res (3456 x 2234) worked, but I couldn't see the mouse at all. I found halving both vertical and horizontal resolutions (1728 x 1117) resulted in a good scale for the game.
NETWORK PLAY -
I have network play between my Mac and another windows PC fully working and I've soak tested them for sometime to check for instabilities. I've also been able to use ZeroTier to get LAN play working over the internet, cross-platform.
Incredible that you managed to get generals running on Apple Silicon. I have tried to get it running again on my Mac for ages.
Since Apple switched from 32-bit to 64-bit I have lost the ability to run what I still consider the best RTS I have ever played.
We really wanted to run the multiplayer option, but the infamous 'Network mismatch' ruins it for us.
I got this game running on Crossover, even with Gentool.
How on earth did you manage to multiplay cross platform with PC users?
You mention Zero Tier... could you explain how you got crossplatform multiplayer running using this service?
We have great experience using Gameranger, but this is not supported on either Apple Silicon or Crossover.
Any help will be greatly appreciated !
Messing with many mods could make your generals zero hour unstable , especially if you leave a file or two int the game's directory after uninstalling it , so I would recommend uninstalling the game completely and re-installing ,and be careful next time while installing/uninstalling mods :)
I was just about to start a new topic, i am getting the "You have encountered a serious error. Serious errors can be caused by many things like viruses, overheated hardware, hardware not supporting the minimum system requirements etc" error , i am runnning windows 7 ultimate 32 bit, i am sure its no the requirments, or virus , it started to give me the problem after i updated to 1.04(which i need to play multiplayer) 1.00 works perfectly, i tried diffrent cracks, reinstalled the game, tried compatibilty mode . Nada. I have no mods installed . Please guys help me , i realy wanna play this game.
I already got some help from MR class, and yasamoka but no luck so far :(
Most important of all...it seems that Zero Hour does not actually have the problem...Generals does. You need to use Uninstall Tool to completely wipe out both games. Then patch Generals to 1.07, patch Zero Hour to 1.04, apply the cracks, and enjoy. Me and Mr.Class always face no problem when we do that, and we have 64-bit Windows 7 (which really screws up some games because of its denying write permissions to the Documents folder where many games store their options and savegames).
Rise of the Reds is a Command and Conquer Generals Zero hour Mod. Some say it's the spiritual sequal to Generals. They have their own multiplayer integrated with the modification. A major thing is you need too make sure you have is your command and conquer generals updated to 1.8 and your generals zero hour to 1.4. Another important thing is after downloading and installing Rise of the reds 1.85 you'll need to download and install the Rise of the Reds 1.86 Patch.
What do you mean, do you not already have Generals? or lost your CD? because if you still have the key I can send you a place to download the data free, but you need to use your own CD key. I don't help out pirates but i understand not paying for a game twice. :)
Darn D: I know origin you can get it for cheap but cheap in the sense you're getting 17 games for like $20 USD. But I hear Origin has it's own little sets of problems I have a disc for The first decade from long time ago. But I do have a spare key for Vanilla Generals from when it came out in '03. If you want it even cheaper though Amazon is always selling old copies so those keys should work on the server since no one else should be on with those keys. Sorry if that wasn't much help.
It's active as far as such an old game goes, depending on the time I've seen no one on. and I've seen 22 people playing. but when you find a game, you can keep playing as long as they wanna keep playing, today I played three games with the same guy in 1v1 and a few other people had a 2v2 going on and a 3v3 comp stomp in another. hope that helped! :D
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