Service Depot: Fully Updating The First Decade

Command & Conquer: The First Decade came with a few problems of its own, and some games have problems with running on modern operating systems, much like their retail predecessors. CNCNZ.com hosts The First Decade unofficial patch 1.03, but some of its fixes are currently outdated and/or are insufficient for today’s systems. This guide will show you how to make the most of your TFD installation.

Although the installer of The First Decade enables you to select the games you wish to install, this guide assumes that you intend to install all of the games that The First Decade compilation contains. You can skip the steps related to the games which you do not wish to install.

Installation

Before proceeding, please note that games will be installed in two stages. The reason for this is because the fixes of Tiberian Sun / Firestorm and Renegade do not operate well with the fixes already in place in the unofficial patch for The First Decade.

  1. Make sure that the DirectX 9.0c end-user runtime libraries are installed by these guidelines before proceeding.
  2. Insert the The First Decade disc into the DVD drive.
  3. Exit the autorun, and run setup.exe on the disc as administrator. (not applicable to Windows XP).
  4. Follow the instructions on the screen. Choose a custom installation, and for the time being, select the following games to install: Command & Conquer Gold / Covert Operations, C&C: Red Alert / Counterstrike / The Aftermath, C&C: Red Alert 2 / Yuri’s Revenge, and C&C: Generals / Zero Hour.
  5. Apply the TFD unofficial patch 1.03 rev4.
  6. Patch C&C Gold with the latest version of Nyerguds’ unofficial 1.06 patch.
  7. Patch C&C: Red Alert with the latest version of FunkyFr3sh’s setup. Choose the following option: “Patch existing installation”.
  8. For C&C: Red Alert 2/Yuri’s Revenge, install the latest version of the CnCNet YR client.
  9. Patch C&C: Generals/Zero Hour with GenPatcher. What this does is fix most currently known issues, including the DirectX 8.1 warning, restoring the missing registry entries, removing some loose files that may cause desyncs and more. It also includes GenTool.
  10. Run the setup on The First Decade disc again, and this time tick the rest of the games (C&C: Tiberian Sun / Firestorm, C&C: Renegade). DO NOT un-tick the games that are already installed.
  11. Patch C&C: Tiberian Sun with the latest version of FunkyFr3sh’s setup.
  12. Patch C&C: Renegade with the latest version of Tiberian Technologies scripts.
  13. Set all games’ executables to run as administrator. (not applicable to Windows XP)
  14. Additionally, set C&C: Generals and Zero Hour executables to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP Service Pack 3.

Alternate renderers

Explanation

For many old games which used DirectDraw to display graphics, including C&C games from Tiberian Dawn through Yuri’s Revenge, there have been problems when running on Windows Vista and newer due to deteriorating support for that library.

Multiple custom-made display wrappers have appeared over the years. They differ in their implementation, and perform better in different games and for different hardware.

Usage

Switch to any of the following alternatives by extracting them to the game directories:

For Yuri’s Revenge and on Windows 11 specifically, if not using DDrawCompat, an additional step is required. In the compatibility settings for gamemd.exe, ra2md.exe and YURI.exe, enable the “Use legacy display ICC color management” option.

Setting custom display settings

Apply your desired settings (resolution, graphics levels…) from the following executables that you now have in the games’ directories:

  • Command & Conquer Gold: CCConfig.exe
  • C&C: Red Alert: RedAlertConfigFull.exe
  • C&C: Tiberian Sun: TSConfig.exe
  • C&C: Red Alert 2 & Yuri’s Revenge: CnCNetYRLauncher.exe
  • C&C: Renegade: WWConfig.exe

Resolutions for Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2 and Yuri’s Revenge can be changed manually by opening sun.ini, ra2.ini and ra2md.ini, respectively, in a text editor and changing the ScreenWidth and ScreenHeight values under the [Video] section (may require a first launch if they are not present).

Alternatively for RA2/YR, go to the game’s main menu and type HIRES; after a sound is played, go to the game’s options and choose a resolution from there.

Multiplayer

For online multiplayer, please refer to the following services:

For games from Tiberian Dawn through Yuri’s Revenge, LAN will not work by default on modern systems as they rely on the deprecated IPX protocol. Solutions:

Notes

C&C: Generals and Zero Hour require limiting the framerate to 30 FPS (Frames Per Second) to avoid game speed issues – this is done by calling the GenTool menu by hitting the Insert key while in the games’ main menus. GenTool also enables a wider range of resolutions in the games’ option menus.

Addendum – manually fixing Zero Hour registry files

Use this method if you’re an advanced user and do not want to use GenPatcher.

  1. Open the Registry Editor (regedit) in Windows.
  2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Electronic Arts\EA Games\Command and Conquer Generals Zero Hour. If you are not using a 64-bit system, just remove “WOW6432Node” from this path.
  3. Enter the following values to the folder (not the ergc subfolder!):
    String InstallPath – set it to your Zero Hour directory
    String Language – set it to your game language in lower-case (TFD was only released in English and German)
    Hex DWORD MapPackVersion – set it to 10000
    String Proxy – leave it blank
    Hex DWORD Version – set it to 10004
  4. Close the Registry Editor.

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