They say the classics are the best – and in the case of Command and Conquer: Tiberian Dawn they’d be correct! 26 years on and the game is still going strong. Sure there’s no HD graphics (although this is resolved in the Remastered Collection) but many people out there are playing the freeware version as well as the compilation version which included upgrades to make the game run stably on the latest hardware and version of Windows – theoretically!
Many people (myself included) have now run into a particular problem where the game crashes on save – sometimes seemingly randomly. If you haven’t managed to save successfully recently, this can be mega frustrating!
First, make sure you’re patched!
Make sure you are patched up to at least 1.06c. Make sure you’ve got that installed. You can see the version you are running when you open CnC95.exe on the main menu:
This resolves the main issues for most people.
Next, Check DirectX
Make sure you are running at least Direct X 9.0c. After patching above, this is the next common cause of game crashes in Command and Conquer.
Fiddle with your graphics settings
Inside your installation folder, there is a file called ‘CCConfig.exe’. Have a play with your resolution and graphics levels. Try upping (or downing) them to see if that helps.
Run in Administrator Mode
Go to the properties of the Command and Conquer game launcher executable (CnC95Launcher.exe) and make sure you’ve selected to run in administrator mode:
Check Your CnC95.exe Compatability Properties
Ensure CnC95.exe has compatibility mode enabled for Windows 95 and 8-bit 256 colours (oh, those were the days!)
This should have been auto set by your installer if your using The First Decade or Remastered Collection.
My game save won’t load still!?
Unfortunately, these fixes are going forward. If whilst saving your game it crashed, it’s likely the save is corrupted and trying to load it again will just result in the application crashing again.
Try to rotate your save files and have at least a few different ones on the go – that way, if a save corrupts your file, you’ve at least got a previous, hopefully not-to-long-ago save to go to.
That’s a wrap!
Hopefully now, you’ve resolved your save crashing issues in Command and Conquer: Tiberium Dawn and can relive your youth in peace!
If you’re still encountering issues or have any fixes up your sleeve then by all means please leave them in the comments below!
Happy commanding and conquering!