I wrote a tutorial on how to get Command and Conquer (also known as Command and Conquer Tiberium Dawn) Gold Edition running with Lutris. I hope it is useful for someone wanting to get the game to run on their system. The tutorial also makes sure you have the latest 1.06c patch by nyerguds installed.
If you don’t have the Command and Conquer: First Decade DVD, the first Command and Conquer game is freeware and instructions on how to download the game and associated FMVs can be found here.
There is also an installer available on Lutris written nearly 3 years ago, which installs the game, FMV pack and cnc_ddraw DLL in one package. I have not tested this installer, so I am not sure if it works.
Any relatively recent version of Wine should have no problems with the game, you don’t have to use version 6.21 like I do in this tutorial.
Good luck, Commander!
1. Mount the Command & Conquer: The First Decade DVD/ISO Image
- Mount the DVD/ISO image in your distribution (usually by inserting the DVD into your drive or right-clicking the ISO and selecting Mount).
2. Game Configuration in Lutris Part 1
- Download the latest Wine version via Runners → Wine and clicking the Manage Versions button that appears after hovering or selecting the option.
- Click Add Game (the little plus mark in the top left-hand corner).
- Fill in the Game info information for the game (selecting Runner as Wine (Runs Windows games)).
- Under Game options → Executable, Select the Setup.exe file in your mounted First Decade DVD or ISO.
- Under Game options → Prefix architecture, select 32-bit (it makes Wine work with older games much better).
- You can alter other options like Working directory and Wine prefix if you would like to change where the game is installed. Otherwise you can leave them as default.
- Tip - hovering over the text of each option gives you an explanation on how it works.
- Click Save and then Play to run Setup.exe.
3. Open the Command & Conquer Installer
- The Wine Prefix will then be configured (download the Wine Mono and Wine Gecko installs when prompted).
- The installer opens, select which games from the installer you would like and type in the relevant keys for each game.
- Click Register Later when the EA prompt appears.
- The installer will now close - you are done.
4. Install nyerguds v1.06c Revision 3 Patch
- Download the patch from here (feel free to give a donation if you wish).
- Once downloaded, go back to Lutris, select the Command and Conquer entry you installed and click the upward facing arrow next to the Wine icon and click Run EXE inside Wine prefix.
- Select the cc95v106c_r3_u6.exe file you downloaded and Lutris will then run the patch. The patch installer should automatically detect where your game is installed in your Wine Prefix. Click through the options to finish the installer.
5. Patch Configuration
- Once the installer is done, it should present you with the basic Command & Conquer Config settings.
- The game runs at 1024x640, however the patch will stretch the game to 1024x768 by default (you can change this under Advanced Options).
- Under Renderer, select Direct3D 9 and click OK.
- Clicking Advanced Options allows you to set custom resolutions, scaling, game options, sound options, hotkeys and more.
- Once everything is done, click OK and close the config menu.
6. Game Configuration in Lutris Part 2
- Open Lutris again, select the game and either press the upward facing arrow next to the Play button then Configure or right-click → Configure to edit the game’s options.
- Go to Game options → Executable and change the executable from the Setup.exe we used before in the mounted DVD/ISO, to your Command & Conquer executable (C&C95.exe) in your Wine Prefix’s installation directory.
- Click* Save*.
- Click the upward facing arrow next to the Wine icon and then Winetricks.
- Under Winetricks, navigate to the following: Select the default wineprefix → Install a Windows DLL or component → check cnc_ddraw and press OK.
- Close Winetricks.
- Optional - while you shouldn’t have had any issue installing the cnc_ddraw DLL, you can check by clicking the upward arrow next to the Wine icon and then Wine configuration. Once the Wine configuration dialog box has opened, click Libraries and check that * ddraw(native, builtin) is in the Existing overrides box. If not, go back to Winetricks and see if the box next to cnc_ddraw has been checked.
- Click Play to start the game.
Tip - a good idea is to go to the game’s configuration options in Lutris → System options and check Restore resolution on game exit, so your screen resolution doesn’t stay at the same resolution as the game.
Additional Observations
- You can run the game without the cnc_ddraw DLL, however the game will crash intermittently within 5/10 minutes. In addition:
- The videos will also display in the top-left corner of the screen.
- Graphical artefacts will appear if you set the game to anything other than 1024x768 resolution.
- With my setup, selecting any renderer in the patch’s Command & Conquer Config that is not Direct3D 9, will cause the game to crash with an Error - unable to set video mode message.
- Setting the game with a resolution lower than 800x600 will cause the game to display a memory address error or simply leave a black window on the screen with nothing in it.
- Attempted to install the game using older Wine builds 1.7.16, 1.9.20 and 1.9.22-staging, but the Command & Conquer installer would appear as a thin straight line and I could not progress any further.
My Setup
Distribution: Pop!_OS 21.10
Kernel: 5.15.8-76051508-generic
DE: GNOME 40.5
Windowing System: X11
CPU: Intel i7-6700HQ (8) @ 3.500GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M
Nvidia Drivers: 470.86
In Closing
I hope the tutorial was helpful. If you have any tips/advice on how to improve the tutorial or how the markdown language used, please let me know.