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Agent Khuul

Command & Conquer freezes near end of msn 6

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Hello Fellow C&C Players:

 

My son got me C&C the 1st Decade at Good Will for $10 as a gift. We used to play the old Westwood games on an old Widows 98 based machine and they worked pretty much flawlessly. I thought it would be neat to play them all starting from the first game and watch how the games developed over the years.

 

The problem is that the very first game in the series, Command & Conquer, freezes up when I move the character or a harvester moves automatically near the top of the screen toward the end of the mission. :rolleyes: I get an Error Message and a Microsoft Error Report.

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The Error Message states:

 

Command & Conquer Application Error C&C95.EXE

 

The instruction at 00432421 referenced memory at 0963fd39.

The memory could not be read from.

 

Click OK to terminate application

********************************************************************************

********

 

The 2nd dialog box I get is:

 

Error Signature C&C95.EXE

 

szAppName:C C95.EXE &szAppVer:0.0.0.0 (Note: just empty space between C's)

szModName:hungapp

 

********************************************************************************

********

 

The third dialog box is a Microsoft Error Report which states the file names of the errors occurrences in the Details section:

 

C:DOCUME~1\Owner\Locals~1\Temp\WERS53le.dir00\C&C95.EXE.MDMP

C:DOCUME~1\Owner\Locals~1\Temp\WERS53le.dir00\appcompat.txt

 

********************************************************************************

********

 

I tried EA tech Support but I found them pretty useless for the most part and sending me in circles for answers and proper filing protocol.

 

What I did do that didn't have any effect on crashing over and over again is the following:

 

1) I manually un-installed C&C the 1st Decade and followed EA's written instructions to the letter.

 

2) Before I reinstalled it I made sure everything was turned off that I could turn off.

 

3) I went to our County Library and downloaded a fresh copy of Patch 1.02. This took about 4 minutes compared to 4 hours on dial-up albeit I don't think my 1st patch copy was bad now.

 

4) I installed the entire game and the new copy of Patch 1.02 with everything turned off that I was allowed to.

 

5) I then restarted my computer.

 

6) I then turned ever thing off again and played the game up to the near the end of the sixth mission where you are to the right of the airstrip and near a SAM site. This is where it crashes at and is almost the same place as before in the 1st installation.

 

7) I did purge my Temp and %Temp% file folders according to EA's written instructions right off the bat. The file names would only change just slightly each time it crashed.

 

Here are my PC specs which were asked for in a pinned post:

 

CPU & speed: AMD Athlon XP 2000+, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.7GHz

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6200 Display Memory: 256.0 MB

Memory: 2048MB RAM

Page File: 358MB used, 1875MB available

Motherboard: BIOSTAR System Model: AWRDACPI

Direct X Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode

BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG

Sound Card Description: SB Audigy 2 Audio [C000]

Modem Card Name: SoftV90 Voice Speakerphone Modem

 

Drive C:Drive: Free Space: 15.2 GB, Total Space: 38.2 GB, File System: NTFS

Model: WDC WD400JB-00ETA0

 

Drive D: Free Space: 62.5 GB, Total Space: 76.3 GB, File System: NTFS

Model: WDC WD800JB-00JJA0

 

Drive E: Model: HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH22NP20

Drive F: Model: ATAPI DVDROM 16X

Drive G: Western Digital 40GB in NexStar 3 external HD case-USB 2.0

(Note: This drive is normally turned off when gaming.)

 

If any one knows how to fix :huh: this it would very much appreciated.

 

Regards,

 

from a more then middle age game player

Agent Khuul

 

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Hi Agent Khuul. Welcome to CNCNZ. :)

 

I would recommend you to use the unofficial TFD patch which is available at cnp.cncnz.com. I believe it fixes several different crashes in the original C&C, as well as allowing you to play with a higher resolution.

 

If that don't work, I don't know what will.

 

Enjoy replaying the C&C games.

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If patch 1.03 didn't work, I would probably check the C&C and Red Alert directories for a config EXE (which I cannot remember the name of). It allows you to modify resolutions and color schemes to force 256 colors and whatnot. I've had that help, but if you have a dedicated video card, which you do, you can run into problems with video playback. However, seems you haven't run into that yet, but you should be aware.

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Ah yes, the dreaded top of the screen bug. Try those patches that recover and Tore mentioned. I'm pretty sure one of them fixes that particular bug.

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TFD 1.03 does that, but C&C 1.06b rev 2 is a godsend. I really need to install the old school shiznits and give them another play through.

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I worked on a post for quite some time and inadvertently hit the backspace key, I think, and lost my whole post. I even had Spell Check done! All I had to do was remove on out of place apostrophe and I lost it all. The step was to click on "Post" my missive. Anyway thanks for your help. Will let you all know if I get it to work.

 

Agent Khuul,

 

PS: your site posting app might need a little work.

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I worked on a post for quite some time and inadvertently hit the backspace key, I think, and lost my whole post. I even had Spell Check done! All I had to do was remove on out of place apostrophe and I lost it all.

 

PS: your site posting app might need a little work.

If you click outside of the message field, then hit backspace, it equates to hitting the 'back' button on your browser. Not really the fault of the posting app.

 

Sometimes clicking 'forward' will return you to your message with no harm done.

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Guest Stevie_K
Sometimes clicking 'forward' will return you to your message with no harm done.

 

As a result of experience, I know that the newest versions of Google Chrome and Firefox is able to do that.

 

Regarding the top-screen-crash, I have had it as well. The link Recover posted leads to the unofficial patch that fixed it for me.

 

Good luck getting it to work. The game is worth the trouble in my opinion.

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after downloading the TFD 1.03 patch you should also get the 1.06b rev2 patch for C&C1: http://www.cnc-comm.com/community/index.ph...;sa=view;down=6

 

TFD 1.03 includes only 1.06b rev1.

 

Tore:

 

I read on the download site that Patch 1.06b r2 is for the Command and Conquer Gold edition. They didn't have "rev1" listed. Will that work in the First Decade game pack?

 

This is the web-site where I found Patch 1.06b r2: http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cnc95upd/cc95p106/

 

It apparently will work on the 1st Decade game pack. I did download Patch 1.03 and my game does work now, as I finished mission 6 with the Commando at the top of the screen and blew up the airstrip. The spoken words of the computer generated character was different and the resolution is awesome. Do you really think that Patch 1.06b r2 is worth the effort if I got it to work already? I wouldn't want to screw it up if it is working OK.

 

I also figured out how I lost my in depth post I worked on so long for this forum. When I hit the backspace key I wasn't in the editor part of the forum. I had just closed my little ABC SpellCheck app, which I use because I can't spell or type. Anyway, when I hit the backspace key it was interpreted as to go back to the forums page and not to delete that pesky out of place apostrophe. Well, hopefully I will learn from my mistakes.

 

I did get my game working and I wanted to thank you all for your kind assistance.

 

Regards,

 

Agent Khuul

 

 

 

 

 

If you click outside of the message field, then hit backspace, it equates to hitting the 'back' button on your browser. Not really the fault of the posting app.

 

Sometimes clicking 'forward' will return you to your message with no harm done.

 

 

Nmenth:

 

I tried that hitting the forward key but the editing box was all blank; I lost it all. I did get my game work'n with Patch 103. Do you all think is would be worth installing "Patch 1.06b r2" if I got it work'n OK now?

 

Agent Khuul

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I tried that hitting the forward key but the editing box was all blank; I lost it all.

Well you can't win them all...

 

I did get my game work'n with Patch 103. Do you all think is would be worth installing "Patch 1.06b r2" if I got it work'n OK now?

Probably.

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Seeing as I'm the one who made that neat little thing called C&C95 patch 1.06, I'm pretty sure it's worth installing the latest version, yes :P

Revision 1 contains a rather nasty bug on maps that have a certain tree (internal name "T13") on it; these trees get messed up when saving the game, and that crashes the game when it tries to show these messed up trees on the radar minimap. My fault, happened when I implemented the RA1 snow theater into the game, hence why I immediately fixed it in the next revision.

 

So yes, it's strongly advised to use revision 2, and it's a pity the 1.03 patch was never updated with it.

The full version history can be found on my site, here:

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cnc95u...html#changelist

 

btw, you can click on my signature image to see how the development of the next patch, v1.06c, is coming along.

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Seeing as I'm the one who made that neat little thing called C&C95 patch 1.06, I'm pretty sure it's worth installing the latest version, yes :P

Revision 1 contains a rather nasty bug on maps that have a certain tree (internal name "T13") on it; it messes up the trees when saving the game, and subsequently crashes when the radar minimap tries to show these messed up trees on the radar minimap. My fault, happened when I implemented the RA1 snow theater into the game, hence why I immediately fixed it in the next revision.

 

So yes, it's strongly advised to use revision 2, and it's a pity the 1.03 patch was never updated with it.

The full version history can be found on my site, here:

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cnc95u...html#changelist

 

btw, you can click on my signature image to see how the development of the next patch, v1.06c, is coming along.

 

 

Nyerguds:

 

Thanks for personally replying to my question. It is an honor to actually have a conversation with an actual game writer/coder such as your self. :thumbsup: Thanks for the info on the Patch 106b r2. I also checked out the rest of them and I am going to add C&C TFD Patch 1.01, then TFD C&C95RA1 Full CleanUp(v1.0), then Nyerguds' TFD Red Alert main.mix clean up, and then install TFD Patch 106.b r2. Thanks again for the kind and generous assistance, as it is much appreciated.

 

I did check out what you're doing on Patch 106c and I am really impressed with your ability to accomplish all that! We TFD player will be in awesome amazement when you get Patch 106c finished and published. You really do great work and get our TFD game packs to do it, too!

 

This is somewhat off topic but I was wondering where is EA Tech Support and why ain't they doing this work for their game??? :huh: I think the quality of your work is better then EA's by a mile. ;) I wrote them guys at EA that they should hang their heads in shame for publishing the TFD game with that many bugs in it. I play console games, too, and they don't have bugs or Patches, so why can't the PC game makers do the same?

 

Regards from a TFD game player,

 

Agent Khuul

 

PS: I got to the last mission on C&C95-GDI side but got to tired to play anymore. Will finish after I do the next batch of Patches.

 

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well, if you want some easy missions to play in between, open the New Missions menu and play the N64 special ops. They were made for a console in which they even made some campaign missions simpler because the controls were so bad :P

 

(I can finish GDI N64 special ops 1 in less than 5 minutes. On normal game speed. No lie. I don't even have to destroy the Obelisk :P )

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well, if you want some easy missions to play in between, open the New Missions menu and play the N64 special ops. They were made for a console in which they even made some campaign missions simpler because the controls were so bad :P

 

(I can finish GDI N64 special ops 1 in less than 5 minutes. On normal game speed. No lie. I don't even have to destroy the Obelisk :P )

 

 

Nyerguds:

 

Thanks for the tip on the N64 missions. ;) I went down to the Hernando County Library again and downloaded c95v106b_r2, tfd101, tfd_fullcleanup, and tfd_ra_main_patch. It took all of 15 minutes of their fancy computers. I had to figure out whom to extract them to, but after that it went OK, except for the TFD-101.EXE Patch. It had this error message in the DOS command line box:

 

C:\Program Files\EAGames\Command & Conquer\covert\MOVIES.MIX

 

Error:No Such File or directory. :huh:

 

I did some prowl'n around in the game folders and could not find the Covert Folder, which I believe should be in the original Command & Conquer game folder. It appeared the TFD-101 Patch did stick though as I found references to it in the individual game folders.

 

I was wondering how to access these many expansion games within TFD? When you click on one of the titles in the main menu you are sent to play the original game for that series. I thought that you might have to beat the original game first to go to the next expansion pack in the series but now I don't know. There must be some way to access the game expansions of the original if the EA people sell and advertise it with the expansion packs included.

 

I am going to try my totally patched-up TFD game after I get this post done. Thanks again for your help with all my "rookie" issues. :thumbsup:

 

Regards from a confident TFD game player,

 

Agent Khuul

 

 

 

 

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The expansions of C&C1 and RA1 can be accessed from the main menu inside the game. That's why they just start the game. And in Tiberian Sun, you get the choice between the original game and the expansion just after the game is launched.

 

In C&C1, the Covert Operations are in the New Missions menu at the top of the menu. They're a bunch of single missions you can play in any order. The same thing applies to Red Alert - either there's one "New Missions" menu item like in C&C1, or two different buttons, one for Counterstrike and one for The Aftermath. It depends on the RA version you got. I believe patch 1.03 installs the latest RA version (v3.03) though, in which the CS and AM missions are put in separate lists.

 

 

 

As for your fixes... if you installed the 1.03 patch, I think you'll already have all of these fixes applied. This guide is really just TFD 1.03 without the No-CD cracks. Only the C&C95 patch in the 1.03 patch is slightly outdated; the rest should all be in there.

 

 

 

As for the COVERT folder... the people who made TFD apparently heard that C&C1 can use the "-cd" command line parameter, with which they can specify a folder to use as CD. That means this combines a no-cd system with a system to read an extra folder. So they put the contents of the Covert Operations CD in the COVERT subfolder in the C&C1 install, and started the game with "-cdCOVERT" to make it read the Covert Operations music and videos. On itself, that's entirely correct.

They were, however, not aware of the fact that C&C only reads files with the same filename one single time, so because the main folder already contains a "scores.mix" (the music archive) and a "movies.mix" (the videos archive), the ones in the COVERT folder were completely ignored, meaning the C&C95 in TFD couldn't access the Covert Ops' music and videos.

 

The official 1.01 patch fixed this by extracting all videos that are inside the COVERT\movies.mix archive into the normal game folder, and by moving the COVERT\scores.mix into the main folder as sc-003.mix (C&C1 reads any "sc*.mix" files as addons).

 

This works. But it also wastes about 500 mb of disk space, just for the sake of being able to undo the changes.

(Who ever heard of uninstalling patches anyway? Seems like a sure sign they didn't have a clue what they were doing. Not to mention, I personally told them about the sc*.mix thing. TO FIX RA1. Not for C&C1 -_- )

 

What they SHOULD have done is

1. Of the 44 videos in the Covert Ops movies.mix archive, only extract the 6 that are not already in the main folder's movies.mix

2. REPLACE the main folder's scores.mix by the Covert Ops version, since the Covert Ops version contains all of the original music too anyway

3. After completing the above 2 actions, remove the entire useless COVERT folder, since the same thing about duplicate filenames not being read applies to all other files in there anyway, and none of the other files in there had anything new for the game.

 

That, is exactly what my C&C1 cleanup tool does. And that cleanup was implemented in the 1.03 patch :)

 

 

 

And that is why you get an error when executing patch 1.01 again after applying patch 1.03. Because patch 1.01 tries to take stuff from the COVERT folder, which was already thoroughly and correctly cleaned up by patch 1.03 :P

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The expansions of C&C1 and RA1 can be accessed from the main menu inside the game. That's why they just start the game. And in Tiberian Sun, you get the choice between the original game and the expansion just after the game is launched.

 

In C&C1, the Covert Operations are in the New Missions menu at the top of the menu. They're a bunch of single missions you can play in any order. The same thing applies to Red Alert - either there's one "New Missions" menu item like in C&C1, or two different buttons, one for Counterstrike and one for The Aftermath. It depends on the RA version you got. I believe patch 1.03 installs the latest RA version (v3.03) though, in which the CS and AM missions are put in separate lists.

 

 

 

As for your fixes... if you installed the 1.03 patch, I think you'll already have all of these fixes applied. This guide is really just TFD 1.03 without the No-CD cracks. Only the C&C95 patch in the 1.03 patch is slightly outdated; the rest should all be in there.

 

 

 

As for the COVERT folder... the people who made TFD apparently heard that C&C1 can use the "-cd" command line parameter, with which they can specify a folder to use as CD. That means this combines a no-cd system with a system to read an extra folder. So they put the contents of the Covert Operations CD in the COVERT subfolder in the C&C1 install, and started the game with "-cdCOVERT" to make it read the Covert Operations music and videos. On itself, that's entirely correct.

They were, however, not aware of the fact that C&C only reads files with the same filename one single time, so because the main folder already contains a "scores.mix" (the music archive) and a "movies.mix" (the videos archive), the ones in the COVERT folder were completely ignored, meaning the C&C95 in TFD couldn't access the Covert Ops' music and videos.

 

The official 1.01 patch fixed this by extracting all videos that are inside the COVERT\movies.mix archive into the normal game folder, and by moving the COVERT\scores.mix into the main folder as sc-003.mix (C&C1 reads any "sc*.mix" files as addons).

 

This works. But it also wastes about 500 mb of disk space, just for the sake of being able to undo the changes.

(Who ever heard of un-installing patches anyway? Seems like a sure sign they didn't have a clue what they were doing. Not to mention, I personally told them about the sc*.mix thing. TO FIX RA1. Not for C&C1 -_- )

 

What they SHOULD have done is

1. Of the 44 videos in the Covert Ops movies.mix archive, only extract the 6 that are not already in the main folder's movies.mix

2. REPLACE the main folder's scores.mix by the Covert Ops version, since the Covert Ops version contains all of the original music too anyway

3. After completing the above 2 actions, remove the entire useless COVERT folder, since the same thing about duplicate filenames not being read applies to all other files in there anyway, and none of the other files in there had anything new for the game.

 

That, is exactly what my C&C1 cleanup tool does. And that cleanup was implemented in the 1.03 patch :)

 

 

 

And that is why you get an error when executing patch 1.01 again after applying patch 1.03. Because patch 1.01 tries to take stuff from the COVERT folder, which was already thoroughly and correctly cleaned up by patch 1.03 :P

 

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Nyerguds:

 

I read your highly detailed explanation for the error message I described earlier. I must admit I am way over my head in this technical side of video games. I just wanted to let you know my game is working flawlessly. :) I wasn't on the last mission, as I had said earlier. It appears I have a couple more to go. Right now I have to block Kane's escape.

 

From your post it appears that I have my Patching stuff completed. When I click on the game to start it and the main menu comes up I see the "V. 1.06b r2 by Nyerguds" in the lower right corner of the main menu list. This is so cool because I can converse with the fellow on the CNCNZ forum who wrote that and put it there . My game functioned just perfectly and I could really concentrate on getting a high score instead of worrying about the next crash. I do quite good on leadership but mediocre in efficency. I did change the resolution back in SetUp to 640x480 to get my previous save files back. My game looks super on my flat screen monitor and C&C95.EXE is magnitudes above my old CRT monitor in picture quality.

 

I sill am a little mystified as to how to access the expansions in the games but you did tell me that Covert is in the New Missions list fo the original C&C game. I will try one of them tommoro to see if the music and vidoes all work. I hope I didn't goof-up in the installation of all those patches. I don't do a lot of "extracting" of zip files to file folders and I am kind of a newbee at it. I learned the basics by installing the 8 Official Plug-Ins for the Morrowind game which I play too!

I got them all to work right with some trial and error manuevering.

 

Thanks again for your help and it is an honor to be able to converse with you on this issue. Ther aren't a whole lot of people who can do what you can do in fixing really bugged-up PC video games.

 

Regards,

 

Agent Khull

A confident TFD game player and proud of it. :thumbsup: Will keep you posted on games behavior.

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Aheh, sorry. I tend to rant a lot when I am reminded of how horribly poorly thought-out the official TFD patches were.

 

The Covert Operations simply IS the "New Missions" menu ingame. But Westwood made it so that more missions can be added to that list really easily, and I used that to add more official missions, namely the Special Ops taken from the Playstation and Nintendo64 versions of C&C1 :)

 

As for bug fixes... you should keep the credits to the patch in mind. The 2 major crashing bugs in the game, namely the top-of-the-map crash you experienced, and another crash related to the stealth tank's cloaking effect, were fixed by VK and Komfr, both people with a lot more skill than I got in this area. Komfr is also the guy who designed the basics of the high resolution hack, btw.

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This topic is a huge example of proper tech support should be, and how the community should be....

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Ah, speaking of people with more skill than me... here's another one! Without CCHyper, this patch would never even have started :)

(he made the game's exe file larger for me, so I could add more stuff in it)

On 29/07/2010 at 12:38 PM, Agent Khuul said:

I wasn't on the last mission, as I had said earlier. It appears I have a couple more to go. Right now I have to block Kane's escape.

Oh, that one! :D

(probably not advised to try this - it only works if you're VERY fast)

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This topic is a huge example of proper tech support should be, and how the community should be....

 

Very much agreed.

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Well, Frankaz and I replied to an identical thread on the official EA boards... though there, 99% of all questions are answered with "read the sticky common problems thread". That might sound kinda blunt, but it is simply correct. Everything IS in that thread; that's why we got it.

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Ah, speaking of people with more skill than me... here's another one! Without CCHyper, this patch would never even have started :)

(he made the game's exe file larger for me, so I could add more stuff in it)

 

 

Oh,

! ^_^

(probably not advised to try this - it only works if you're VERY fast)

 

 

Nyerguds:

 

I saw your tip on maybe doing the Block Kane's Escape mission but only if you're very fast. I am not. I was identified in first grade as being slow. You never ever want to be tagged with "that label" for all your life, that early in life.:( I think x-cons get more favorable treatment.:rolleyes: I didn't even look at it.

 

Anyway, I did complete C&C the original game yesterday.:) It took me forever to figure out how to move east and get on with it. Eventually I found the southeast Tiberum Ore field and then commenced to have at it with Kane.

 

I then tried a Covert mission, the one where you have to nix the power grid to drive your MCV past the Obelisks to where the Tiberium Ore field is. The music works good but I don't recall getting much of a video introduction. It just stated what I had to do to complete the mission.

 

Thanks again all of you for your continued interest and support in my "rookie" issues. I will keep you posted on Covert OPs and Nod's side in the C&C game of the TFD game pack. :thumbsup:

 

Agent Khuul,

a happy and contented TFD game player;)

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Yeah, Covert Ops don't have briefing videos. Just some action introduction, and then the text briefing screen.

 

The N64 missions have their original win and lose animations from the Nintendo 64 version though. I recorded them from my emulator and converted them to C&C video format so I could add them :)

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Yeah, Covert Ops don't have briefing videos. Just some action introduction, and then the text briefing screen.

 

The N64 missions have their original win and lose animations from the Nintendo 64 version though. I recorded them from my emulator and converted them to C&C video format so I could add them :)

 

 

Nyerguds:

 

I had 2 paragraph post all done and the spelling checked. I must of hit a wrong key, again, because I just lost the whole post. Anyway, I did find the video you spoke of in Restate box and Video button. The music and videos work A-OK in the Covert missions. Thanks again for all of your guys help.

 

Agent Khuul

gonna go play TFD some more-will keep you all posted as events warrant :thumbsup:;)

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