Most netbooks lack the performance for playing many of the cool games. Because of their limited design, importand gaming components such as a fancy dedicated video card do not find a place in common netbooks such as the Aspire One’s and the eeePC’s. Unless you go for one of the nVidia ION models, such as the HP Mini 311 or the new Alienware netbook, you are stuck with fighting with old classics, and trying to make them work on windows-versions unheard of when the games were released. For many games, there are work-arounds such as running a dos-emulator such as DOSbox, but it’s a hassle to configure and usually a bit more steps to start the game rather than just doubleclicking its shortcut.
On top of that, these games came out before a time that wide-screens were as commonplace as they are now, so these games usually do not play full-screen, or their video appears stretched or with black borders, unless some fixes are available to make things look better.
Last night, I was googling for some info on the upcoming Command and Conquer game, and then I stumbled upon a website that mentioned Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun (C&C 2 basically) with it’s add-on pack Firestorm was released for free on valentines day. With the upcoming Command and Conquer 4 : Tiberian Twilight, it makes sense for Electronic Arts to release older games for free to raise more exposure, but with the growing Netbook market, that is not capable of running C&C3 or C&C4 properly anyway, this is awesome.
You can find Tiberian Sun + Firestorm here:
http://www.commandandconquer.com/classic
The website also has Command and Conquer 1 and Red Alert available for free as well (also well worth the download) but in my opinion, Tiberian Sun is the best of the bunch.
Installation:
After you download the 1.2GB large file, you will need to use WinRar or 7Zip to extract the file.
You end up with a folder named OfficialCnCTiberianSun or EA Games
If you have the Official name as a folder, go into it, so you see the EA Games one.
Rightclick on the EA Games folder, and select cut
then go to “My Computer” or Start > Computer, depending on your OS
then go to your C-drive, and rightclick on “Program Files” and select Paste. If you receive a warning (Vista/Win7), just click OK
then go into the Program Files folder, click on “Show Files” if you see nothing else, and then go into the “EA Games” folder, then into “Command & Conquer The First Decade”
You will see a shortcut named “Play Tiberian Sun” rightclick on that, select “Send to” and then “Desktop” you will now have a shortcut on your desktop for the game.
Close all the windows you have open, and doubleclick on the shortcut.
It will play the game.
Tweaks:
I recently picked up a Vaio P, which I now use for checking emails when away from my main computer setup, and it has the most uncommon screen resolution you can find, 1600×768. Tiberian Sun offers 800×600 as the highest resolution, so when you play the game on the Vaio P, it does not fill the screen completely.
Meet “changres”, a little tool that enables you to select a couple of additional resolutions.
You can download it from here: http://www.pixcom.dk/cheats/TiberianSun.htm
After extracting the zipfile, copy the “changres” file to “C:Program FilesEA GamesCommand & Conquer The First DecadeCommand & Conquer(tm) Tiberian Sun(tm)SUN”
When you run it, it shows a couple of extra resolutions to choose from. If yours is not listed (1600×768 was not) just pick the one slightly less, and save it.
The information for the screen resolution is saved in a file called SUN.ini
If you open this file by doubleclicking it. It should open in Notepad or something similar.
Look for
[Video]
ScreenWidth=800
ScreenHeight=600
StretchMovies=no
(screen width/height should have the values you selected in the res utility)
change it to the resolution of your netbook/laptop/pc screen, in my case for the vaio-p
[Video]
ScreenWidth=1600
ScreenHeight=768
StretchMovies=no
Stretch movies is cool to enable, however, it does not affect the size of the menu’s, so it looks a little weird.
Here a clip of what it looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SUOW84LwRo
