This thread aims to explain the problems people face when trying to run Commandos 3 under Windows 8/8.1 (and possibly future versions), provide some limited solutions, and offer further avenues of improving the player's experience.

I consider this a WORK IN PROGRESS! Please, TEST these solutions, REPORT any problems, SUGGEST and TEST any additional improvements you think of!

Symptoms
Running the game on Windows 8 is known to cause graphical corruption in certain situations, in particular the sniper lens, the level loading screen, and possibly others. See fig.1. In some situations, this makes the game practically unplayable.

Diagnosis
(Disclaimer: This is me talking out of my posterior, going on rough understanding of others' explanations. I am not responsible for your thesis being rejected because you decided that I know what I'm talking about. Though I think I'm on the money, mostly. If you know better, do share!)

This corruption results from certain incompatibilities of the latest Microsoft OS with 16-bit High Colour graphics, such as those used by Commandos. Specifically, in order to incorporate the new Metro interface seamlessly into Windows, Microsoft has permanently enabled Desktop Composition, a.k.a. Aero, and thus has to remove the option of setting global colour depth to anything other than 32-bit True Colour. This also removed the option of using the old "Disable Desktop Composition" compatibility option, which was a universal panacea for many older games to run under Windows Vista and 7.

Now, Microsoft weren't entirely oblivious to the problems this change would cause and included another compatibility setting: Reduced colour mode (fig.2). This works quite well for most games that use High Colour, with one significant caveat: the game must be run in a window. Full-screen High Colour emulation appears to work through other means, and doesn't really deal with the incompatibilities. If a game runs in High Colour, this can affect it in different ways. Old two-dimensional DirectDraw titles can become extremely laggy, with very low framerates and responsiveness; Direct3D titles (like Commandos 3) can experience graphical corruption; these effects are possibly not exclusive, or may be entirely absent - depends.

Thus, the solutions appears to be quite straightforward: Run Commandos 3 in Windowed mode!

Complications
Commandos 3 doesn't have a windowed mode.

Neither did its predecessor, come to think of it, but it was a mere matter of modifying a config file, and it works without a hitch. At this point, there is no known native way to implement this feature, neither through modifying configuration files, nor through editing the binary executable itself.

There are, fortunately, ways to force games to render in a window. These require external applications and work on a case-by-case basis. Popular options include, DxWnd, D3DWindower, or 3D Analyzer. I have only had success using D3DWindower, but it might be possible to accomplish this through other means.

Solution
1. Download D3D Windower and unpack it to your Commandos 3 folder:
Japanese Original:
http://www.geocities.jp/menopem/D3DWindower.lzh MD5: 9da511a067880f7410a866ee07f9aa3f

English Translations:
Version 1 MD5: b5eff19dfc41728936598008f436cd73
Version 2 MD5: 3a1de7771f274cc54c5196b022c64d68 - This is the version I've been using; it works identically to the Japanese one.

2. Open the Commandos3.exe properties window and under the "Compatibility" tab enable Reduced colour mode and set it to 16-bit, as shown in fig.2. If Commandos3.exe is set to run with Administrative privileges (as it is by default), you will need to give the same privileges to D3DWindower.exe. Alternatively, if Commandos is installed outside of Program Files or any other protected folder (as it is by default), you should be able to revoke its Administrative privileges without any problems;

3. Open D3DWindower.exe. Here's a quick overview of what the toolbar buttons do:

First two buttons: Activate/Deactivate Emulation. They don't appear to work, at least not under Windows 8. We need not bother with them;
Middle two buttons: Add/Remove Program. They add and and remove programs from the list below;
Last three buttons: Run Program, Program Options, Open Folder. Again, fairly obvious. More detail about Options will be given below;

4. Click the Add Program (+) button, browse to the location of Commandos3.exe, add it to the list;

5. Select Commandos3 on the list, and click the Program Options button. Set these up as shown in fig.3. The FPS counter is optional, but the Cursor settings are necessary to make clicks register properly and mouse scrolling to work;

6. Click the Run Program button. Commandos 3 should start without issue, in a window;

7. Alt-Tab back to D3DWindower (or another active window), then drag the Commandos 3 window to the top-left corner of the screen.

N.B. This step is necessary because otherwise the mouse disappears in the left-most portion of the game window. You need to Alt-Tab out of the game because the Cursor Clip setting (fig.3) prevents the mouse from leaving the in-game window. Once you've fit the window snugly into the top-left corner, the mouse should work without any issues.

Done! You are now ready to play Commandos 3, in a window, without any graphical corruption. Still, with the game's native resolution at 800x600, plus the need to keep it in a corner of the screen, it might be a little small and inconvenient to play. Thus, there is some room for improvement.

Commentary: The D3DWindower Program Options button (refer to fig.3)
The Program Options button contains the bulk of the D3DWindower functionality. Here's a brief review some of its settings, tab by tab.

Common Tab
- The Height and Width settings can force the resolution of the game window. When 0, they let the game determine the parameters; otherwise, if they do not match the game's output, they will stretch or squeeze the image. Be wary, as the program's scaling algorithm is rudimentary and an upscaled image is of very low quality.
- The command line allows you to add any parameters you wish to the executable, that you might instead have on a shortcut.
- The DLL path could point to the D3dHook.dll, if it is not in the same folder as D3DWindower.exe. Note, however, that this doesn't appear to work properly, and the library should be kept together with the program.
- Background Resize reduces the size of the window while it is in the background.
- I have no idea what MenuID or Background Priority do.

Window Mode Tab
- The top line determines which of the three renderers should be used to produce the image. For our purposes, only Direct3D matters. For other games, in particular 2D ones, the other options should come in handy.
- The rest of the options pertain entirely to DirectDraw. Adjust these to run 2D games in a window.

Foreground Control Tab
- Using Foreground Control allows the program to continue running while focus is on another window, e.g. while you've Alt-Tabbed out of it. Not a particularly good idea for Commandos.
- I can not tell what adjusting the other options does.

Direct Input Tab
- Cursor Clip restricts the mouse to the game window. It is useful when you want to have functional edge-scrolling, but it means you need to Alt-Tab out of the window to access other windows or even to move the game window.
- GetCursorPos allows mouse clicks to coincide with the position of the mouse pointer. Cursor Message has the same effect, and I'm not sure what the specific difference between the two options is.
- The other settings seem to have specific and identifiable functions, though they didn't produce any results in my test with Commandos 3. Nevertheless, they are likely highly dependent on the game in question and should be adjusted freely to produce the most desirable mouse behaviour.

Please note, everything I've learned about these came from my limited experience in preparing this guide. Feel free, nay, encouraged to test these out and observe their effects. It is very possible that there are better ways to set Commandos 3 up, that I have not been able to find. If you find such, please post them here!

Improvements

There are several ways in which this arrangement may be improved, including up-scaling the default resolution, running the game in a higher resolution, removing the window borders, etc.

Up-scaling
Up-scaling the resolution through the Height and Width settings of D3DWindower is not desirable, as the image is highly pixelated. A much better solution is to lower your desktop resolution, thus allowing the up-scaling process to be handled by Windows, the monitor, or the graphics card. The resulting image has the same quality as the default full-screen game image on your system.

Alternatively, the different video driver suites may have built-in, or vendor-available free tools to up-scale a window. I am not aware of such, so if you know of any, please post them here!

Higher Resolutions
There is already an existing way to run Commandos 3 in higher/widescreen resolutions, documented here by xbootx (henceforth, "the author"). Fortunately, these appear to work just as well with the proposed windowed solution, with one important remark: the executable you are running MUST BE CALLED "Commandos3.exe"! Otherwise, the compatibility settings won't stick.

N.B.This is likely some case of explicit self-referencing in the code. Curiously, it appears to be related to the initialisation of the Eidos.bik intro clip. If that fails to initialise, the compatibility settings won't stick. What resolution it does so in, or even what file it is, do not seem to matter, just so long as it runs. Also, this is not the case for any of the other Bink animations.

To give a quick instructional example for 1280x720:
- download and copy the file 1280x720_Commandos3.exe to your Commandos 3 folder;
- backup the original Commandos3.exe and rename 1280x720_Commandos3.exe to Commandos3.exe;
- download and apply the author's interface fix;
- proceed with steps 1-7, as outlined above. (The compatibility settings should automatically carry over to the new file, once renamed.)

The author of the widescreen solution above offers a collection of pre-made fixed executables, as well as instructions on their proper installation. Additionally, there is a good overview of the methodology of their creation, plus their known limitations.

Note that the author has used binaries different from the ones GOG have supplied, so the instructions on editing the file are not strictly correct. Here's a quick guide how to edit Commandos3.exe (make a backup copy first!) using a hex editor. You can use , any other Hex Editor, or even Notepad++ with the [url=http://sourceforge.net/projects/npp-plugins/files/Hex%20Editor/]HEX-Editor plugin.

Offset________Bytes to Find and Change
Gameplay Resolution
001659b7 ____00 00 c3 b8 20 03
001659f7_____00 00 c3 b8 58 02

Gameplay Area
00165a58 ____00 eb 13 ba 20 03
00165a91 ____44 24 04 b9 58 02

Menu Resolution
00165a1d ____90 90 90 b8 20 03
00165a2d ____90 90 90 b8 58 02

In each of these, 20 03 stands for 800, and 58 02 - for 600 (Hint: 320 is 800 in hexadecimal; 258 is 600 in hexadecimal). Change each of these to the values of your new desired resolution. Here's a few common examples:

1024x600 - Change 20 03 to 00 04 and 58 02 to 58 02
1024x768 - Change 20 03 to 00 04 and 58 02 to 00 03
1280x720 - Change 20 03 to 00 05 and 58 02 to D0 02
1280x800 - Change 20 03 to 00 05 and 58 02 to 20 03
1366x768 - Change 20 03 to 56 05 and 58 02 to 00 03
1440x900 - Change 20 03 to A0 05 and 58 02 to 84 03
1600x900 - Change 20 03 to 40 06 and 58 02 to 84 03
1680x1050 - Change 20 03 to 90 06 and 58 02 to 1A 04
1920x1080 - Change 20 03 to 80 07 and 58 02 to 38 04
1920x1200 - Change 20 03 to 80 07 and 58 02 to B0 04

With a little arithmetic (or the Windows calculator) one can run the game in virtually any resolution. To re-align the in-game interface, refer to the author's fix and discussion. Note that the INTERFAZ.MSB files supplied by the author depend only on the vertical resolution, so (1366x768)INTERFAZ.MSB is also suited for 1024x768, to give a single example.

The author recommends not changing the menu, and indeed does not do so in the files they provide. This resets the game resolution to 800x600 each time the player enters a menu, animation, etc. It is aesthetically pleasing, but will force D3DWindower to re-initialise the game window, returning it to the centre of the screen. Therefore, a more convenient solution is to change the Menu's resolution to be the same as the game's. This merely renders the menu in an 800x600 box at the top-left of the game window, somewhat unsightly but perfectly functional.

Warning: The game becomes increasingly unstable as resolutions increase, in particular when using the split-screen viewports (F2 key) (this includes the game automatically showing out-of-screen events, e.g. an enemy sniper shooting from far away, in a Picture-in-Picture). This is probably a memory allocation issue and is unlikely to be fixed without fully re-compiling from the source code.

Borderless Window
Feel free to try any of the options offered on [url=http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Borderless_fullscreen_windowed]PCGamingWiki[/url] or elsewhere. I have not bothered with these because imitating full-screen mode is infeasible for me, due to the above-mentioned instability at high resolutions, and I don't really mind the title-bar otherwise.

I had something like this in mind, though I was going to wait for some more testing feedback before suggesting it. Not overly offended, though ;)

The above solution solves the problems with the main screen, which actually doesn't matter so much, because the game is usable despite of it, and even sniper's corrupted binocular is quite tolerable. However, it doesn't seem to solve the graphics problem suddenly appearing in the train episode "Get to the Engine" (see attachment).

Maybe I'll try it with the aid of the youtube walkthtough...or just find my way inside the train where the scenery is more restful...

I tried it out, and it still doesn't work. I tried with Windowed..., and clicking on Run Program results in Run Program failed.

And the game itself... Oh My God, it's even worse. The meny screen flashes like it's on seizure, and trying to use Duke's sniper rifle results in the game crash.

Speaking of that - How the Hell did they make it so that Commandos 2 works fine, but 3 causes nothing but trouble? Worst of all, You can't delete C3 without deleting C2 , too, thus loosing all Your progress.

I suppose I have no other choice but to say it - I don't get it.

It would help if you specified which part you don't get ;)

Let me see if I can help. For the Admin settings:
On your desktop, right-click on the Commandos 3 shortcut and open Properties. Go to the Compatibility tab (see fig.2) and make sure "Run this program as an administrator" is selected. Also, make sure "Reduced color mode" is selected and set up as shown. After making the necessary changes, click Apply at the bottom.

Now, in the shortcut tab, click on "Open File Location". This should open the Commandos folder where, if you want to copy the D3D Windower files. Right-click on D3DWindower.exe and open its Properties. Go to its compatibility tab and, as before, make sure "Run this program as an administrator" is selected. Other settings shouldn't be needed.

Next you should be able to follow the provided instructions and run the game from D3D Windower.

Now, these administrative privileges are only needed if the game installs to a protected folder, like "Program Files". If that is not the case (by default, it shouldn't be), they are unnecessary but they need to be the same across both files!

As to the video driver stuff, I'll need to know what kind of video card you have. Right-click on your desktop, open Screen Resolution, click on Advanced Settings. Describe what "Adapter Type" says, also what the very last tab on the top is called and contains.

Good news everyone! I've had great success running the mission with DxWnd 2.03.07. I know this is really belated, but... well, I left this on the back-burner for a while. Sorry if it's of little use to people.

I'm still working out the new details, mostly input and cursor fixes, but so far it's just a matter of running dxwnd with everything blank or default. Just have Hook and Window enabled and that's it! There's still a crash on the long intro animation, with Butcher chasing the train, but that can be skipped with ESC.

If you get to see and test this, I'd be interested in more feedback!

EDIT: Actually, I seem to be able to get similar results with D3DWindower, seemingly without changing a thing. Is it the newer ATI Omega drivers? Seems unlikely. I'm confused o.O

How can I scale the resolution of the windowed game in DxWnd like I can with D3DWindower?
DxWnd works better for me with less crashes than D3D and I can't play with the tiny window that appears in the corner.
I tried setting the W and H boxes to my needed resolution (1910x1010) in the Main tab like I did in D3DWindower but it would not scale.. please help.

I'll actually need to reinstall the game, but from memory, using the windowers' scaling produces frightfully ugly results. My advice, as weird as that sounds, is to reduce your desktop resolution. That way, it's your drivers that are doing the scaling, and it looks much better. Get it low enough and the window should become reasonably large and useable.

Hello, Very usefull information and they work really good! I've been having problems running commandos 3 on windows 10 and the D3D windower solved everything, both the sniper scope and the blinking screen!

There is one problem left. Every time I finish an objective and in order to continue to the mission there is a small prerecorded movie playing which i have to watch, the screen freezes at the start of the video clip and there is nothing I can do about it. the game does not respond. i've tried to press Esc just before the clip plays but with no result. I have to force close the game by pressing ctrl alt and del

HAve you had this kind of problem? What can I do about it?

Yes, this seems to be a problem for these cinematics. I'm not sure there' anything to be done about it, since I suspect it's a memory allocation issue, like the viewports in higher resolutions. They should still work when not using the windower, so try saving before them, playing them in full-screen, then saving and returning to the windowed version. Sorry, it's all I've got. Then again, I haven't played around with DxWnd, or C3, in a while, so if you come up with something better, please do share :-)

Thanks man , that Windower worked and graphic issues have gone :)
Please let me know if you find a way to make it full screen other than increasing desktop resolution or the hex method.
These holidays are gonna be good with Commandos :D My favorite childhood game.

PS : I use Windows 8.1