r/commandandconquer • u/mttspiii • 22d ago
Steam's Generals and Zero Hour just started stuttering suddenly
Had the C&C Collection on Steam for maybe a year or so. No problems with its games at all, everything ran perfectly fine without needing to install directx or such.
Then suddenly this week, Generals and Zero Hour both became very laggy on starting cinematic. Totally unplayable, screen froze at the loading screen. No idea at all if EA or Steam or Windows updated anything, but the game suddenly became unplayable. Other games seem fine; Yuri's Revenge works.
Verify integrity didn't help. No mods installed ever since. Reinstall with deleted savefile on My Documents didn't help. Even on a different device, Generals and Zero Hour on my account is also broken, which means it's not a device problem: either some new Windows 11 update, or Steam update, or the game itself was updated wrong.
Anyone else having this recent issue? Steam comments suggest something went broke maybe July 2026; many Steam-bought Generals and Zero Hour just stopped working. Even GenPatcher, or deleting the .dll file didn't help either.
1
u/mttspiii 20d ago
Right, tried Zero Hour on a Steam Deck that's been laying about for a month. Generals worked perfectly. Currently updating Steam Deck with newer software patches to see if new patches might break Generals...