Commandos 3 – Destination Berlin

Genre: Real Time Tactics

Release Year: 2003

Developer: Pyro Studios

Publisher: Eidos Interactive

Age Rating: 12+

Playability Status: Perfect

Tested On: Windows 10 x64

Availability: Copyright retained - Still sold

Don’t want the hassle?

Get this game pre-patched, DRM free and ready to play from GoG.com. Fully working or your money back.

World War 2 commandos eh? Those dashing men of steel, athletically charging around the battlefield, single handedly taking on tanks and bunkers despite their fondness for tobacco. In this game you will get to command a bunch of these heroes across several missions which take place over the course of the war. Don’t think you will be charging in all guns blazing however, this is a real time tactics game and only skilful planning and careful strategy will see you live to fight another day.

Installation

The game should install without any difficulty on a modern PC. If you’re installing from the original retail version, simply place the first disc in your computers optical drive and follow the on-screen prompts. If the games installer does not start automatically, browse to the CD in Computer/This PC and run the “Setup.exe” file manually.

If you’re installing the GoG.com download version, simply download and run the file as supplied by GoG.com.

Patching

The GoG.com version of the game is already pre-patched, but if you’re installing from the original retail CD, you will need to download and install the latest patch manually. You can download the patch here. To install the patch, simply unzip it and then run the file, the patch will then install automatically.

For both the GoG.com and retail versions, we also strongly recommend installing dgVoodoo2 if your PC has a DirectX 11 capable video card. You can find a tutorial on how to do this here. Commandos 3 is a DirectX game and the default installation directory (for the retail version) is C:\Program Files (x86)\Eidos\Pyro Studios\Commandos 3 – Destination Berlin.

When configuring dgVoodoo2 for Commandos 3, be sure to turn Antialiasing (MSAA) to “Off” on the DirectX tab.

Tweaking visual quality

There’s just one visual quality option to set in-game. Start the game and from the main menu, choose “Options” and then “Video Options”. Now, set visual quality to “High Quality”. That’s all the settings you can tweak in the game itself.

Playing in widescreen or high resolution

This is a completely optional step and probably only of interest to advanced gamers. It’s possible with a bit of hacking to play the game in higher resolutions than the original developers intended. Basically, you will need to visit this page and follow the instructions given. Start by downloading the “Widescreen Patch Download” file. Once it’s downloaded, open it up in Windows Explorer/File Explorer. You will see a bunch of files named “1024x600_Commandos3.exe”, “1280x720_Commandos3.exe”, etc. Since we don’t recommend going higher than 720p with this game, choose either the 1024x600_Commandos3.exe or 1280x720_Commandos3.exe and copy it to the Commandos 3 installation folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\Eidos\Pyro Studios\Commandos 3 – Destination Berlin by default).

Now, rename the original “Commandos3.exe” to something like “commandos3.old”. Now rename the file you just copied into the folder from the zip file to “commandos3.exe”.

Follow the instructions on the page to download and install the interface fix too. It works in the same way, remember to rename the old file first then rename the new file you’re copying in.

If you want to install the title banner fix file too, that goes in “C:\Program Files (x86)\Eidos\Pyro Studios\Commandos 3 – Destination Berlin\Data\INTENDENCIA”.

When playing in high resolutions, the games title screens and videos are still in 800×600. Before the start of a mission you’re given a briefing and this will still appear in 800×600.

Troubleshooting

Problems saving games – Like many older games, Commandos 3 stores its save game files and other configuration information in its installation directory. If you installed the game into the program files or program files (x86) folders, you may find that the default Windows security settings prevent the game from saving any progress. To fix this problem set the permissions on your game folder so that your user account has full control/read write permissions. You can find a tutorial on how to configure folder permissions here.

Commandos 3 save games are stored in the “Output” folder within the games installation directory.

Screenshots

Click on any screenshot to enlarge it.

The game at its original resolution.

Playing in 720p