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Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty cover
Developers
Pyro Studios
Publishers
Retail, original digital Eidos Interactive
Retail re-release Sold Out Software
Second digital Merge Games
Third digital Kalypso Media
Release dates
Windows March 30, 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres Stealth, Strategy
Vehicles Automobile, Naval/watercraft, Tank
Art styles Stylized
Themes Europe, World War II
Series Commandos
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty on HowLongToBeat
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty on MobyGames
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty on Wikipedia
Commandos
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines 1998
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty 1999
Commandos 2: Men of Courage 2001
Commandos 3: Destination Berlin 2003
Commandos: Strike Force 2006
Commandos 2 HD Remaster 2020
Commandos 3 HD Remaster 2022
Commandos: Origins 2024

Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty is a standalone expansion for the 1998 real-time tactics game Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, which includes a new 8-mission campaign, new weapons and mechanics, new music and voiceovers, new enemy types, and several mission-specific controllable characters. It also includes a separate tutorial executable with video showcases of the gameplay and individual commandos' abilities, as well as two unique playable missions to onboard new players (which is included only in the retail and Zoom Platform releases). It does not require the original version to play.

The game runs considerably more stable than the original, but may require DDrawCompat to improve performance on some systems.

General information

Commandos Wiki
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SafeDisc v1 DRM[Note 1]
Windows
GamersGate
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Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Includes Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines. Cannot be purchased in Germany.[3]
Windows
Green Man Gaming
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Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Commandos Collection
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
ZOOM Platform
DRM-free
Bundled with DDrawCompat
Windows
Games for Windows Marketplace (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Marketed as Commandos Complete[4]
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
A free demo version is available from Archive.org and CommandosHQ.
The original 16-bit installer won't work on 64-bit systems. See Issues fixed.

Version differences

The GOG.com and Zoom Platform versions have added compatibility fixes for modern systems.
The GOG.com version includes the original Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, and is cheaper than buying the base game and its expansion separately on Steam.
Steam and GOG.com releases are missing tutorial.exe, an executable with overviews of commando abilities and two practice missions. The Legacy version on Steam has the tutorial executable.
The Zoom Platform release has assets fully extracted instead of bundled within <path-to-game>\WAR_MP.dir. It is also the only release with the tutorial.exe file present as of December 14, 2022.[5]

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patch for the European retail release is 1.1.

Skip intro videos

Delete/rename H_Intro.avi[citation needed]
  1. Go to <path-to-game>\VIDEO.
  2. Delete or rename H_Intro.avi.

Steam "Ultimate Fix"

Fixes many of the numerous bugs the Steam version has (lack of sound, not being able to save or load and the gameplay running incredibly fast)
Install Steam Ultimate fix patch[6]
  1. Download the patch
  2. Extract it in the folder where the game is installed

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Pyro Studios\CommandosMissionPack\OUTPUT
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/6810/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\OUTPUT\[Note 3]
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Pyro Studios\CommandosMissionPack\OUTPUT
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/6810/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

Video options are limited to changing between three resolutions.
Video options are limited to changing between three resolutions.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Use the resolution fix
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Use dgVoodoo 2. Select "Windowed" in "Appearance" and choose "Virtual SVGA Card" to avoid flickering.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Game is coded to run at low FPS(aproximated 16fps), but mouse control is unaffected

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Keys cannot be remapped. F1 displays some of the hotkeys.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

The audio settings.
The audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music and Sound Effects.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
Retail and GOG.com only.
German
Retail and GOG.com only; download for Steam version.
Hungarian
Fan translation.
Italian
Retail and GOG.com only.
Spanish
Retail and GOG.com only; download for Steam version.
Russian
Unofficial localization by «Fargus Multimedia»

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
6 Co-op
Online play
6 Co-op
The official MPlayer.com service has been shut down.

Connection types

Issues fixed

Can't install original retail version on 64-bit Windows

Manually install the game[7]
  1. Create the folder where you want the game to be installed (default would be C:\Program Files (x86)\Eidos Interactive\Pyro\Commandos, Beyond the Call of Duty)
  2. Open the <cd drive>\coman_mp folder and copy its content inside the first folder
  3. Open a text editor and save this into a file with the .reg extension
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Pyro]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Pyro\Commandos]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Pyro\Commandos\1.0MP]
"DirCd"="D:\\COMAN_MP"
"DirIns"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Eidos Interactive\\Pyro\\Commandos, Beyond the Call of Duty"
"Type"=dword:00000003

Notes

The above .reg file -which you need then to open to add the keys to registry- assume D: as the CD drive and the default game path as the installation folder. Adjust the path accordingly.

"Please run the German version on this computer" error

Change your Windows language setting from "Deutsch (Deutschland)" to "Deutsch (Luxemburg)"[citation needed]
Hex edit coman_mp.exe[8]
  1. Open the game executable with a hex editor such as HxD.
  2. Search for 74 0C 81 FE 07 14 00 00 74 04
  3. Replace first and last 2 groups of byte (74 0C and 74 04) with 90 90
  4. Search for 74 0C 81 FF 07 14 00 00 0F 85
  5. Replace 74 0C with 90 90 and 0F 85 with 90 E9

Black screen error

This occurs due to the lack of VP6F codecs in modern operating systems.
Move, delete or rename the <path-to-game>\Video folder.

Game stutters when moving the mouse

Mouse movement seems to be tied to frame rate which can cause the game to stutter only when the cursor is moved
Change your mouse polling rate to 125 using its software. If no software is available, try using a different mouse (cheap mice work better) or use any Bluetooth mouse to play the game.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DirectDraw 6
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio Miles Sound System
Multiplayer MPlayer.com, EidosNet Official servers have been taken offline.

Mission passwords

From the main menu, individual missions can be accessed by inputting a 5-character password that is shown at the end of the preceding mission in the score screen.
While different in-game profiles and potentially localizations will show different code sets, all of the codes for a specific mission work without restriction.[9]
Mission Codes
2. The Asphalt Jungle YBN9J / OXII7 / KXII7 / H239Z / 8K2IX / W8IVM (hard) / WNNOV (hard)
3. Dropped Out of the Sky GOH9O / XAPIB / UAPIB / 9R29I / IR291 / WLRVL (hard) / 3LRVL (hard) / 37UIK (hard)
4. Thor's Hammer HCOAU / QDOAU / YCG94 / 4469J / NGYA7 / WUJZR (hard) / EUJZR (hard) / 39L1N (hard)
5. Guess Who's Coming Tonight PHSAB / 4HSAB / TF4AO / IIWAY / KIWAY / 4K4A0 / W3KZ9 (hard) / 68EKF (hard) / 3DEKF (hard)
6. Eagle's Nest T8TSN / EW82M / YMFSV / J8TSN / VND2R / VK1YJ (hard) / HK1YJ (hard) / SHQ37 (hard)
7. The Great Escape TLESF / SJ8S1 / U5F2L / LUK2L / Z9ESK / V4WYO (hard) / XGBNS (hard) / SGBNB (hard)
8. Dangerous Friendships TUSLV / V6J27 / GHJ27 / DUSL2 / N7SLZ / VGG0Z (hard) / YRGOV (hard) / S4YNX (hard)

Cheats

To use cheats, type gonzoopera while in-game and then use the following key combinations.
Other combinations can be found on the Internet, but have no effect in the latest version of the game.
Key combination Effect
Ctrl+I Invincibility
Ctrl+ Shift+N Skip current mission
Shift+F1 Shift resolution to 512x384
Shift+F2 Shift resolution to 640x480
Shift+F3 Shift resolution to 800x600
Shift+F4 Shift resolution to 1024x768

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95, 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 166 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 225 MB
Video card (GPU) SVGA
1 MB of VRAM
DirectX 6.1 compatible
Sound (audio device) DirectX 6.1 compatible


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/6810/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (6810) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
  3. When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References