🎉 Tiberian Sun Rising – A Major Milestone for the C&C Community 🎉
As part of the fan-driven event for the Command & Conquer Community 30th Anniversary Showcase (Celebrating 30 Years of C&C as a Community), we shared something special – the first public gameplay of our newly optimised build of Tiberian Sun Rising.
This fan-driven celebration marked a turning point for our team and project.
🔧 The Road to Stability
Two years ago, progress was accelerating, and we reached a moment that every team pursuing an ambitious project fears: we encountered severe stability issues. We were exceeding the memory limits of a 32-bit engine, pushing beyond what 32-bit addressing could handle as a total conversion mod of C&C3: Tiberium Wars. The scale and complexity of our work strained the engine to its limits.
After a series of public showcases showing tremendous progress at the time, we made the tough decision to pause outward updates and focus intensely on optimisation. Stability had to come first, above anything else.
⚠️ Note: Tiberian Sun Rising is an unofficial, fan-made project developed in full compliance with EA’s modding guidelines. Command & Conquer is the property of Electronic Arts, EA is not affiliated with nor has endorsed this project.
TS Rising’s ModDB Profile – https://www.moddb.com/mods/tiberian-sun-rising
🚀 The Breakthrough
Through sustained engineering efforts, we reduced memory usage from 2.7GB to just 780MB — a two-thirds reduction that restored stability. Achieved purely through C&C3’s modding tools (no easy feat).
A huge thank you to Jana Mohn, creator of WrathEd and also a member of our team, whose foundational work and support played a key role in making this optimisation possible. Her technical contributions to the modding community continue to empower projects like ours.
Here’s what we featured during the 30th Anniversary Community event:
🎮 Gameplay Reveal: From a crashing build to smooth, stable gameplay — a side-by-side demonstration.
⚔️ Match Highlight: A 10-minute AI battle with 5 armies — stable from start to finish.
💬 Live Q&A + Dev Stream: A 2-hour session with fans and a candid look at the optimised build (bugs and all).
🎵 Music Premiere: Come and Get It! by composer Belinda Coomes — a rocking, Klepacki-inspired track that fans loved in her own distinct rocking style.
💡 Themed around EVA (GDI’s Electronic Video Agent) as a severe system failure event and recovery marking our return, the event reflected our journey well. The instability is now behind us — and while there’s still work ahead to complete this journey, this milestone marks real momentum.
This achievement was made possible by our passionate volunteer team and the enduring support of the C&C community, which continues to inspire us.
🫡 Welcome back, Commander!
