Civ II music won't play

I need some help in getting the music to play from the Civ II CD during the game. It's worked in the past, but upon reinstalling the game to my new computer, I've found the music is now gone. This is not just an annoying problem to me, it's essential for the joy of playing, so I very much hope some of you can tell me what to do.

When I attempt to Pick Music from the Game menu, I get the message This option is not available unless the Civilization II CD is in the CDROM drive.

This message is mentioned in the help file Civ2faq.txt in the Civ2 folder, but I believe my system meets the required items mentioned there. However, I don't quite understand the phrase The proper (and up-to-date) Windows MCI CD audio drivers for your sound card [must be] loaded. My sound card is Sound Blaster AudioPCI 64V, and I've just reinstalled the accompanying software for it today.

The facts are:

• The Civilization II CD is in the drive
• Sound effects (e.g. battle and improvement sounds) work
• Wonder videos and animated heralds work
• I've reinstalled Civilization II today as well as the accompanying WinG and Video for Windows files
• I've installed patch 2.42
• As mentioned above, I've also reinstalled the Sound Blaster software today
• I haven't experienced any other sound or multimedia problems with my computer
• I'm running Windows98

Any suggestions or solutions you could come up with would be most appreciated. Thanks.

I've the same problem with my 2.78 version

but when I enter the original CD or the CiC (2.42) CD it works. it doesn't work with the multiplayer CD and the FW(2.78) CD

[Ken Hinds]

Several things need to be checked. Some of this will sound simple and stupid, but it is often the obvious that gets over looked in these situations.

1. Is it only Civ II that won't play music or do you have the same problem with other game or music CD's? If other CD's with regular music files play then it is not the connection from the CD-ROM drive to the sound card.

2. If you have a music player utility, should be part of the items on the SoundBlaster install disk, try to play the individual tracks on the CD with the music player. If this works then you know it is not a problem with the CD.

3. If you did not pass the above tests then it is time to break out the screwdriver and open the case. First, did you have the case open recently to upgrade or replace anything? It is quite possible that the cable from the CD-ROM drive to the sound card is not firmly connected or not connected at all if you forgot to reconnect it. Check this item first. If the cable is not the problem then you may have a card that is not seated correctly, a control cable loose, or even a bent pin on the sound card.

4. If none of the above items seem to be the problem then it could just be your version of CIV II. I just reread your post and saw that you are running 2.42 (patched) version. My Non-MGE version is the CD version of 2.42 and I had the "game fails to recognize CD" problem a lot. I mean maybe every tenth time I put the CD in the drive. You may just have to keep trying. There is also a section in one of the files for 2.42, the Civ.ini file I think, that includes the lines "where am I" with the game location and "where is CD" with the drive location for the CD. Some tip guide or FAQ somewhere for 2.42 told how you could copy the VIDEO and KINGS folders from the CD and then change the CD entry in the file to speed up the game by running the videos and animations from your hard drive. This worked well for 2.42 and it would still play the music from the CD. It also cut down on my "missing CD" occurances.

Under Win95, and probably 98 also, this info is now in the registry file. You might want to check both your registry entries for Civ and the Civ.ini file to see if they agree or if the location data is even in the .INI file. I know that MGE does not put this in the .INI file anymore because it uses only the registry file.

Ken

Ken Hinds, thanks for the easy to follow reply, it has helped to narrow down my problem a great deal, and I'm very grateful.

To take them one at a time, the first of your points can be safely ruled out. Other CD's play without problem, so it's not the sound card connection.

The second one can also be checked, the problem is not with the Civilization CD since it can be played track by track by the CD player in Windows.

I'm relieved to learn from you that I won't have to open up my cabinet and make physical changes to the system! I'm not very handy at that to say the least, and it did seem unlikely that it would be a hardware problem. Phew!

So that leaves the game itself. I have looked at the civ.ini file and it says: WhereAmI=c:\mps\civ2 and WhereIsCD=e:\civ2. If I understand your advice correctly, you propose that I copy the Video and Kings folders to the Civ2 folder and change the WhereIsCD destination to c:\mps\civ2?

I'd like to be sure that's what you meant before trying it. Also, a maybe trivial and naïve question, but what is the registry file and how do I check the registry entries for Civ and civ.ini?

[Hasdrubal]

This is not meant as a stupid reply.
But, until you've figured out what's wrong, couldn't you just start the game, then minimize your Civ window, open your music player utility and order it to play the Civ CD independently of the game? At least you can hear your beloved Civ songs in the meantime.
I usually play Civ with other music through my computer CD like this. (Dvorak's 'From the new World' is my favourite).

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Hasdrubal's Home.
Ceterum censeo Romam esse delendam.

[Smash]

This probably won't help but when installing the mac version,the cd volume was defaulted to the lowest setting.No problem anywhere else just civ was telling my cd player to keep the volume low.Really low.

[Ken Hinds]

Legman,

Before making any changes to your .INI file I'd like you to check a few other things in the game.

1. You said that Heralds are animated and the Wonder movies play. The Heralds indicate that you have at least 16MB of memory, which I would expect since you have new machine. I assume you mean from the dealer and not just new to you, but used or pre-owned as things are now called.

The Wonder movies have their sound imbedded in the file and not separate. So when you build a wonder do you get sound in the movie?

2. The council works basically like a wonder movie. When you ask for their advice do you also get sound in addition to the text advice?

3. Since Version 2.42 does not require the CD in order to run, there is a pop-up message at the beginning that says something like: " your CD is not in drive x. You may play without the CD, but videos and music will not be available" or something to that effect. and then there are buttons for OK or retry and maybe a cancel. Do you get this message when starting the game on those sessions where the Pick Music function is not working? When I was having my problems I would get this pop-up about 50% of the time that I had a failure the rest didn't let me know until I tried to pick the music. If you are getting this pop-up then you may just be stuck with using a music player to get the music tracks, especially if you never get music no matter how often you reinsert the CD and restart the game. You do have to restart the game or it will not recognize the CD. Just reinserting it won't work.

4. If the Wonder Movies and the Adisors both have sound then the only problem is fixing the music. Currently the only place that the game can find those files is on the CD. So if you are getting Heralds, movies, and advisors with no problems then the game is really finding and using the CD it just cannot or will not attempt to find the music tracks on the CD. In this case doing anything with the .INI file will most likely be a waste of time unless you are having speed problems from a slow, like a 1x or 2x, CD-ROM drive.

5. If the situation in four exists then if you still have your old machine and Civ is still installed try running a session on the old machine, particularly if it has WIN95 or earlier installed. Version 2.42 was really intended to run on Win 3.x and not Win 95/98. Under Win95 you can't use the add/remove program function to deinstall Civ II v2.42. This is because there are no registry entries for it so Win95 doesn't know that game is there. This also means that installing other programs can easily trash files that Civ needs or that the Civ installation can trash files that other programs need. It's very possible that the same situation exists under Win98. I don't have Win98 installed so I can't say for sure that this is the case.

6. If it turns out that the only sounds that you are really missing from the CD are the music tracks then your best bet will be to upgrade to a new version. Let me provide fair warning that the new versions do not include any of the regular music from version 2.42. I'm in the process of making myself a new Game CD that has the music tracks from all the CD's but still need to burn the CD yet.

7. Sorry, I missed this the first time through. The registry entries are a special hidden file that replace most entries in the old Win 3.x *.INI files. If you do not understand what you are doing and/or do not have a detailed guide to the Win98 registry do not repeat do not mess around in the registry file. You can trash things beyound repair, except or a complete 100% reinstall of everything. This can not be emphasized enough if you don't know what you are doing the use of regedit.exe is dangerous the health of your operating system and applications. Your health too, since beating on walls is hard on the head and hands.

Ken
[This message has been edited by Ken Hinds (edited July 16, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Ken Hinds (edited July 16, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Ken Hinds (edited July 17, 2000).]

Hasdrubal, I just tried that, and I must say it's actually quite good!

Now I miss out on the Wonder movies of course (and the Funeral March when a civ is wiped out, Ode to Joy during WLTXDs - those two I've removed from the playlist), but maybe I can work my way around that somehow...

So that wasn't a "stupid reply" at all, thanks.

I'd still very much like to get the music working within the game though, so I'll wait for Ken's reply before doing anything rash.

[Scouse Gits]

Just a quick word of support - good luck! Ken has certainly set your feet on the right course - but do heed his last paragraph Only use Regedit if you know that you know what you are doing At times I believe it was only included to increase new computer sales - it is certainly the fastest route to a trashed computer known to modern man!!


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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
[This message has been edited by Scouse Gits (edited July 17, 2000).]

Gee, thanks for the comprehensive reply Ken! I'm overwhelmed. Now, I'll reply with the exact responses I get from the game when I get home tonight. I should certainly be able to narrow it down further with the help of your post.

One interesting note though: I'm at work now, on a Compaq portable and I brought along the CivII CD today, installed it, and it runs perfectly - including the music! The portable uses Windows95 and the game is ver. 1.02. I've noticed some apparent differences in the messages I get when I start the game, and I'll compare them to my home computer tonight.

I'll get back to you!

Edit: Thanks for the supportive post SG - and don't worry: I wouldn't know a registry from a doorknob!
Edit #2: Well, some unexpected work came up, I'll test it tomorrow night instead.
[This message has been edited by Legman (edited July 17, 2000).]

[MacUser]

EEP! After all that I'm REALLY glad that I own a Mac! Good luck directory diving!

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"Rene Descartes was a drunken fart, I drink therefore I am !" - Bruce, from the Bruces Song
(Monty Python)

Okay, I finally got the time to test out the things you suggested Ken. Sorry for the delay.

1) Yes, my machine is less than one year old, with 128 MB RAM. Yes, I do get sound in the wonder movies during the game.

2) The High Council works fine as well. I get the video clips and the accompaning sound.

3) No, I don't get the start up message about the missing CD on game sessions, provided I actually inserted the CD prior to loading the CD. The intro video and the accompaning music start right up just like it should. So no problem there.

4) Ok, we've now established that the game finds, reckognizes and uses the CD for wonders, heralds and High Council purposes.

5) I don't have my old pc anymore, it's at my parents' in the other end of the country, and it's had all the software re-installed before being sent there, so no checking of the game would be possible on that. But regarding what you said about CivII running under Windows95 instead of 98, I'll just copy and paste from my post above what I found out at work the other day:

One interesting note though: I'm at work now, on a Compaq portable and I brought along the CivII CD today, installed it, and it runs perfectly - including the music! The portable uses Windows95 and the game is ver. 1.02. I've noticed some apparent differences in the messages I get when I start the game, and I'll compare them to my home computer tonight. The difference I mentioned was that at my work computer, I get a pop up message when I start up the game giving me the choice of the English or the French language version. As mentioned, it's version 1.02, and I have installed the 2.42 patch at home, perhaps it has something to do with that?

6) That's probably the easiest way around the problem, upgrading to a newer version, but I don't want that! I love CivII the way it is (or used to be)!

7) Duely noted! I won't mess around with the registry then, as I would have absolutely no idea what to do.

So what do I do now? I plan on re-installing the game once again, and this time choose custom setup and see if there are any options there that could help me.

Another thing is I have two CD ROM drives, the regular one designated E:\ and a CD writing drive, designated D:\. I've not yet reinstalled the D:\ drive after having to format my hard drive a couple of months back. Perhaps that could have something to do with the game's difficulty of reckognizing the music on the CD? Just in case you're wondering: CivII is told to look for the CD at E:\ in the civ.ini file.

I'll probably try re-installing the CD writing drive to see if that would help things with the game. Unfortunately, I won't have time to re-install neither the game itself nor the drive for another week, as I'll be out of town for the next 5-6 days. I'll be sure to check this thread for some additional advice though!

Thanks again Ken, I really appreciate the help you've given me so far.

Edit: Typo corrected.
[This message has been edited by Legman (edited July 19, 2000).]

[Ken Hinds]

Legman,

Shame, Shame, Withholding key information until the last post. Version 2.42 was notorious for not liking setups with 2 CD-ROM's installed. It especially had problems with situations like yours where the game CD was not in the first CD-ROM Drive and with Jukebox style CD Changers. When I first found this site there were 3 or 4 threads with different people working the problems in different ways. The end results at the time were basically. "That is not a good thing to do for this game." I don't know if anyone has tried it again using the newer versions or not.

The game seems to expect to find the music in the first CD-ROM drive on the system. It appearantly uses the location in the .INI file only for game files and not the music tracks. Remember, this game was designed long before most machines could accomodate multiple CD Drives. Some of us old foaggies can remember when you had to choose between 2 hardrives and 2 floppies or give up something to install a CD-ROM because you either did not have enough power connectors, controller slots, or drive bays in the case. And we used to program on punch cards too.

Most likely, if you get the drivers installed for the Drive D CD-ROM and make sure it is working correctly under Win98 you will find that the game works correctly if you use Drive D rather than Drive E for the game CD.

Once you have completely tested Drive D using something other than CIV and there are no problems with music CD's, etc., then you can either reinstall the game, which I don't recommend or you can make one small change to the CIV .INI file.

Using notepad or any other text editor change the Where is CD line to read "D:".... instead of "E:"..... Save the file with the same name. If you use anything other than Notepad to make the change, make sure that it saves the file in a Text File format and not something else. If you are given the choice, use DOS Text.

The reason that I suggested not reinstalling is: you already have a installation that is working and there is no reason to mess around with it and maybe have something go wrong on the reinstall. The .INI File change is real simple and should not cause you any difficulty. If you have any doubts about accidental mistakes during the change make a copy of the file first and then make the change.

Ken

But, but... I didn't mean to withhold information, honestly. It's just that I'm a novice when it comes to problems like these. And that's why it's so good of you to try and help me out!

You really think that could be it, that I need to install the second CD drive and change the civ.ini file accordingly? Well I will certainly do that just as soon as I get home to the computer, beginning of next week!

I've already tried modifying the civ.ini file using Notepad in my attempts to get the music to play, and there was no problem saving the changes, so that should be easy for me to do. The difficult part will be installing the CD drive (that's what has kept me from doing it up untill now), but that's a differnet story.

I'll try to avoid reinstalling the game, because as you said there's no need to just yet, as the game functions ok - apart from the music. When I've got some news on how it went, I'll be sure to post it here. Thanks a lot for the help Ken, it's been great!

[Ken Hinds]

Legman,

Yes, I really do think the problem is having dual CD-ROM's installed. Especially if you mean that the D Drive is a CD-RW (ReWriteable). Almost everyone of the people in the posts that I saw about this problem had a Writable CD of some type. Because this was not long after they became readily available it took people a while to figure out what the problem really was.

By the way, if you are not aware of it, you should be able to play any kind of CD in the Writable drive. That includes music. You just can't write to every disc that you put in. Therefore you should have no problems playing Civ from the writable drive and the standard CIV CD can't be changed so your CD will be safe if you should forget that it is in the drive when you are doing something else.

Ken

I see now. The drive is a writable drive only, not re-writable. It's a Plextor drive, and I've attempted unsuccesfully to install it a couple of times after the hard drive replacement, but since I didn't really need it at the time, I gave it up when things got complicated.

Now, however, I've got a really good reason to make every effort to get the darn thing to work!

From your explanation of the similar problems other people have had with the same configuration, I'm rather convinced the problem will go away once I install the second drive.

I actually didn't know that one would be able to play regular CD's in the writable drive. It's good to know that the Civ CD can't be changed accidentally - oh, what a bad trip that would be!

As said I'll look into installing the second drive the beginning of next week, probably Tuesday, I'll keep you posted on the progress.

[Ken Hinds]

Legman,

No problem, I'm glad to be of help. As I've posted elsewhere I've been dealing with Operations/Programming since '68 and PCs since '84. I still have and use my IBM-XT that I bought with German DOS and keyboard. I've only started using games in the last 4 years or so, strictly for developmental research of course. After all, computers are tools and not toys.

Plextor is a very good brand. If it is IDE it shouldn't be too difficult to do drivers. SCSI can be somewhat of a problem to the new person however.

Best of luck and lets get you hearing the music again.

Ken

P.S. If you are interested I'll let you know how my attempt to graft the 2.42 music tracks to the MGE Backup game CD goes. I hope that I will be able to listen to and pick from both sets of music.

Ken
[This message has been edited by Ken Hinds (edited July 21, 2000).]

Ken,

With a record like that, no wonder you give good advice! But... do you mean to say a computer can also be used for other things than fun...? What a truely amazing invention, a computer!

Best of luck on your attempts to play the custom selection of music. It would be interesting to hear if you succeed.

I think my Plextor drive is SCSI based, I seem to remember picking that option when the sales guy gave his speech in favour of it. No sweat, I should be able to work it out now that I'm properly motivated!

Have a nice weekend Ken.

Okay, it's been a good three weeks since my last post on this particular problem, and I have just one thing to say:

Woo-hoo!

It wasn't easy for me, but I finally got the music to work. The problem was indeed the two CD drives, an ordinary one designated E:\, and a writable one designated D:\ which wasn't properly installed.

I had to get out all the installation CDs for my system as well as the manuals (which incidentally never seem to mention the problems I'm investigating), and after several nights of installing various driver files and other things I'm not too experienced with, I got the SCSI card installed and working.

This afternoon, I finally got the writable CD drive D:\ to function! Before, all I got was the diodes on the front panel kept flashing, and I couldn't insert the CD cartridge no matter what I tried. Then, by a stroke of luck, I got it inserted by gently pushing the cartridge during a reboot of the system, and now it works!

I did a succesful trial burn of a CD, and felt it was time to test - once again - whether the CivII CD would run and play the music. My first try with the CivII CD in the writable drive didn't work, but in the regular CD drive E:\ it works like a dream! No need to change any settings in the civ.ini file, it's just like there never was a problem in the first place...!

I'm a happy man I tell you. Thank you Ken for all your help and for identifying the source of the problem despite my poor description of the particulars. How did your project with the burning of the music selection CD turn out?




[This message has been edited by Legman (edited August 12, 2000).]