Windows XP?

Uncle Thade · February 27, 2002, 05:58

I am running Win XP (fresh install) and Civ III won't play at all the system just hangs??? Plays the intro the !!BAMM!! (sorry for the Emerilism, but it just blanks out, screen goes into standby and the game won't start. Help???

THX 1138+Planet of the Apes = Uncle Thade

teplitsa · March 4, 2002, 10:52

I have the same thing. It used to work out of the box, but not after installing 1.16f. Could be the patch. I have a Geforce2 in my PC.

steelehc · March 7, 2002, 06:44

Did you install WinXP after Civ3? That will, for some reason or other, cause the game to not work. Re-install the game, and then try it. If you want, back up your .sav files to another folder first.

Steele

teplitsa · March 7, 2002, 10:45

I read this somewhere and it worked. In device manager check to see if your monitor says default monitor. If it does, install the correct driver. Worked for me.

Deathwalker · March 8, 2002, 08:09

Windows XP sucks

I bought a new computer and everthing I loaded on it Civ 3 included did not work. So I gave up and went back to Windows 2000.

teplitsa · March 8, 2002, 10:19

I run XP at home and it's great. Even Wing Commander games work on it. I used to run XP at work, but I had problems with the Windows 2000 Admin tools and went back to win2000 at work. Except for the games, there really isn't any difference. XP just has a few more features.

godinex · March 8, 2002, 11:53

XP Sucks! I hate IT. I cant uninstall it!

RickBlaine · March 8, 2002, 14:56

I installed XP a few months after installing Civ3 and had no problems after I installed the latest XP drivers for my video and sound card.

reds4ever · March 8, 2002, 21:12

XP is the Mutts Nuts!!

the only problem i found was that the registry needed updating to get some software to work (Civ was one of these)

Zardos · March 14, 2002, 13:41

I recently overcame a difficult problem on my machine that may or may not have anything to do with WinXP (but I am running WinXP).

I had installed the game and it was working fine, but WinXP kept telling me that I had something wrong with my video card/drivers. I have an ATI Radeon and have upgraded to the latest drivers (to my and Gateway's knowledge). So on advice of a web site somewhere (which I forget), turned off Hardware Acceleration on my machine. Civ III stopped working. As soon as I turned Hardware Acceleration back to Full, Civ III worked again.

Here's how you get to Hardware Acceleration:

1. Right click on your desktop and choose properties
2. Go to the Settings tab
3. Click on the Advanced button
4. Go to the Troubleshoot tab
5. Change the Slider under Hardware Acceleration to Full.

I discovered that I don't need to check the box that says Enable Write Combining...

Good luck and I hope this helps

Uncle Thade · March 14, 2002, 18:35

The fresh install I put on was from a formatted drive and CIV III was a clean install after the fact. Both patches do varying wierd things. Most common are crashes. The game will play now but it is a waste of time when I play to a certain point and it crashes, not allowing me to play past that last save, because it crashes the same at the same spot, etc.

Updated with a latest drivers and what have you but still crashes. Now, something wierd happened when I uninstalled and reinstalled CIV, it plays perfectly (with latest 1.17f patch.) I haven't changed a single setting. Any crashed games though I can not revive.

I have games that are far more intense in the use of the CPU, RAM, and Vid Card and it just flys Athlon XP, etc... But with CIV III it still seems to crawl along even at mid game. Maybe more RAM but I think there is a break even point with RAM where too much is useless or just goes unused. Anybody know?

Thanks for all the help. I will share more if I can figure this out.

Purest Warrior · March 15, 2002, 11:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Uncle Thade
I am running Win XP (fresh install) and Civ III won't play at all the system just hangs??? Plays the intro the !!BAMM!! (sorry for the Emerilism, but it just blanks out, screen goes into standby and the game won't start. Help???

I have exactly the same problem. Well, not exactly, maybe, because the game still runs, but the screen has gone on standby and, hence, I would have to play the game by memory.

I am running Winxp on a GeForce2 Ti, and I installed Civ3 after xp.
I have been doing a bit of research and I think that the intro can be hardware-rendered, but the rest of the game needs OpenGL to run, ie. software-rendering.
OpenGL does not come with xp and I have since downloaded and installed it, but the screen still standbys.

I will try and re-install and get back to you.

Re-installing worked for you, right, Thade?

Uncle Thade · March 15, 2002, 14:22

Purest Warrior, LOL at " the play by memory"...

Yeah, I uninstalled it then simply reinstalled it, applied the patch again and it now runs and has had random crashes. Sometimes the patch doesn't always take the first time you install it, so check the version number. And then reinstall the patch. Shrug???

Other than that it seems to have random hardware problems. I guess just ensure to roll back your drivers or simply run CIV III in Win98 mode... Anyone know if this will help. I installed this on my PII 400 and it ran without a hitch in Win98 SE, so maybe there is something in XP that CIV III just doesn't like, maybe that is an issue the Firaxians are looking at.

thunderchicken · March 15, 2002, 21:30

Why your screen was doing that? I had the same problem with XP Pro. I found out that if you switch the application to Windows 98/ME, the screen is fine. I'm running Voodoo 5.

Hope that helps.

gallivant · March 16, 2002, 08:17

I formatted my hard drive and installed win xp. I installed Civ 3 and then the patch and it hung after loading the intro sequence.

To overcome this problem, I did:

In device manager it said default monitor for the monitor tab, so I downloaded the drivers for my Sony Trinitron 17sf, installed these drivers manually and restarted and now the game works.

I have a GeForce 256.

Now I am going to start my epic battle for world superiority.

Uncle Thade · March 16, 2002, 14:13

Hey Gallivant,

Thats the one thing I didn't do is install the drivers for my moniter. Will let you all know what happens after a few days of conquering.

Take that BISMARCK you rotten son of a #&^#%!

Purest Warrior · March 19, 2002, 12:05

Captain's log:

Phew, finally got it to work after four days of battling with my PC.

Uninstalled driver for my NVidia GeForce2 Ti and let WindowsXP handle the driver

.

Added "refresh=75" to the civilization.ini (thanks to snake_3017 at http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...0&pagenumber=1).

And, behold, it runs! Peachy as a peach.

Happy gaming everyone!

reds4ever · March 20, 2002, 17:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Purest Warrior
Captain's log:

Phew, finally got it to work after four days of battling with my PC.

Uninstalled driver for my NVidia GeForce2 Ti and let WindowsXP handle the driver

.

isn't the performance alot slower?

Purest Warrior · March 20, 2002, 19:46

I don't know - it's a new computer and it's the first time I get civ3 to run on it.

This is the only thing that has worked, and believe me, I've tried a lot of strange things. I would like to use the NVidia driver, but I can't.
If anyone has experiences with NVidia cards, WinXP, and civ3, please enlighten me.

reds4ever · March 21, 2002, 11:10

have you tried ruuning it 98 compatability mode, with the newest Nvidia drivers, it worked for me on my Duron, Geforce 2 MX, XP system?

otherwise i'm pretty sure you'll be slowing your computer down

Adm.Naismith · March 22, 2002, 05:34

I have a new notebook branded Microstar/Medion MD9694 with XP home: so far, so good with Civ III 1.17f

My HW basics are Celeron 1.2 GHz, 256 MB Ram, ATI Radeon Mobility P 32 MB Ram

Well. I had once an hiccup at the start, while I pressed enter to stop the intro, and have some trouble with a game that hang while my fighter scramble from my carrier to intercept enemy attacking bomber. That said, it seems to me that the former can be related to an XP trouble or not, while the latter seems more a game bug looking for a fix

Falconius · August 8, 2002, 15:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Zardos

Here's how you get to Hardware Acceleration:

1. Right click on your desktop and choose properties
2. Go to the Settings tab
3. Click on the Advanced button
4. Go to the Troubleshoot tab
5. Change the Slider under Hardware Acceleration to Full.

Well Zardos, I tried this and when I went to run Civ III, my monitor blew out! There was a loud POP! and then the screen went blank!

But there's a good ending to my story. I bought a new monitor, and now Civ III runs great! It turns out my problem wasn't an XP vs Civ III issue, but rather a Monitor vs Civ III issue. Now Civ III and all my other games look and play much better!

So I'm actually grateful you helped me blow out my monitor! It was old and needed to be retired anyway (It was hooked up to its fourth computer). Kind of cool to see it go out with a bang!

trevor · August 14, 2002, 02:09

Well, I feel sorry for you guys. I've been running XP on my computer for months now and I've not had a single problem with it and Civ 3. Kind of funny huh?

vondrack · August 14, 2002, 05:57

Quote:

Originally posted by trevor
Well, I feel sorry for you guys. I've been running XP on my computer for months now and I've not had a single problem with it and Civ 3. Kind of funny huh?

Same for me. I love WinXP Pro.

I am quite serious. I really love them. That is the first M$ OS I have ever had that doesn't crash at will. Actually, I can't remember a single system-wide crash since I installed XPs in November last year. However, I did a thorough search for the latest drivers when installing and I do keep the system in good shape by regularly updating it.

Civ3 works with no extra adjustments on my system (I am using a Matrox G450 video card).

Harovan · August 14, 2002, 06:31

I run XP pro and have no problems with Civ3. But I can't say, that XP never crashes. But it's much better than the Windows 9x/ME series, though.

My advice on problems:

- Check the graphics drivers.
- Same for the sound drivers. Civ3 uses MP3 sounds.
- Check the installed fonts. Uninstall all but the system fonts and look if Civ3 runs. If yes, reinstall them one by one and look, which one crashed the game.
- Check/adjust the directory rights. Civ3 needs read access on the entire directory and write access on the savegame folder.

Zardos · August 14, 2002, 08:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Falconius

Well Zardos, I tried this and when I went to run Civ III, my monitor blew out! There was a loud POP! and then the screen went blank!

But there's a good ending to my story. I bought a new monitor, and now Civ III runs great! It turns out my problem wasn't an XP vs Civ III issue, but rather a Monitor vs Civ III issue. Now Civ III and all my other games look and play much better!

So I'm actually grateful you helped me blow out my monitor! It was old and needed to be retired anyway (It was hooked up to its fourth computer). Kind of cool to see it go out with a bang!

Um, sorry? WOW, I've never heard of that happening before, that monitor must have been on its last legs to begin with (that's my story and I'm sticking to it

).

Well, I'm glad I afforded you a new opportunity to purchase a monitor. Just think of the shelf-life of that new monitor, and when it blows out, years from now, think of me

Zardos