Hello,

I've been reading up on the forums for Civilization III and see quite a few of you are having trouble with the game. I work for Infogrames Tech Support, and belive you me, the phones are off the hook on this one! :confused:

Before you go and blame Firaxis or Infogrames for the problems some of you are having with the game, please make sure you try this stuff first.

First off, make sure you are running the latest drivers for your sound card and video card that support DirectX 8.0 and DISABLE 3RD PARTY APPLICATIONS! In Win98/ME you click on start, goto run, and type in MSCONFIG, make sure SELECTIVE STARTUP is enabled, and LOAD STARTUP GROUP ITEMS is UNCHECKED, and reboot your computer. :D

If you encounter the "Out of Range" or "Out of Sync" message from your monitor, find out what type of monitor you have, and install the CORRECT .INF for your monitor. DO NOT use "Default" or "Plug and Play" driver from Microsoft, this is what is causing the problem. GO MICROSOFT! :goodjob:

Do a Windows Update! You have no idea how many problems this fixes! :lol:

If you continue to have problems with the game, go ahead and post them to this thread, I'll do my best to work it out with you.

sk0tie
Infogrames, Inc
Tech Support North America

Thanks for posting here!

BTW, I need some advice: would CivIII work with WinXP and a Geforce MX2 64mb card? I plan buying these two products soon...

Yes they will bud! :) Those are the two things I run on my home system, works great! Just make sure you are running 21.83 drivers or newer if you buy that card. The game has problems with the 12.41 and lower.

Have Fun!

sk0tie
Infogrames, Inc
Tech Support North America

The latest drivers for Nvidia video cards do not seem to be consistent with Civ3. As many people reported older ones work much better. Thats what I did too and have no problems now.
By the way for those who have nvidia cards, you can get older drivers here: http://www.3dnews.ru/download/drivers/nvidia/

I use now 12.41, works great.

P.S. you can also look here:



http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31206

Originally posted by sk0tie
Yes they will bud! :) Those are the two things I run on my home system, works great! Just make sure you are running 21.83 drivers or newer if you buy that card. The game has problems with the 12.41 and lower.

Have Fun!

sk0tie
Infogrames, Inc
Tech Support North America

Thanks a lot! I'll have fun for sure :D :D ;)

I have had no problems with DetonatorXP drivers, there may be some other issue behind them not working correctly. The only thing I can tell is most people that have GeForce cards also have Athlons, and with Athlons come Via Chipsets.

Update Via 4in1 drivers from www.viatech.com

Happy Civ'ing :)

sk0tie
Infogrames, Inc
Tech Support North America

Hi-

Game won't run on Win2000 Dell Latitude with plenty of everything and latest drivers. Get Civ III splash screen then exit back to Windows.

Any idea what's up?

If you have already updated all the drivers and tried the above information, please state everything you know about your computer, and I'll see if there is something I can do for you. :D

This goes for anyone that needs some help, Goto Start Menu, Run, and type DXDIAG and get this information:

Under System Tab:

Processor and Speed
Total System Memory
DirectX Version

Under Display Tab:

Video Card Name
Manufacturer
Approx. Total Memory

Under Sound Tab:

Sound Card Name
Manufacturer

I will also need the driver version numbers of the sound and video cards, which can be found in the Device Manager. (Right-click on properties of My Computer)

sk0tie
Infogrames, Inc
Tech Support North America

I am experiencing and I've heard others are experiencing very slow (multi-second) lag on scolling on the map. I've heard varying reports on how to fix this (one suggestion is to go to older Detonator drivers). Any word on this?

System:
Dual Celeron 500
Windows XP
256MB RAM
GeForce2 MX400 Video

-Bacon.

Here's the specs you asked for on the issue of the game not starting on my laptop:

Dell Latitude running Win2000

Processor and Speed P3 500mhz
Total System Memory 128mb
DirectX Version 8.0

Under Display Tab:

Video Card Name ATI Rage Mobility M-1 AGP 2X
Manufacturer ATI
Approx. Total Memory 8mb

Under Sound Tab:

Sound Card Name ESS Maestro 3
Manufacturer ESS

I will also need the driver version numbers of the sound and video cards, which can be found in the Device Manager. (Right-click on properties of My Computer)

Sound driver v5.12.1.1146
Video driver v5.0.2195.4027

Thanks for any help you can provide.

I will look into it when I get a chance, remember, my first job is Infogrames Phone Tech Support, I do this in my free time :)

Originally posted by sk0tie
I will look into it when I get a chance, remember, my first job is Infogrames Phone Tech Support, I do this in my free time :)

I hear ya, I used to work in Tech Support a long time ago and I am certain that it shaved years off my life :). Thanks for coming to the forums, it would be nice if Infogrames had some forums of their own, but oh well. thanks for the help!

-Bacon.

King Rude I had the same problem as you are describing. I normally run my screen resolution at 1024x768 and use True Color (24 bit) for number of colors. I found that I had to reset my resolution to 640x480 and lower my number of colors used to High Color (16 bit) or 256 colors. Once I made these changes the game ran fine after the splash screen.

Am looking forward to sk0tie's reply.

Hi-

Game won't run on Win2000 Dell Latitude with plenty of everything and latest drivers. Get Civ III splash screen then exit back to Windows.

Any idea what's up?

I had the same problem on a similar system, until I changed my res to 1024 X 768.

good luck.
----sumociv

OCRAWARE does not disable when turning off 3rd party applications. After you disable 3rd party applications and reboot, CTRL-ALT-DEL and manually END-TASK Ocraware.

Ocraware directly uses the Fonts in windows, and from previous experience, too many fonts cause the registry to corrupt. I have fixed two calls now reguarding this problem.

One user had 700 fonts. I instructed him to remove atlease 350 of those fonts, and to my suprise, this fixed the problem with broken text.

The game needs to access the Lucidia Sans font within the first 256 Font Entries.

Hope this helps, I am still working on the issues from the previous posts, please bare with me! :D

One thing I have noticed with some other postings on other sites as well as my own experiences with Civ3 is that there seems to be a problem with the way the game polls to see which settings to use with the graphics cards.

The intro blink movie worked fine. The small portion before the blink intro and the menu screens after the blink video would display as if the refresh rate was incompatible with the monitor.

By experimenting with my display settings I was able to reproduce the the graphical "mess" by setting my refresh rates to 120hz.

From reading on the net I discovered that I would be able to fix this problem. The way to do this was to find the settings in the regestry dealing with the graphics card. I then removed the settings corrisponding to the higher refresh rates. (I removed the 100,120,80,85 hz options)

It appears from looking through the regestry that when the graphics card is installed it places entrys in the regestry for all resolutions and all refresh rates that the graphics CARD itself is capable of. (even if the system is not capable of running them)

The listing in the regestry seems to display them ordered not numerically, but ordered alphabetically, meaning instead of putting them in numeric order of 65,70,75,80,85,100,120 the regestry would display them as 100,120,65,70,75,80,85.

If the game were to pull the first settings it came across, it would pull the refresh rates that were physically to high for my monitor, and hence the "mess" that was displayed on the screen.

Please dont missunderstand, I am just posting information to hopefully help with this problem, not as an attack.

I have it running on my ststem now, and enjoy the game very much (just wish I had more time to devote to it lol).

Cheers,

Trash

Thank you trash! I will IMMEDIATELY forward this to the development team!! :D

Thank you all for the help, we are working around the clock for answers to these critical problems, please keep it up! :D

Hey, WOW skOtie- way to do good PR for Inforgrames. Thanks a lot for posting in here and (I assume) reading posts in other threads regarding tech probs as well. Probably a good place for you guys to get ideas as to solutions, huh?

Now make sure you take some time out to play the game that's paying your keep! :king:

Well nobody else in the department really does this, I just use it because it seems to me if you are on the internet looking up information, you seem to know your computer pretty well, and it makes it really easy for me to gather information about peoples computers.

In response to Trash, could you tell me where in the registry you found these refresh rates?

Thank you all again! :)

I had the refreshrate problem as well, and edited my registry because I was unable to find or create a proper .inf file for my screen.

For me the refreshrates were in the normal order: 60,70,72,75,85,100,120. I just removed the highest ones that don't work with my screen.

They were at HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/NV4/Device0
The key was NVVANTA_Modes and keytype was REG_MULTI_SZ

This is for an NVidia Vanta card.

Btw, for those that have the same problem and don't know enough about the registry or fixing your pc when you don't have a screen: Don't mess with the registry (or make a backup before changing, and remember very well how to get into vga mode at bootup (F8))

Okay...some people here are saying to update the video driver for the NVIDIA video card and some are saying to go with an old driver.

I'm running 2k and run the movie fine, but then get a blank screen. Do I want an older driver or a newer one.

Also, what key is the registry info for the monitor??

Thanks.

ok, ive already posted how to fix the 'Blank Screen' AKA: OUT OF RANGE/SYNC problem.

Download the latest .inf file for you monitor. You cannont use Default or Plug And Play .infs provided by microsoft unless your monitor is a specific type that can handle a really high refresh rate.

www.windrivers.com has a really nice way of looking up all the drivers for you computer.

btw, i confirmed the registry entries that you can change, good job Trash and meneer, thank you for the help! :D

if you cannot find a correct monitor.inf for your monitor, try this as a last resort, as you can really screw your computer up if you dont know what your doing in the registry.

Quoting sk0tie:
First off, make sure you are running the latest drivers for your sound card and video card that support DirectX 8.0 and DISABLE 3RD PARTY APPLICATIONS! In Win98/ME you click on start, goto run, and type in MSCONFIG, make sure SELECTIVE STARTUP is enabled, and LOAD STARTUP GROUP ITEMS is UNCHECKED, and reboot your computer

I ran MSCONFIG like you said and disabled "load startup group items" and this fixed ALL my problems (well except that I'm unemployed and broke...hehehe). In fact, after the game started working, I enabled the startup group again, and the game still worked! So now I have it all!
One question though: can I play the game without the game disc in my CD-ROM? I don't mind forgoing the audio and advanced video options for the convenience of not having to put the disc in each time i want to play

Trying to do this from work, so hopefully im sending you to the right area. I believe I found this in :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet

do a search for :
{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
(this seems to be a common key for display. This key worked for both an NVidia card I believe it was, and for my own Voodoo3 2000 card.)

May also be found in several locations, I changed the regestry in 2 different locations, and only for the 1024X768 screen resolutions (So i have to remember not to change them ingame or ill be back to square 1 8) ).


Wont be home till early Saturday to be able to give you any more specifics, hope this at least points you in the general direction for the registry settings.

WARNING TO OTHERS READING--------->
As stated above, backup your registry before attempting to edit it. If you make a critical error and save it, your system might never start again.

cheers,

Trash

That will teach me to post without reading the last few replies ;)

I hadnt seen mention of the fixes a few posts above, but for those die hard tweakers that want to go take a look enjoy ;)

Trash

Okay, so I think I found the registry key that I need to edit to keep my monitor from being set to a refresh rate that is too high.

Here are my problems _ first, I can't see far enough to confirm that the 1024x768 resolution is there _ I already pulled the window over as far as it will go (I've included a picture with the window NOT pulled over as far as it will go so that you can see the ... at the end.

It shouldn't matter actually, except when I go to modify, it displays everything in binary I think, which I have no idea how to edit.

Am I missing something simple?? Thanks.

Sorry, I can't get more than one pic at a time

last one showing the edit value screen

pansophy: you can scroll down with the scroll bar to see all the resolutions.

format will be something like:
8 640 480 60 70 72 75 0
8 800 600 60 70 0
16 640 480 60 70 72 75 0
16 800 600 60 70 0

The first number is the color depth, 8 bit, 16 bit or 32 bit, civ3 uses 16 bit. Then the next two numbers are the resolution, 1024x768 is common. the numbers after that are the refresh rates, except for the last 0 which means it's the end of the line.

To fix just overwrite all the high numbers that don't work on your pc with spaces (20 00 in hex), you'll have to leave 60 as a bare minimum.

The edit screen has two sides, a hex side and a normal side, try selecting a bit and you'll see.

View attached picture for more details (be sure to pick the right set of data, not necessarily the same as shown).

Thanks Meneer :)

I thought I would try one more thing before hacking a registry I couldn't read. My 17" monitor is so old that the drivers available from the manufacture didn't included mine. I opened up the .inf in notepad, found a newer 17" and looked up the specs listed on their website to see if I could find the values listed in the .inf file.

The only meaningful values in the file were the max resolution and the horizontal and vertical scan frequency ranges.

I created new entries for my monitor everywhere there were entries for the newer version and just replaced the values with values from my monitor's user manual, and installed the homemade driver.

That worked :goodjob:

Now all I need is sound :(

I just bought civ3:love:
But everytime I start the game and it gets to the Infogames intro it stops responding:cry:
I need help Please:(

Update your video and sound drivers. We think it may be a sound issue, but not certain. If this doesnt work, go into the Civ3 directory and under /Art/Movies/ delete the intro.bik.

Should work! :D

Thank you,:D
you are the king!:king:

There is another post on this in the forum, but I figured I'd bring it up here anyway. It seems that a lot of people with high-powered processors, Windows XP, and nVIDIA based cards (my comp included) are having trouble with general in-game lagginess. At first I thought it was just a really demanding game, but now I don't think this is true, since people with much less powerful computers are running it without hitches.

System Specs:

Windows XP Professional
PIII933 Mhz Processor
32MB nVIDIA TNT2 M64
384MB RAM
Sound Blaster Live! Value 1024

I'm generally a well-organized user; the only things I have running in the background are Norton Personal Firewall and Norton Antivirus (both v. 2002). Yet this game is giving me hell in terms of lag. The general solutions posted seem to be "Downgrade your drivers!" but as that would give me a definate performance hit from the newest Detonator XP drivers, which are optimized for XP, I'm not terribly enthusiastic about this option. Any alternative ideas?

update: using detonator version 22.50 helps slightly, but the scrolling speed is still bad.

I was experiencing the slow game play. It was very slow. I had wait times between turns long enough to read paragraphs in the manual. I followed advice in this forum to use ctrl-alt-delete and end task to stop everything except Explorer and Systray. I also closed everything in the system tray except the volume control using right click and picking the entry out of the pop up menus.

This sped the game up considerably.

I just thought some of you might like to know that there is hope.

I did not change ANY drivers.

:beer:

Can you pass along this info to the people involved in making patches for Civ3, please?

1. Add a sentry or sleep command for the units like there was in Civ2 and SMAC.

2. Make the game more 16 civ friendly. By this, I mean that all the displays and lists that usually only show up to 8 civs at time should be altered to show up to 16 at a time.

Thanks

Good game, btw. :goodjob:

Originally posted by sk0tie

If you encounter the "Out of Range" or "Out of Sync" message from your monitor, find out what type of monitor you have, and install the CORRECT .INF for your monitor. DO NOT use "Default" or "Plug and Play" driver from Microsoft, this is what is causing the problem. GO MICROSOFT! :goodjob:


What's the problem with a default monitor? I have played the latest and greatest games (Return to Wolfenstein et al) on my monitor with zero, repeat zero problems. Then, Civilization 3 comes along and refuses to work with a default/Plug-and-play monitor? Why does only this one game have a problem? My monitor is a "Vision Graphics VG177P", and there *is* no "driver" (.INF file) for it. It works fine, 100% of the time. I can't return the game...will the maker refund my money, or did I get jipped out of $53?

I'm with queeg above. Every other game I play works just fine with my setup -- I have an old (about 5 years old) monitor, Athlon 1.4/512 MB running Win 2000, GeForceII MX-400 64MB, and I don't even get the opening video -- just a little spot in the center of the screen, which then goes black as the music plays on. I have tried installing drivers for the monitor (I *think* they are the right drivers, it's hard to tell with an old no-name monitor from Taiwan), I've tried the registry tweaks with the regular PnP driver, still nothing. Very frustrating.

I am not about to go out and buy a new monitor just to be able to play this one game. Unfortunately for me, I bought the game Friday night, so I can't talk with anyone from support until Monday...

If anyone else has any ideas, I am all ears.

One more thing -- tried using the compatability layer, and the game won't load at all regardless of which compatability layer I chose. Also, when I switched back to not using the compatability layer, the game STILL wiouldn't run. I disabled the compatability layer, uninstalled and reinstalled the game, and it still doesn't run.

Also, I notice now that I can only get Unreal Tournament to run in safe more (no hardware accelerations) -- DOH! Any ideas? I guess it is time to reinstall some drivers...

Hey sc0tie, thanks for your time :goodjob:

My copy won't even startup :(

I recieve an error message that starts off...

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in module -DF394B at 015f:10025231.

Registers:

...and then it lists a ton of numbers. Anyone know what I should do?

Here's a problem I've seen before with the "reduce the number of fonts" fix, but it didn't work. Civ 3 installs on a machine fine, loads through the video sequence and the initial menu. I click on "New Game" and select the world generator settings. From the world settings, click "Next", and before the select civilization screen would come up it crashes with a windows error; "details" gives "Divide error" and all of the register settings. (EAX, EBX, etc.)

The machine has:
256 MB RAM
GeForce2, latest nVidia drivers (from nVidia website)
SBLive, latest drivers
Win98SE with all windows updates installed

Initially it also had about 380 fonts installed, but reducing it to 240 and rebooting didn't help. I've also tried (although I've no clue why this'd do anything) setting the display to 640x480x8 before loading the game with no success. Nothing but winamp and AIM running in the background.

Fortuanatly for me, I installed it on another box and it works, so I'm not suffering too badly. Oddly enough, this box is almost identical except it has an AMD processor instead of an Intel and has 384 MB RAM; same vid card, sound card, and drivers. Runs fine on the second machine, again with winamp and AIM in the background. But it'd be nicer if it worked on the machine I wanted it to run on and I've seen posts in other forums with the same problem so any fixes you could suggest would be appreciated.

[Edit: Both have the latest version of DirectX as well]

Civ III won't run on my laptop, either.

I get the splash screen, then the message:

"Civilization 3 has caused an error in
~DF394B.TMP
Civilization 3 will now close.

Sounds very similaer to the error Cunobelin Of Hippo reported.


Running a Compaq Armada E500 with Windows ME. All upgrades for Windows ME, video drive and sound are installed.

Ashoka

An update to my update above -- reinstalling my NVidia drivers got Unreal Tournament going again, but still no Civ III...

The error in ~DF394B.TMP is most likely caused by the copy protection, search for an unwrapper for safedisc 2.40.10 in google, or get an already unwrapped game exe.

The error in ~DF394B.TMP is most likely caused by the copy protection, search for an unwrapper for safedisc 2.40.10 in google, or get an already unwrapped game exe.

Thanks, Meneer - I'll try this. - my copy is 100% legit, so odd that it would do this -

Will let you know how it works.


Ashoka

Good call, Meneer - after runing the 'un-safedisk' program, Civ III is up and running great!

Thanks so much for your help.



Ashoka

I don't know if this will help anyone, but I made my own monitor driver based on my manufacture's newer stuff, as a specific driver for my monitor wasn't available.

Anything that starts with HR-1708 I created, everything else was there already. I used the other entries as models, and actually the only values I had to change were:

maximum resolution = 1280x1024
horizontal scan frequency range = 30-65KHz
veritical scan frequency range = 50-100Hz

You can see where I entered these values below. Everything else I simply copied from their newer 17 inch monitor (HR-70).

I installed the driver and Civ ran for the first time on my 2k system.

Good luck everybody



;Moniotr INF file for Digiview monitors
;Copyright 1995, Digiview Electronics Co., Ltd.

[version]
signature="$CHICAGO$"
Class=Monitor
Provider=%Digiview%

[Manufacturer]
%Digiview%=Digiview

[Digiview]
%HR-40%=HR-1435, Monitor\HR-1435
%HR-1435%=HR-1435, Monitor\HR-1435
%HR-50%=HR-50, Monitor\HR-50
%HR-1510%=HR-1510, Monitor\HR-1510
%HR-70%=HR-70, Monitor\HR-70
%HR-70P%=HR-70, Monitor\HR-70
%HR-91%=HR-91, Monitor\HR-91
%HR-1708%=HR-1708, Monitor\HR-1708

[HR-40]
DelReg=ClearPrev.DelReg
AddReg=HR-1435.AddReg

[HR-1435]
DelReg=ClearPrev.DelReg
AddReg=HR-1435.AddReg

[HR-50]
DelReg=ClearPrev.DelReg
AddReg=HR-50.AddReg

[HR-1510]
DelReg=ClearPrev.DelReg
AddReg=HR-1510.AddReg

[HR-70]
DelReg=ClearPrev.DelReg
AddReg=HR-70.AddReg

[HR-91]
DelReg=ClearPrev.DelReg
AddReg=HR-91.AddReg

[HR-1708]
DelReg=ClearPrev.DelReg
AddReg=HR-1708.AddReg

[ClearPrev.DelReg]
HKR,MODES
HKR,,MaxResolution
HKR,,DPMS
HKR,,ICMProfile

[HR-91.Addreg]
HKR,"MODES\1600,1200",Mode1,,"30.0-95.0,50.0-160.0,+,+"
HKR,,MaxResolution,,"1600,1200"
HKR,,DPMS,,1
HKR,,ICMProfile,1,7

[HR-1435.Addreg]
HKR,"MODES\1024,768",Mode1,,"30.0-50.0,47.0-104.0,+,-"
HKR,,MaxResolution,,"1024,768"
HKR,,DPMS,,1
HKR,,ICMProfile,1,7

[HR-50.Addreg]
HKR,"MODES\1024,768",Mode1,,"30.0-56.0,47.0-104.0,+,-"
HKR,,MaxResolution,,"1024,768"
HKR,,DPMS,,1
HKR,,ICMProfile,1,7

[HR-1510.Addreg]
HKR,"MODES\1280,1024",Mode1,,"30.0-70.0,47.0-104.0,+,-"
HKR,,MaxResolution,,"1280,1024"
HKR,,DPMS,,1
HKR,,ICMProfile,1,7

[HR-70.Addreg]
HKR,"MODES\1280,1024",Mode1,,"30.0-70.0,47.0-104.0,+,-"
HKR,,MaxResolution,,"1280,1024"
HKR,,DPMS,,1
HKR,,ICMProfile,1,7

[HR-1708.Addreg]
HKR,"MODES\1280,1024",Mode1,,"30.0-65.0,50.0-100.0,+,-"
HKR,,MaxResolution,,"1280,1024"
HKR,,DPMS,,1
HKR,,ICMProfile,1,7

[Strings]
MonitorClassName="Monitor"
Digiview="Digiview"

HR-40="Digiview HR-40"
HR-1435="Digiview HR-1435"
HR-50="Digiview HR-50"
HR-1510="Digiview HR-1510"
HR-70="Digiview HR-70"
HR-70P="Digiview HR-70+"
HR-91="Digiview HR-91"
HR-1708="Digiview HR-1708"

People, before giving away instructions on how to bypass the cd-protection, ever thought that some of the people asking for them have illegal cds? If they're determined it's not difficult to find out how to do it, but its the casual copying that we're trying to prevent. Good day to you.

Help! After seeing the Civ 3 Splash Screen, the program drops back to windows. I know other people have reported this problem, and have been on the phone with tech support about the issue.

My system specs are:

AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz
512 Mb RAM
ViaTech Motherboard w/latest 4-in-1 driver
80 GB WD Hard Drive
GeForce 3 Video w/ 2183 Detonator driver
Soundblaster Live! Value w/ 4.11.01.0628 Driver
Viewsonic 17GS monitor with appropriate driver
AOpen DVD-1640 Pro
Plextor PX-W1610A CD-RW with latest firmware driver

I've turned off startup programs, adjusted hardware acceleration, toggled DMA on the drives, and deleted the opening movie, all with no result. The best I can do is make the splash screen stay around for ~5 seconds insted of 1.

Any inspiration on how to get my program up and running?

People, before giving away instructions on how to bypass the cd-protection, ever thought that some of the people asking for them have illegal cds? If they're determined it's not difficult to find out how to do it, but its the casual copying that we're trying to prevent. Good day to you.

While I agree, as one of the people w/ a perfectly legal copy of Civ III that could not get the game to run due to glitchy protection software, I was glad to get the info. My initial calls to tech support did not resolve the problem. (I wonder if tech support will have to tell people how to break the CD-protection as a fix--- what a quandry!!)

This has happened before in the software world - copyright protection that made software unusable for legit owners.

I'm sure it will all work out soon - too many people who buy the software and can't use it will clog the tech support lines, and a fix will be in the works.

Peace -

Ashoka

Originally posted by glory
People, before giving away instructions on how to bypass the cd-protection, ever thought that some of the people asking for them have illegal cds? If they're determined it's not difficult to find out how to do it, but its the casual copying that we're trying to prevent. Good day to you.

I'm not sure if this is directed to me, but I bought my copy and my previous post is how I got it to work in 2k...

I'm not sure it's said yet, but if you get the OUT OF SYNC error and you can't find the .INF files for your monitor or you don't want to edit the registry, just use 1024*768@75Hz drivers that are available in windows. They work fine.

no flame intended. It's just that a lot of people with non-legit copies are likely browsing the boards, and they might as well make a <i>little</i> effort in finding out how to crack the game :-)

The funny thing about copy protection is that it never affects pirating - it only gives trouble tro legit users?

Why you ask? Because pirates (ARGH!) know thier stuff a lot more the your everyday legit gamer. Any pirate (ARGH!) knows how how get around SafeDisk 2.0 - I find it funny that so much effor was spent of Safe Disk 2 (and it is one ingenious protection). But it took them what? a week maybe to get around it? So much for that...

Your paying legitimate user on the other hand will likely experience problems because of the reoocurring clusters that arent read properly by some older CD-ROMs and newer firmware.

I really dont understand why they bother. If somone wants to pirate the game - they will - and that is that. They should spent money enforcing piracy fines OR (heres an idea!) make the games NOT ridiculously expensive to begin with so more kids dont bother with gamecopyworld. Just a thought!

Originally posted by glory
People, before giving away instructions on how to bypass the cd-protection, ever thought that some of the people asking for them have illegal cds?

Illegal cds don't have safedisk on them, only legal users will ever be troubled by buggy (and still expensive) copyprotection. And both people said they had an error in ~DF394B.TMP, safedisc will not give such an error when using an non-cracked illegal copy, it will just ask for the cd.

Originally posted by glory
People, before giving away instructions on how to bypass the cd-protection, ever thought that some of the people asking for them have illegal cds? If they're determined it's not difficult to find out how to do it, but its the casual copying that we're trying to prevent. Good day to you.

But we care not to return the money and lost time to the people that have purchased real copies of the games that just happen to have those few CD-ROM drives or other pieces of hardware that have problems with the copy-right protection devised by game companies.
Don't get me wrong, I believe that the game companies deserve to get their monies worth and be able to sell the game without worrying about people pirating the games but why can't they seem to get the software protection right? Why are we forced to load the software on our hard drives and yet are still required to place the CD-ROM disc in the drive? I paid my 59.99 USD.
Why can't I get a NoCD crack?
I can.

Originally posted by sk0tie
First off, make sure you are running the latest drivers for your sound card and video card that support DirectX 8.0 and DISABLE 3RD PARTY APPLICATIONS! In Win98/ME you click on start, goto run, and type in MSCONFIG, make sure SELECTIVE STARTUP is enabled, and LOAD STARTUP GROUP ITEMS is UNCHECKED, and reboot your computer.

Let me say first, thanks sk0tie. I didn't have a warm and fuzy before about Infogrames (Maybe it was that horrible song they made? Anyone remember that POS!?!) but knowing that there are real people working their asses off trying to make this and other games work correctly makes me feel a whole lot better.

Second. Do not update your drivers unless you are having problems!!! I cannot warn this strongly enough. I just updated my video driver for jokes and laughs and I am just now starting to have problems with Civ3 and the graphics. I had the default Windows XP Professional *beta* drivers for my Matrox G400 Max video card and then I upgraded to 5.72.021*25oct01*. I started having screen garbage (the screen turns into a mess of thin lines of multiple colors) problems right after I rebooted after the new driver update. This only seems to happen when I have Civ3 running in the back ground and I switch between programs using the Windows key.

Has this been a problem for anyone else?

Civ3 ran just fine on my HP Pavilion Pentium III/Windows ME system until (first game) my Civ made the jump from Ancient to Middle Ages. Then it gave an error message and crashed -- fairly cleanly -- though it did leave the desktop set up for 800 X 600 whilst actually in 1024x768 (16-color).

This doesn't strike me as likely to be a display or driver issue, am I right? (Anything's possible though).

FWIW, in the game as played I had all Ancient techs except for Monarchy.

Regards,

derdriux

Well, I've tried everything here, short of the regedit stuff, which I could probably do if I felt like taking two hours translating hex code.

I don't.

I'm getting the No Screen error dealy after the intro movie. GF2MX, Athlon 1.2 Tried new drivers, tried older drivers... etc. Nothing works. The stupid map editor works fine though. Heh.

Thanks anyway. :crazyeyes

I tried to load my saved games and it said "Datal0 operation system error: CNSL" "Cannot read file". Is there a reason for this and is there anyway to fix it?

Originally posted by Cunobelin Of Hippo
Hey sc0tie, thanks for your time :goodjob:

My copy won't even startup :(

I recieve an error message that starts off...

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in module -DF394B at 015f:10025231.

Registers:

...and then it lists a ton of numbers. Anyone know what I should do?

Try updating your cdrom drivers, older cdrom drives tend to have problems with the cd protection, if not, try a different cdrom drive.

:)

Originally posted by Ashoka
Civ III won't run on my laptop, either.

I get the splash screen, then the message:

"Civilization 3 has caused an error in
~DF394B.TMP
Civilization 3 will now close.

Sounds very similaer to the error Cunobelin Of Hippo reported.


Running a Compaq Armada E500 with Windows ME. All upgrades for Windows ME, video drive and sound are installed.

Ashoka

same issue as before, update your cdrom drivers or try a different cdrom drive, the game has some issues with older cdrom drives (including laptop drives) and the cd copy protection.

:D

i still have the problem that scrolling is a freaking slideshow... don't really have problems with turns taking too long... about 40 seconds in the later phase of a 16 player huge map

already installed the 22.40 Detonators...

my sys specs

pentium III 667 Mhz
TNT 2 Pro (overclocked 20 Mhz or sth
256-133 MB ram
full install
windows 2000 SP 2
Nvidia Detonator 22.40 (the latest)

Just an update --

I reloaded all of my video drivers, then selected the 1024x768 75 Hz Windows driver, and the game seems to work okay so far. Has anyone tried it with any of the higher resolution 75 Hz Windows drivers? I usually run higher res for daily usage, and I would rather not have to keep installing and reinstalling video drivers just to play Civ...

I pre-ordered the Limited Edition of Civ 3 from ebgames and unfortunatly due to having to travel I finally got to load the game this weekend. When I try to run the typical install on my computer I get about 75% done then it gets stuck on a wav file and gives me a data redundancy error and then aborts. I then Tried to load the game on my laptop and it got about 90% complete then asked me to insert the disk with the 03data.cab. Which was no where to be found on the disk. On the good side of things i was able to load the minimal install on both systems and it runs fine on both. If you need the full specs on the issue I will send them later. Unfortunatly I am at work so I cant give more details right now. Thanks for the help.

I have the same problem as Zoroaster, after the splash screen the it quits to the desktop with nothing running. I have closed all programs, I am running in 1024 x 768 16 bit colour.

Here's my system info:

Under System Tab:

Celeron 667 mhz
64 mb Ram
DirectX 8.0

Under Display Tab:

Intel 82810E Graphics Controller
Intel
5.5 mb

Under Sound Tab:

ESS Allegro

sk0tie,

The exact error message I recieved while trying to do a typical install was as follows:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Component: Min Install
File Group: Minimum Install
File: G:\sounds\build\ancient\AncMEd.wav
Error : Data Error (cyclic redundancy check)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYSTEM SPECS:

Processor and Speed - PII 400
Total System Memory - 256mb
DirectX Version - 8.1

Display:

Video Card Name - SiS 300/305/630/540/730
Manufacturer - SiS
Approx. Total Memory - 32mb
Driver Microsoft - 5.1.2001.0

Sound:

Sound Card Name - Crystal WDM Audio
Driver Microsoft - 5.1.2535.0


Again thanks for your time and help. I am just glad I could atleast run the minimum install and play the game.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by FrankyR
[B]I have the same problem as Zoroaster, after the splash screen the it quits to the desktop with nothing running.

I have fiddled with my system, and updated all of my drivers, including my CD-ROM firmware. The only thing I have found that works was to use a Civilization3.exe file that was modified to bypass the CD copy protection. Using this file, the game ran smoothly.

My drives are an AOpen DVD-ROM and a PlexWriter 16/1/40, and are <6 months old. I shouldn't be having to worry about a problem like this with new drives!

FrankyR, do you hear your CD drive whir after the splash screen, as if it's trying to do something but not reading? That was my first hint that the disc accessing might be problem.

Thanks,

Zoroaster

Originally posted by PantherX
Well, I've tried everything here, short of the regedit stuff, which I could probably do if I felt like taking two hours translating hex code.

I don't.

I'm getting the No Screen error dealy after the intro movie. GF2MX, Athlon 1.2 Tried new drivers, tried older drivers... etc. Nothing works. The stupid map editor works fine though. Heh.

Thanks anyway. :crazyeyes

If you are in Win 2k run regedt32 instead of regedit and I have been told you get something you can read and modify rather than hex.

Notice that the "i" is missing from regedt32 to keep it to 8 letters.

Originally posted by pansophy


If you are in Win 2k run regedt32 instead of regedit and I have been told you get something you can read and modify rather than hex.

Notice that the "i" is missing from regedt32 to keep it to 8 letters.
My suggestion would be to stick to regedit. regedt32 came with NT3.x and isn't as nice as regeit. of course your experience may vary :)

Zoroaster, ya my CD drive is spinning, I'll try working with the CD drive a bit.

I found an altered exe to get around copy protection, and it WORKED!!! I can play the game now, I'm sooooo happy.

Somebody should say something to Firaxis, I souldn't have to get around the copy protection on a cd that I bought from Walmart!

Intro video runs fine, then screen goes black and
music plays. Cannot get back to Windows - I have blindly
hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and ALT-S and it restarts the system.

Have tried the 640*480 256 colors start to no avail.
Have started at 1024*768 16 colors and put KeepRes=1
into ini file - still have the same problem.
Tried the Video Mode=1024 line in the ini file,
still can't get it started.

Admittedly the video card far outclasses the monitor
in resolutions and refresh rates. However, if I knew
how CivIII registers the resolution and refresh rate
I could get it to use the correct one for the monitor.

Have Norton Utilities and DirectCD shut down.

Decline the opportunity to tinker with my registry.

PLEASE HELP - $ 50.00 worth of intro screen is not
my idea of a game!!!!

--------------
From DXDiag Text: This is what I have.
--------------
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional (5.0, Build 2195) Service Pack 2
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
Processor: Intel Pentium III, ~500MHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 8.0 (4.08.00.0400)
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: 3dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo Series Driver
Manufacturer: 3dfx Interactive, Inc.
Chip type: 3dfx Voodoo 3
DAC type: 3dfx Internal DAC
Device ID: Enum\PCI\VEN_121A&DEV_0005&SUBSYS_0036121A&REV_01
Display Memory: 16.0 MB
Current Mode: 800 x 600 (32 bit) (72Hz)
*****Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor (17" IBM C70 2118-3A3 - IBM has no drivers for it!)
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: 3dfxvs.dll
Driver Version: 5.00.2195.0232 (English)
DDI Version: 7
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 11/2/2000 14:00:02, 545264 bytes
Driver Certified: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp: 6/1/192
VDD:
Mini VDD: 3dfxvsm.sys
Mini VDD Date: 11/2/2000 14:00:40, 169840 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71CFA-4345-11CF-4271-A528AEC2C835}
Vendor ID: 0x121A
Device ID: 0x0005
SubSys ID: 0x0036121A
Revision ID: 0x0001
Registry: OK
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Not Available

-------------
Sound Devices
-------------
Description: Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
Device ID: ISAPNP\CTL009e_DEV0000
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Type: WDM
Driver Name: ctlsb16.sys
Driver Version: 5.00.2160.0001 (English)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Certified: Yes
Date and Size: 10/23/1999 08:10:34, 141904 bytes
Other Files:
Driver Provider: Microsoft
HW Accel Level: Full
Registry: OK

is it just me or is it that civilization 3 is still in beta stage?
i naver seen a game with so many serious problems in the first week

It's not just you Mad Russian. I've been thinking the same thing since I purchased it and ran into two technical glitches I had to find work arounds for before it would run. Most people posting here have better hardware than I do and are reporting even bigger problems. Did they do any testing before they released this? Sk0tie is a poster on these boards who claims to work for Firaxis support and said in one post that they were getting hammered. Not a big surprise.

Just another example of rushing to meet the deadline and ending up releasing a product before it's ready. Unless they were on the edge of going bankrupt, there's really no excuse for this. It's typically understood in this industry that a release-date is never set in stone - they could have postponed the release. Postponing it would have been less of a black eye then releasing it prematurely is turning out to be.

Remember those old commercials? (Dang I can't remember the company, was it Gallo?) "We will sell no wine before it's time." I wish that sentiment carried over to other companies.

*****Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor (17" IBM C70 2118-3A3 - IBM has no drivers for it!)

I had video problems until I put the drivers in for my monitor. Lord knows what firaxes has done. No other game has been quite so picky.

Try to borrow a 14" monitor from somone and try it out.

Also try reinstalling DirectX 8.0a

hope it helps.

Let's see - I pay $50.00 for a game program.
It doesn't work out of the box, so I should
rearrange my hardware to make *their*,
apparently buggy efforts work properly.
I think not!!!

Mayhaps they should have spent part
of the two years development time making
sure the damned thing works. Perhaps
they should have found out that the
drivers for older monitors won't work and
give the user a means of tuning the game
to the monitor's capabilities. My system meets
all of the published requirements and the
program still doesn't work and it appears I
am not alone.

Maybe Faraxis or Infogrames - who already have my
money - should include drivers or perhaps
a new monitor for everyone who purchases
this "Get it out and to hell with the customer"
wonder of progamming. It really sounds like
Firaxis took a page right out of Microsoft's software
release book!!!!!!!

There are some here who are, apparently, willing
to take the chance of rendering their computer
into a set of bookends by tinkering with their
registry. WHY ??? Isn't that the job of Firaxis to
tinker with *their* software to make it compatible
with systems which meet the minimum requirements??
Or maybe the minimum requirements are just another
marketing comeon to get you to buy the program whether it
will actually work or not????

Let's Have A Patch - REALLY FAST - that allows me to
tune the program to my system instead of the other
way around !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:mad:

Thank you tech support!

My problem was from the OCRAware running while i was trying to play. I couldn't get even get started because i kept getting a windows error when trying to start the game. When i tried a quick start game the words were scrambled.

It now works just fine!

see my post Older Monitor Drivers

best of luck

Sisyphus:

Like I said in another post, WWIIO blows away any software release in history for BUGS. Worst release ever! So this is nothing. I merely said to try another monitor, becaus eyou can't seem to get one for the IBM you have.

World is full of tis in the business end as well. Have you ever looked into some of the M$ solutions on technet knowledge base? Worst advice I can imagine. They even contradict themselves. You ca neasily trade this game to someone else if you don't wish to play it anymore.

Originally posted by Sisyphus
Let's see - I pay $50.00 for a game program.
It doesn't work out of the box, so I should
rearrange my hardware to make *their*,
apparently buggy efforts work properly.
I think not!!!

I suggest you go complain in another forum. I started this thread to explain the bugs and fixes Me and the rest of Infogrames has figured out. I am trying my best to help people, not just on the phone, but even people on these boards out of my own free time.

Again, read the whole thread before you go and attack Firaxis or Infogrames, we are working on the issues. If you would like you can call Infogrames technical support and I will be happy to help you directly over the phone.

Thank you all again for the help! :D

sk0tie:

I think your efforts here are WONDERFUL.

It took my son writing -See "Black Hole Of Death" thread - to write a generic driver that overcame my problems. Why isn't something included with the game to get the resolution problem under control??

I have no idea where else to place such posts. I sent an e-mail through the support page of Infogrames and still do not have a response.

I am sorry if I have consumed space and time which potentially could have been put to better used, but I was simply looking for help wherever I could find it.

Have a Happy Day !

Hi! I was hoping you could help me out. First, my basic system specs:

- 350 AMD Processor
- 126mb of Memory
- Windows 98
- 32mb AGP video card

Okay, here's the problem. I'm sure it has o do with the fact my ol' motherboard is about to give out... Anyhow, I'll be playing just fine and dandy for awhile when the drum-like conformation sound begins to repeat endlessly, usually while on the diplomatic screen. After this, the game usually locks-up within a few seconds or so.
Also, a related tidbit. If you start the game in a resolution below 1024x768, the game will reset the resolution like it should, but the task bar ends up floating around in the middle of the screen... Quite weird, anyhow.
Thanks in advance if someone help me out. :)

pwarnk has got the way to fix this, his homeade inf file worked like a charm on my w2k box (monitor was 6yrs old...)
asus doolie p3-800
512ram,nvidia geforce2 mx 32MB

Hey sk0tie. First of all, thank you for showing up at the message board to lend a hand. The game works just fine for me, and I have really had no problems getting it to work. (P3 1.0 GHz, 256 megs PC100 RAM, GeForce2 GTS 64MB DDR video card.) It is nice seeing the company that made the game providing support. I also post on the High Heat Baseball message board, and after going through the crap on that board, it's nice to see a helping hand. (I.E. HH2002 was FILLED with bugs, yet 3DO refused to fix any of them. It's nice knowing that Firaxis/Infogrames cares about their customers. Keep up the good work!

First of all, I would like to sincerily thank you, sk0tie for your excellent work here. You have really helped to restore my faith in Firaxis/Infogrames!:goodjob:

But unfortunatly I have a problem... I have found that after entering the Industrial Age I cannot load saved games. The transition to Industrial Age works fine, but if I try to load any games saved during the Industrial Age I get the following error:

DataIO operation system error: CITY

I am still able to load games saved prior to the transition. My specs are: 500 mHz Celeron, 128 mb ram, 1 gb free disk space, Voodoo3 video card, SBLive! Value soundcard, Win98.

I know that someone else earlier had a similar problem but it was never addressed... hopefully you or someone else will be able to solve my problem! Thanks a million!

-Kolath

CoolLizy : You are not alone.

My problem is most likely the same that is plaguing you. Thankfully I can start the game up with no problem and actually play for a while.. But now it is crashing every 15 minutes without fail. I played a game on chieftan with a small map and was fairly isolated with my opponents. In fact, I didn't even make contact with other civilizations until the 1700's. Before that, the game only crashed once or twice (and about 6-7 hours of playing). From what I remember, one of the times was when I double clicked a unit, another time was when I was in a city screen and was trying to fortify one of my units. Then I came in contact with the Aztecs (who crushed me by the way), and crashing seemed to be much more frequent. Sometimes while in diplomacy screens the hard drive would start chewing endlessly and the music and sound kept repeating and getting badly distorted.

Now today I started another game as chieftan and I came in contact with other cultures fairly immediately. Diplomacy screens have been popping up often, and all of the crashes (about 4 or 5 in a few hours of playing) have either occured during the diplomacy screen or later on in that same turn after a diplomacy action was completed.

On the technical side of things, I have noticed something unusual. I use a 250mb partition of my hard drive dedicated solely to the Windows swap file and in the past 2 years have never gotten a message saying that partition was out of space. While playing Civ 3, this occured. Windows should not do this as it manages the virtual memory and doesn't allow it to grow endlessly. I have even specified to make the maximum virtual memory space as 200mb on that drive and it still crashes. From this it seems like Civ 3 is wildly wasting system resources or generates an excessive amount of information in the swap file. I don't know if this is because of an incompatibility problem with the K6-2 processor or something else. But looking at both of our system configs, the thing both CoolLizy and I have in common is a K6-2 350 processor.

My system config:

AMD K6-2 350mhz
64 mb memory
DirectX 8.0
Windows 98 SE

Diamond Monster Fusion (Voodoo Banshee) 16MB AGP
using 3dfx Voodoo Banshee drivers, v. 4.11.01.1222

Creative SB-Live Value
v.4.06.00.0711

Thanks sk0tie for your support and I hope you might have some insight into our problem.

It's probebly Windows fault. Oh well, I put the game on the system I'm on now (I had it install on my own computer which I don't use for the 'net), and it works much better. It's a 450Mhz.
Try turning off the music, it works better that way. Too bad, though, the music's pretty good, even if the ol' Civ them isn't around still.

SKotie,

You are doing an awesome job!

Thank God I was able to have no major problems with the game. The only ones I had were just little nuicanse things that come up once in a while.

One thing is that in a city display, if you try tp update a unit by right clicking, then click another unit too fast, it locks up and you have to turn off your computer. WIthout auto save on, you lose your game. I did this about 3 times before realizing to just click in the diplay more slowly and then it never happens.

The weirdest thing happened yesterday: I was playing Civ3, and then got up from my computer to do something else without saving or quitting out of the game. After 20-30 minutes my monitor shuts off to save power. When I came back and moved my mouse or pushed a key to get it back on again, all the little lights on my monitor flashed and the diplay would not come up. I had to reboot my computer and then it was fine. Not a big deal; I'll just remember to save and quit.

Skotie, here's just a simple question not related to really technical stuff.... and anyone is free to answer who can help
It's about autosave...my question is if you have autosave on, will it create a new file every turn when it saves, or will it overwrite the same file, only one file for each actual game you have going? I don't really have a space issue on my 30gig hard drive, but I could see how people may get concerned since these save game files are massive. Also, if it creates a new file for eath turn, there could be hundreds in your directory when the game ends...is there a cap on how many files there will be before overwriting the older ones? Someone answer my stupid question please...I might want to turn on my autosave to help me with some of these unexpected lockups.

I tried posting this question in a different thread the day that the game came out but the proposed solution didn't work so now I'm trying here:

The game plays fine but when I quit, you can hear the hard drive working and then the computer just locks up. Usually the CivIII map screen remains as the image but I can't do anything to get out. In addition, I can't click on anything. Control-Alt-Delete will not get me out of the program and as a result I have to just turn off the computer. Then everytime I boot up with my computer I have to deal with the warning that I didn't shut down windows properly. I can't imaging that having to do this everytime is good for the long term health of my computer. Any suggestions?

By the way I have set screen resolution to 1024 x 768 (although that wasn't the typical setting I was using before I purchased Civ III). I have a Gateway 2000 Pentium II, 450 MHZ. An EV700 monitor. 3dfx VoodooII 3d graphics accelerator, and 128MB RAM.

SKotie:

Thanks for all your efforts so far. I've never gotten a reply through Infogrames "official" channels about the game not working with my laptop CD-ROM drive.

You seem to be saying in previous posts that you realize the copy protection prevents the game from running on many laptops, even those from mainstream manufacturers like Dell. Is this the "official" response? Is there any intention to provide a fix?

I'm a little disappointed that the suggestion seems to be to get a new CD-ROM drive, when the one I'm using is less than six months old.

Frankly, this seems to be a major cop-out on Infogrames part.

Let me know if there's anything else I can try besides hacking the copy protection like others have been forced to do.

Thanks ...

One more thing ...

I would suggest adding "Not for Use on Laptops" to the minimum system requirements listed on the box.

Skotie, thank you for your time and Mind.
I would like to tax them both once more(you helped me once before)
Civ.3 was working well for me for a while(one week). Then one day it stopped working. The first screen would come up in the middle of my desktop but it would just go away and nothing would happen. Them it stopped even coming up, and when the CD runs the play button doesn't work., but all of the other buttons do work. I can't figure out what has happened.
Please help me.:confused: I don't know that much about computers

PLEASE HELP!!!!

I got a realy bad problem! It happens every time I play and it can be annoying. It comes when I try to quit playing. I move my hand towards the ESC button but then every time the phrase "Just one more turn..." pops into my mind and my hand moves to the ENTER button insted and I have to play one more turn.

Any idea how to get rid of this bug???????


My computer have the following thing in it:

Processor: Intel Pentium II, MMX, ~300MHz
Memory: 64MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 8.0 (4.08.00.0400)

Video Card name: RAGE PRO TURBO AGP 2X (English)
Manufacturer: ATI Tech. - Enhanced
Display Memory: 4.0 MB

Ecept this bug I have mention everything is working fine.

Any word on when us unworthy ones can expect a patch? At least give us a small one to fix the <expletive deleted> annoying broken air superiority?

Air superiority is "broken?"

That sucks. I didn't get there yet. It's the 1700's in my game now, and this is the farthest I got in a civ3 game. I hope I don't get that industrial age bug that others got.

I posted it under another thread bu had no answer. Some help here ?

I cannot play very long, ( around five to six minutes, like 50 turns)because my system freezes, and I have to restart the computer. Maybe the computer tries ti access the CD ROM because I hear a sound for some time (i waited an hour). Some others have the same problem, but i did'nt read about any fix. Could it be a copy protection problem?

I have a Windows XP system with NTFS, 768 Meg Ram, 61,4 Gig Hdd, Ati Radeon 64 ViVO with the most recent drivers, SoundBlaster Live X Gamer with new drivers, Optical Intellimouse ABit motherboard, Intel Pentium III 866eb, Pioneer DVD drive, no CD writer.

I tried the tricks suggested on the Civ3 site for Windows XP, i.e. I tried to run it in Windows 2000, 98, et 95 compatibility modes unsuccessfully. Also in 256 colors and 640 resolution

Il looks like it stops when it tries to autosave, but I am not sure, because it is then frozen.

Did bomebody have the same problem? Does somebody have a fix? HELP!!!

:mad:

Originally posted by Kolath
First of all, I would like to sincerily thank you, sk0tie for your excellent work here. You have really helped to restore my faith in Firaxis/Infogrames!:goodjob:

But unfortunatly I have a problem... I have found that after entering the Industrial Age I cannot load saved games. The transition to Industrial Age works fine, but if I try to load any games saved during the Industrial Age I get the following error:

DataIO operation system error: CITY

I am still able to load games saved prior to the transition. My specs are: 500 mHz Celeron, 128 mb ram, 1 gb free disk space, Voodoo3 video card, SBLive! Value soundcard, Win98.

I know that someone else earlier had a similar problem but it was never addressed... hopefully you or someone else will be able to solve my problem! Thanks a million!

-Kolath


Kolath,

This bug has been fixed in the patch which should be available soon. Keep your affected savegames, as they should work again once the patch has been released.


Dan

Dan,

Do you have any word on the problem with the SafeDisc problem and some cdrom drives? It is not always laptop systems, I have taken 5 or 6 calls from people that have fairly new brand name cdrom drives like Acer and such.

I know you're probably just as busy as me, but any help would be very appreciated on the front line. :)

There is also a new gamplay issue I just ran across where you cannot percision bomb with the f-15 or stealth bombers. I worked around this by having the customer hold down the 'P' key then clicking repeatedly on the target and it would bomb, otherwise it would just display an invalid icon over the city.

Just scrounging for help, it is really starting to get crazy on the phones and email over here! :D

Thank you for any help you can provide!

Poulin, I had a similar problem (though not as severe) where it would freeze for about three minuites while it tried to access the cd rom. My suggestion is to turn off the music in the options menu, that helped for me.

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS



Kolath,

This bug has been fixed in the patch which should be available soon. Keep your affected savegames, as they should work again once the patch has been released.


Dan

Dan,
Will the patch address the scrolling problem for nvidia card with the newer detonator drivers in XP as well?

Timothy R. Winters

Originally posted by sk0tie
Dan,

Do you have any word on the problem with the SafeDisc problem and some cdrom drives? It is not always laptop systems, I have taken 5 or 6 calls from people that have fairly new brand name cdrom drives like Acer and such.

I know you're probably just as busy as me, but any help would be very appreciated on the front line. :)

There is also a new gamplay issue I just ran across where you cannot percision bomb with the f-15 or stealth bombers. I worked around this by having the customer hold down the 'P' key then clicking repeatedly on the target and it would bomb, otherwise it would just display an invalid icon over the city.

Just scrounging for help, it is really starting to get crazy on the phones and email over here! :D

Thank you for any help you can provide!

sk0tie,

Speaking personally, many thanks for the pro bono help you've been providing over here, I really appreciate it.

I don't think there is much we can do about the safedisc problems -- we just implement the stuff, we didn't design it, so I don't know that we can really do anything with a patch to solve those problems.

I know with previous games (SMAC) the publisher (EA) made all the decisions regarding copy-protection (whether to use it or not, what API was to be used, etc.) , I don't know if that's the case here, though. Generally publishers own the rights to the games, so they get to call the shots :)

I'm pretty sure the precision bombing bug is going to be fixed in the patch. Don't take that as gospel, but I'm pretty sure it is.

Other stuff, like the nVidia driver issue, is a gray area. From what I gather Civ isn't the only program that is having problems with the latest Detonator drivers, so hopefully nVidia is addressing it. I think we've put in some calls to them, but I don't know of any solution on our end yet other than just rolling back to earlier drivers.


Thanks again for taking the time to help out here!


Dan

Poulin,

Perhaps a temporary fix, if you don't feel too strongly about keeping it on, is to turn off autosave. It can be turned off in the preferences menu. I don't have mine on simply because I don't want a huge pile of large save files in my folder.

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS


I don't think there is much we can do about the safedisc problems -- we just implement the stuff, we didn't design it, so I don't know that we can really do anything with a patch to solve those problems.

I know with previous games (SMAC) the publisher (EA) made all the decisions regarding copy-protection (whether to use it or not, what API was to be used, etc.) , I don't know if that's the case here, though. Generally publishers own the rights to the games, so they get to call the shots :)

Dan


I guess that's the non-answer on the faulty copy protection. I'm interpreting Dan's statement to mean that there's no intention to provide a fix for the Safedisc BS.

OK, so I've downloaded unsafedisc but I can't figure out how to use it. Can anyone point me in the right direction for instructions?

Thanks...

First, I wanted to say thanks for even dropping by the forum. :)

However, I hear in the forum that air superiority is not working; is there a fix or intended fix :confused:

Ok, for everyone who's tried everything in the world to try and get Civ3 working, you need to go here, first of all: gamecopyworld.com (http://www.gamecopyworld.com)

Pick any one of the mirrors to get to the main site

There will be a 'new games' section at the top of the main page. The bottom line directly below this section contains a link to 'Games Index'. Click on this.

A monsterous list of games will be displayed. Scroll down and find 'Civilization 3' and click on that. Follow the instructions to get the cracks for civ3. (I couldn't get the two zip files to work - wouldn't unzip - but the .ace file worked fine for me).

(You can also find Black&White in this list, and it uses the same lame copy protection mechanisms that Civ3 uses).

Now what really pisses me off, is that I paid the full 49.99 for Civilization 3 (and B&W, which had the exact same problem), and although my computer has more than enough adequate power and up to date equipment to run those two games without a problem, there is NO documentation ANYWHERE to indicate a copy protection scheme, by a third party software company none-the-less, is being used to "protect" Civ3 or B&W! Maybe I wouldn't notice if Win2k wasn't so finnicky with my DVD-ROM drive and this particular copy protection scheme (I have NO problems with other software titles), but now I'm mad. Why should I have to download an "illegal" crack to a software title that I legally purchased the licensing rights to?! Please, skolkie, if you have any common decency, make the Civ3 development team provide a crack to the copy protection in their upcoming game patch. Copy protection, as you can see from my instructions above, is easily circumvented, and all it is doing is pissing off those of us who love the Civ series and HAVE ALREADY PAID decent money for the software and hard work that the Civ3 team put into this product.

Thankfully, this post should never be removed from the board because I'm not actually transmitting "illegal copy-protection circumvented Civ3 software", and it's been proven in court that providing a link to other sites is not a "circumvention device" per the DMCA.

Have at it folks!

sk0t, I'd like to add my thanks to the chorus you've gotten here so far.

I'm having a problem with sound on Civ3. I figured it was due to drivers, but I'm wondering if it's teh case.

Here's teh rundown.

Custom P3/733
Creative Labs Annihilator Pro (GeForce 256 DDR)
Philips Acoustic Edge PSC706
--
I'm getting serious crackling of the sound for some sound effects and ALL music.

The Philips Acoustic Edge PSC706 doesn't have XP specific drivers, but the 2k drivers seem to work for everything else. Any reported problems like this?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Caveman-

Thanks for the info. Left my laptop at the office (I had given up on it), but I'll give it a try tomorrow. Looks fairly simple.

I agree 100% with what you say about the copy protection. Its absurd that I have to crack a game I purchased.

Thanks ...

I have tried installing v12.41 and v21.83 of the drivers for nvidia geforce3 none of them has cleared up my problem. The problem remains the same.

For example when I look at the credits. Then all the names and letters are mixed up in the middle of the box. The only thing that works is quick start but when I try to build a city a message comes up and says unable to locate draw buffer.

So now I'm at a total blank in knowing what to do.

plz help me.

video card: nvidia geforce3 256mb
sound card: SB live
1,4GHz P4, 256mb ram

You're a good man skOtie.

I have had the video problems that a few others have resolved, without resolving them. I have taken the redundant refresh rates out, I have done all the things suggested below, in fact. Unfortunately, none have made any difference. My hardware is up to date, I am on Windows 2000, using a 700Mhz processor. My monitor is a little old but reckons it is capable of 75Hz and my refresh rate is only 60Hz now.

What else can I try??

Hey sk0tie,

Can you imagine I end my turn before dinner and when I'm done eating the bloody thing is still "counting"? I have a PII-450 MHz / 256M RAM / Win2k Pro and I didn't experience any performance probs until I tried playing civ3. I'm still at my first game and the only cause left for me to play is to see how ridiculously long will the next turn take. It's 1500 a.d. now and with the huge map and 15 civs it takes a whopping 25 minutes. Yeah, kids, TWENTY FIVE f****** MINUTES. And I'm talking EVERY turn here, not a sudden glitch like we had with civ1...

Please help...

Originally posted by Kardinal

Custom P3/733
Creative Labs Annihilator Pro (GeForce 256 DDR)
Philips Acoustic Edge PSC706
--
I'm getting serious crackling of the sound for some sound effects and ALL music.

The Philips Acoustic Edge PSC706 doesn't have XP specific drivers, but the 2k drivers seem to work for everything else. Any reported problems like this?

Thanks in advance for any help.

i'm on a soundblaster audigy myself, but i was getting all sorts of crazy static, popping sound effects, and eventually just a single note would start repeating endlessly until i restarted the game. the new drivers from creative cleared up all of these problems, so i'd hazard a guess that you just need updated drivers as well. one thing i did notice that by setting my audio hardware acceleration *higher*, more of the static went a away... when i turned if off completely, the audio was completely screwed up.

dirizhabel:

I run the game on an old p166mmx and obviously I get this alot.

However one thing I've noticed is that sometimes I'll get the "Please wait..." message for a VERY long time and it seems to "freeze" without doing anything.

I've found the solution is simply to click on the End Turn oval (top left of the info window) and it'll take you back into the game.

Not sure if this is helpful, but give it a go... :)

Regards,
Kiy

Originally posted by dirizhabel
Hey sk0tie,

Can you imagine I end my turn before dinner and when I'm done eating the bloody thing is still "counting"? I have a PII-450 MHz / 256M RAM / Win2k Pro and I didn't experience any performance probs until I tried playing civ3. I'm still at my first game and the only cause left for me to play is to see how ridiculously long will the next turn take. It's 1500 a.d. now and with the huge map and 15 civs it takes a whopping 25 minutes. Yeah, kids, TWENTY FIVE f****** MINUTES. And I'm talking EVERY turn here, not a sudden glitch like we had with civ1...

Please help...

That's what you get for playing against 16 other Civ's! Seriously, though, play with 8 and the game will work much better. Play with 16 at your own risk!

All I get when I start the game is:
"Unable to allocate draw-buffer: terminating program". I don't even get to see the intro :(.

My configuration:

Pentium II 266 MHz (Portland mmx Pro)
Windows 95 B
Matrox Mystique Powerdesk (1064 chip) with the latest (final) driver installed
DirectX 8 from the Civ3 cdrom
Minimum install of Civ3 (no room for the full one)
50 MB swap file (fixed)

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

Matrox Diagnostic gives "Old version of DirectX installed" at startup, and "DirectX version: Unknown" from the start menu.

So it seems the problem is with DirectX 8.

I tried to re-install DirectX 7a from another game, but this is refused because a more recent version is detected.

The DirectDraw/Direct3D driver version is 4.10.01.4120.

:rolleyes:

Windows/System/Dxdiag.exe reports DirectX 8 installed and all tests are successful -
but nonetheless here it comes:

"Registry info missed or damaged" for TCP/IP, IPX, Modem, Serial and all applications.

"You should reinstall DirectX to get the latest version".

Unfortunately, the cdrom doesn't give that option.

:mad:

Oh well, I downloaded Direct 8 (4.08.00.0400) from Microsoft's site. Re-installing doesn't make any difference.

The Editor runs fine, so the problem must be the movie files.
Civ3's uninstall and reinstall buttons don't do a thing though.

Sorry for the "*****y" post but I feel like throwing my pc out of the window atm :crazyeyes

Sometimes I can play the game for 10 hours sometimes 5 minutes before it freezes my pc. I have to power it off and then back on again.

My System

Windows 2000
AMD 1.2GHz
512Mb Ram
256Mb page file on its own partition
DX 8.0 (4.08.00.0400)
3dfx Voodoo 3 with version 5.00.2195.0232 (English) drivers
Monitor AOC SPECTRUM 7Nlr
SB Live driver version 5.12.01.3204
2 X Maxtor 30Gb 7200rpm drives
HP 9500 CDRW

The very first time I played Civ3 after about an hour of playing the game I had a warning pop up from Windows saying I had run out of virtual memory, hitting C-A-D and looking at the task manager's performance tab I see that I have near 200Mb of main memory free and about 10 meg of swap space free..... ignoring the warning I play on only to have the game freeze a bit later. No a problem, first time its happened and I had other stuff running in the background anyway. I closed everything down and tried again, bam, freezes after 30 seconds of playing. Restart, try again.

This freezing thing was becoming more and more frequent. I have 86 fonts listed in my fonts folder, I changed my screen res from 1600x1200 to 1024x768, I've tried increasing my page file, I turned down the Hardware accleration on my graphics card down to around the middle (any lower and Civ3 won't run period.)

None of this helped, so I played about with the in game settings, I found turning OFF the music and autosave added to my play time by like an hour (although thats still pretty random). I thought maybe my pc was overheating, when I checked the processor is running at 35Deg C and the case temp was 37Deg C, ok maybe its because I leave my PC running for days on end (not anymore because it gets rebooted loads due to Civ3) I find that I get MORE playtime if my pc has been running a few hours than if I load up from a cold boot.

Finally after all this has failed I uninstalled the game and re-installed it. Now it crashes as soon as I build my first city..... Maybe its the harddisk so I uninstalled it and re-installed it on my other harddisk and find I can play for about an hour again and it still freezes.

I'm just about to try "cracking" it unless anyone else has any other ideas that I could try.

The only thing I can think of is re-installing my OS but would that even help

Asmod

skOtie
:cry:
I seem to have a video problem. The video clip at the start works lovely, but everything else seems to have 50 versions of the screens across the page. I have tried the refresh rate changes suggested on this page and altering the Display Control Panel settings to no avail. Here are my details, if you can offer any help I would be very grateful;

Under System Tab:
Processor and Speed - Intel Pentium III 720Mhz

Total System Memory - 10GB
DirectX Version – 8.0

Video Card Name - Intel 82810 Graphics Controller Hardware version 003, file version 4.12.01.2656
Manufacturer - Intel
Approx. Total Memory - 5.0MB

Sound Card Name – AC’97 Sound Card 82801AA Hardware version 002, file version 4.90.2509.1
Manufacturer ID - 1

When I change the video settings to 1024x768, however, on my desktop the screen does go the same way i.e. 50 versions across the screen. Is my monitor/video card not actually capable of 1024x768 I wonder? How am I supposed to know, I'm only an analyst programmmer!

Cheers

asmod:

creative released new sblive and audigy drivers on the 1st of november. i'm not sure of the version number for the live (i have the audigy myself), but they fixed all the problems i'd been having with the game, including lockups.

First, thank you so much sk0tie and Dan for helping us out. You have no idea how grateful I am!!

Now, for my problems:
A minor one is that there is some stuttering of sound and some lagging, but strangely enough, that's only a minor irritation for me. Also, for some strange reason, when I set my preferences at the first screen (I believe it's the main screen), it doesn't "take", and I have to go back to the main screen once the game has begun to set my preferences, which then, work fine. Also, how do I turn on the grid without entering tutorial mode? Is there an icon I can click on, and where is it? Forgive me for sounding stupid, but I am severly visually impaired, and I might have missed the icon. Again, these are only minor irritations that I can live with if there isn't a fix.

Now, the real problem...

When I arrive at the main screen, there is no button for loading maps. I have been trying to work with the editor in order to create maps, and the directions say to save the maps in the directory that the game is installed in, then, when you want to use the maps, to click on "load map" in the main menu of the game. I can assure you that I have no such entry on my main menu. I clicked on the scenario button to see if I could load a map from there, but there was no entry there, either. I also don't have a "maps" folder in my Civ3 files. I created one, but what good does that do, when there is no way to access the maps from the game, anyway?

The editor is my main frustration here. I am not ready to create mods or scenarios yet, but I do want to edit some rules. There is no way possible that I can do this, as all of my options are greyed out, which means that I can't access anything! Actually, the only thing that I can do with the editor right now, is to try to create maps. Speaking of which, what files are used to create maps within the editor? I thought that the scenario files were .bic files, but when I went to create my map, it saved with a .bic extension. I don't want to create a map for a scenario, I only want to create a regular map that I can use in the game. Will I be able to use maps with that extension once I have fixed my problem, or shall I create maps using another extension? Or, is it that I can only use the maps with a scenario? Also, when creating regular maps, I want to place starting locations for various civs. It will allow me to do that, but not to specify which civ I want at that starting location. How can I fix this?

Ok, sk0tie and Dan, what do I do to fix these problems that I have? Is there a patch or fix that will be out for the editor? Maybe I should uninstall, then reinstall the game? Sometimes, this approach does work for me. Thank you in advance for all your help. I love civ3, and want to enjoy this game to the fullest!

P.S.--I don't know if I should have posted this to this thread or not, but I thought I'd do it here, as you guys post here, and I thought I'd get some help from the horse's mouths, but, heck, if anyone can help me out, I'd greatly appreciate it.

-- Maps are stored in BIC files, just like rules. If you only want to create a map, fire up the editor, whip up your map, make sure "Default Rules" is checked, then save the map out. To load the map use "Load Scenario" and select the BIC file.

-- To edit rules, you need to uncheck "Use default rules" in the editor, then all the options will be available.

With the editor, you can choose to create any of the following:

-- Just a map, with default rules
-- A custom map with custom rules
-- Just rule changes with no map

In each case you need to use "Load Scenario" to get this content into the game.

Also I strongly recommend reading the Civ3Edit.hlp file. It's got help on pretty much every function in the editor.

Setting which civ you want to start where isn't yet supported in the editor. We're quite aware of the need for this function, and hopefully it will become available in a future patch.


Dan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Zoroaster

do you hear your CD drive whir after the splash screen, as if it's trying to do something but not reading? That was my first hint that the disc accessing might be problem.


That´s EXACTLY my problem. I tried to download the exe. files from www.gamecopyworld.com but they didn´t open (or do I need a special program to open them?). Is there anywhere else I can find an "opener"? I paid big bucks for the original game but can only run the Civ Edit/Mod (no problems) - I though it was my monitor that couldn´t handle the resolution, which would suck - it would suck even more if I can´t play the game because of some copy protection. HELP!

Just in case my problem might be something else and sk0tie can help out:

Windows ME
Pentium III 728 MHz
64 MB Ram
DirectX 8.0

Monitor IMB G41 (15")

NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64
Driver: nvdisp.drv (4.13.01.2182)

Creative Sound Blaster PCI
Driver: es1371mp.sys (4.90.2490.0000)

Odd... I did get to see the intro (once - since then it´s been the same as described above) - perfect graphics, perfect sound. Then afterwards the screen went blck, but the music/sounds were still playing.
Maybe one should just stick to CivII...

I reckon there are a load of people out there playing with Nvidia cards who thing the scroll problem is how the game should be

Is this gonna be fixed or either by Nvidia or Firaxis??? :confused:

Is there anyone with an Nvidia setup who doesn't have this problem, if so tell me what drivers your using?

Thx

Just in case anyone else is having the same issues and this fix might help them:

I have fixed my CIV3 problems by updating the VIA BIOS for my ABit KT7A motherboard. I was getting through all of the menus but when the game was actually about to start I would get dumped back to Windows. Updating to BIOS version 64 (I have revision 1.0 of the KT7A motherboard) fixed the problem. My system is as follows:

KT7A MoBo
Athlon 1.2GHz
Gigabyte Geforce 2 GTS
SB PCI128

YMMV

Originally posted by Mad Russian
i naver seen a game with so many serious problems in the first week

I have.

Diablo II
Ultima Online
Fallout 2

There have been much worse cases than what Civ 3 is going through. Of course, it could just be a case by case basis cause I don't have any problems whatsoever with my game.

I don't have any problem running Civ3 on my computer. The game never crashes, even if I have several other resource intensive programs running in the background. :)

Lucky you.:p ;)

My problem seems to be the 17" monitor, and the video card stretching to accomodate it.

I dont know much about it or what type it is. I bought my computer from a pretty shady guy that builds them from Chinese made components!:lol:

When I start up, the desktop shrinks to the upper-left to 14" or so. Then eventualy expands to to whole screen by the intro video.

I seem to have RAM problems as well. Supposedly I have 128MB, but its slow and sluggish, even after I exit the game.

*sigh* I found a nice HP at Sam's Club for $900. :rolleyes:

Hello again everybody, I havent posted for ages.

Anyway apart from that I finally got Civ3 yesterday

:D

BUT WAS IT SMILEY FACE _ NO IT WASNT!!!!!

What I did was play a game and as I did it keep a record (so I could post an interesting and imaginative story of me as leader of the insane aztecs)
BUT NO - WHEN I TRY TO LOAD UP THAT GAME TODAY I GET THIS MESSAGE:
DATAIO operation system error: TILE

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

My save is GONE!! and whats even more bizarre is that I loaded it up last night (wanted to see if I could conquer iroquis capital with one jafg (I couldn't) and it worked fine then :mad:)

3 hours of playing: GONE
Im sorry to have such a negative post but please firaxis HELP and fast

Originally posted by CoolLizy


That's what you get for playing against 16 other Civ's! Seriously, though, play with 8 and the game will work much better. Play with 16 at your own risk!


Yeah, CoolLizy, you ARE right -- fortunately or unfortunately... I tried 8 civs on a normal map and its bearable, although definitely not as fast as the similarly sized civ1 game on a humble 10-year old 16 MHz PC/AT-286. What a shame.

Sure thing, I do understand my PII-450 / 256 MB computer is a bit outdated, but it's times BETTER than the officially req'd system of PII-300 / 32 MB. It's interesting what kind of benchmarks do people with top class systems get in large games (16 civs, Huge map). A primitive calculation suggests that a 2 GHz class computer would make it 3-4 times better than mine, so make those 25 minutes per turn just about 8. Is 8 minutes per turn (in 1500 a.d.) okay for the fastest piece of hardware on the market??? I think it's plain nonsense.

Anyways it's not a subject to be explored in this thread anymore, since it's not a glitch... It's just "normal" behavior... Uhmmm...:mad:

Here's how you fix the slow scrolling problem:

1. Go to http://www.guru3d.com/files and click on Videocard Drivers, then NVIDIA detonator drivers. You'll be presented with a list of drivers.

2. Grab the Detonator 12.41 WHQL drivers that are appropriate for your platform. The drivers are in the form of an executable, but at least for Win2K you can open it up in your zip file handler program (I use Powerarchiver myself, but most people use Winzip).

3. Extract the nvoglnt.dll file into the directory that Civ3 is installed (i.e., the directory that the game executable resides in). This works under Win2K, as executables seem to pick up DLLs first in the home directory of the executable, then the system directories. This might not work everywhere. If it doesn't have an effect, then you'll have to place it in your system32 directory or system directory (wherever your current nvoglnt.dll file resides).

This procedure worked for me and appears to work for others.


Now, on to the refresh rate problem. I'm running a GeForce 2 Pro card with the "plug and play" monitor and don't have a refresh rate problem. And I think I know why: I've used the NVidia refresh rate fix.

To pick this utility up, go here: http://www.planetquake.com/ztn/nvreffix/

What I did for my setup is use the "Set every resolution to monitor's maximum supported rate" option in the "set" dropdown at the bottom of the window.

Anyway, I noticed that the movie plays at exactly the refresh rate it should (my monitor can tell me what the refresh rate and resolution are).

Hope this helps....

This doesn't work for me although it does slightly improve the scrolling. The best way to play I find, is with 3d acceleration turned off. Although like above, this is no fix. Hope Firaxis hurry up and fix this.

I am having similar probelms as King Rude and Zoroaster. The Game installs properly but just doesn't run after the splash screen. This is the Error message...

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module ~DF394B.TMP at 0187:10044598.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0187 EIP=10044598 EFLGS=00010246
EBX=00004c26 SS=018f ESP=00abf9c8 EBP=00abf9d4
ECX=00000cb0 DS=018f ESI=00d991d2 FS=c99f
EDX=0000d50c ES=018f EDI=0087f3e2 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
66 8b 44 1f fc d1 e8 83 c0 07 99 83 e2 07 03 c2
Stack dump:
011047f8 1005afd8 000000c8 00abfa00 10017bc0 00400000 011047f8 1005afd8 000000c8 000000c8 00000000 00f86e74 00400001 00f9c94c 00abfa74 00f54948


My system is adequate and I have the latest driver from my manufacturer and Direct X 8.01.

Gateway Solo 2150 (laptop)
Pentium III 600mhz
160 MB RAM
10-24x Speed CD ROM
Running WIN 98
Rage Mobility-M AGP (video card)
Soundblaster AudioPCI 64V (sound card)

The developer confirmed it is a "safedisc" problem. The question is is it safedisc or is my driver? Infrogrames over the phone that ther were "ways" of getting arround the problem but they could not tell me. I want a better solution than the Unwapper!

I've had an interesting evening, working on getting Civilization III to work properly, but thanks to the posts in this thread (and notably Trash's post on the first page), it is now working.
System : Pentium III/933MHz, 1Gig RAM
NVidia GeForce2 Ti 200 (64MB) Graphics Card
Windows 2000 Professional
Symptom : The into "movie" would play fine, and then the screen would go black. Still had music, though. Could not CTRL-ALT-DEL out.
Stuff I tried :
Installed new NVidia driver
Installed old NVidia driver
Installed Service Pack 2 for Windows 2000
Messed with DirectX and OpenGL settings for Video card
Installed DirectX 8.1
Uninstalled and reinstalled many times
What worked :
Running regedt32 (editor was easier for me than regedit)
HKLM\Current Control Set\Services\NV4\Device1
Edited all keys which had "modes" in their name, but I think the one that worked for me was NV20_1_Modes... I just went ahead and edited them all, as it was getting late...
They had values like:
32 1024 768 60 70 72 75 85 100 120 0
Changed to:
32 1024 768 60 70 72 75 0
removing the higher refresh rates. Also removed the higher resolutions (the whole lines...) like
32 1600 1200 60 70 72 75 85 100 120 0
lines like that, I deleted...
Just like in the other posts...
[Let me echo, what others have said. Don't edit the registry unless you are comfortable doing so, and have a backup of the registry and know how to use it!]
Double checked that the higher refresh rates were no longer available in the Monitor properties, and checked that the higher resolution settings were no longer available, then voila...
Well, I had to undo a DirectX setting that I had tweaked somewhere in there, but that was easy enough.
Hopefully the Civ tech folks will post a patch to fix this problem, so people don't have to hack their registries... but I couldn't wait that long.
So, thank you, thank you, thank you everyone for your help.

Howard

Interesting problem I've been having. first, here are my specs:

Pentium II, MMX, ~447 MHZ
128 MB RAM
DirectX 8.0 (4.08.00.0400)

NVIDIA RIVA TNT (v.4.13.01.2183)
NVIDIA
15.5 MB

Turtle Beach Montego A3D 64 Voice PCI Sound Card (v.4.05.00.1130)
Turtle Beach

Monitor: Dell D1025TM
Windows 98

(I know, my computer is a little low-tech, but it meets the min. requirements.)

I got Civ3, installed, it worked fine. 2 weeks after first using it, I loaded it and some odd things appeared. The intro movie worked fine, but once I got the initial setup screen, the display was shifted about 2 inches from the left (it was all black). In the lower-left hand corner, there was a speaker with an X through it in green (in the black space).
I figured...mmm... something wrong witht he orientation. So I tried changing the geometry, but when I pressed the buttons, the green speaker changed to a key - as though it was locked. I exited the game, and my entire display was screwed up. now, not only did i have the display 2 inches off to the left, it was majorly tilted from righ to left on the top. After rebooting several times, I got it so the tilt was almost unnoticeable. Now the 2-inch gap only appears when I load Civ3. (the gap is NOT there during the intro movie).
This is now a universal problem, occurs with all my games. Any ideas?
I updated my NVIDIA drivers (v21.83), and changed the startup to "selective startup" and unchecked LOAD STARTUP GROUP ITEMS. Didn't work.
I figure it could be the .INF thing, but I don't know how to check/fix it. How do I do that?
Has anyone else encountered similar problems? I have NEVER encountered problems like this, on any computer. I am in the process of purchasing a new monitor.

Anyhow, thanks a lot to Sk0tie for all the help.

For what it's worth, Realplayer and associated programs seem to cause some errors in CIV3. I removed EVERY program associated with Realxxx, and now I get far less crashes. In one game I made it all the way to 1930 before I got a fatal lockup, where I cannot go any further.

Graeme, you are not the only one experiencing DataIO Tile errors. I am getting them by the bucketl load too. As well as all kinds of different other crashes. Any word on a fix for the TILE errors?

I have Windows 98 Second Edition. Pentium III 550MHZ. GeForce2 MX 100/200. Memory: 256MB.
Whenever I run the game it works just fine till the main menu but when I try to load a game or start a new one I get an error saying that the game will be closed and when I click "details" it says something about a divide error.
Also, the text in the main menu is strange, like it's alot of setences one over the other so you can't understand a word.
I read the solutions to the problem in the infogrames site but it didn't help me because I only have 136 fonts and I don't have any "OCRAware" appearing in the Control-Alt-Delete list.

See my reply above about Realplayer/Realaudio and similar programs. These come pre-installed on many computers, and by removing everyone of them, it fixed a similar problem in 2 of the 3 computers I was having problems with.

What is with Windows always expanding my paging file while I'm playing the game? Why does this occur. Earlier in the thread, a couple others mentioned it, but it was not addressed. My game chugs after about 20 or 30 turns and the computer turns start to sloooow way down and the animations become choppy and the sound stutters and eventually I'm unable to get my commands through. I'm running the game in Win2000 compatability mode in WindowsXP. I have a k62 450MgHz and 128MB RAM and a Voodoo3 chipset. this is the only game i've had problems with! HELP!

I have removed all of the Realxxx programs in my computer. I have chosed selective startup without "load startup group items" in the msconfig. I have tried to play my copy of CIvilization 3 which I have paid a lot money to acquire and it still didn't work.:mad:

try changing the memory timing in BIOS. In my PC, my BIOS allows me to set the memory timings as either NORMAL, MEDIUM, FAST and TURBO. Some games I can play with setting to TURBO but for memory intensive games like CIV3 and CTP2, I have to set the timings to NORMAL. If you dont have those settings, try looking for CL settings in BIOS instead. If its set to 3, change it to 2.5 and if it didnt work, try 2. Also, if that again doesnt work, try changing the memory speed from 133 to 100Mhz.

It's already like that