Civilization III Fixes (PLEASE READ)

pansophy · Nov 1, 2001

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.

sk0tie · Nov 1, 2001

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.

sk0tie · Nov 1, 2001

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

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.

Nishdog · Nov 2, 2001

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

Trash22 · Nov 2, 2001

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

Trash22 · Nov 2, 2001

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

pansophy · Nov 2, 2001

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.

pansophy · Nov 2, 2001

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

pansophy · Nov 2, 2001

last one showing the edit value screen

Meneer Popken · Nov 2, 2001

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).

pansophy · Nov 2, 2001

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

System ofa Down · Nov 2, 2001

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

sk0tie · Nov 2, 2001

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!

System ofa Down · Nov 2, 2001

Thank you,

you are the king! :king:

glory · Nov 2, 2001

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?

glory · Nov 2, 2001

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

deanstow · Nov 2, 2001

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:

Napoleon Hitler · Nov 2, 2001

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:

queeg · Nov 3, 2001

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!

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?

macadamizer · Nov 3, 2001

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.

Civilization III Fixes (PLEASE READ)

Chieftain

Chieftain

Chieftain

Isolationist Bastard

Chieftain

Chieftain

Chieftain

Chieftain

Attachments

Chieftain

Attachments

Chieftain

Attachments

Chieftain

Chieftain

Chieftain

Chieftain

Chieftain

Chieftain

Chieftain

Ruler of Europe

Chieftain

Chieftain

Similar threads