Civilization III Fixes (PLEASE READ)

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!

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

Click to expand...

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!

Thank you for any help you can provide!

Click to expand...

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

Click to expand...

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

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

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.

Click to expand...

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...

Click to expand...

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)



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.



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.



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

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.