Kimi
Chieftain
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.
Civilization III Fixes (PLEASE READ)
- Thread starter sk0tie
- Start date
Aslan
The Great Lion
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.
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.
vladmir_illych_lenin
King
I bought Civ3 limited edition from future shop for 69.99 CDN yesterday. I got home, watched the movies, installed the game, and started playing
The screen first shrinks into a 14'' area in the upper left corner of my 17'' monitor. Then the game starts. The intro worked perfectly, but as soon as I got to the main menu, I saw the copyright information is all jumbled at the bottom. I though, oh well, could be a small bug. I selected "new game". Then I chose the specs, and pressed the circle button at the lower right corner. All of a sudden, an illegal operation thing came up. The details said it was a divide error.
I press close, and the game exits. For some reason, my screen is still 14'' at the upper left corder of the screen. I have to change the resolution to make it normal.
I checked the Infrograms site. I closed anything that had to do with my scanner. I moved most of my 1100 fonts until I only had 193. It didn't change anything.
I even called technical support but it accomplished nothing. I unchecked load startup group items. That didn't do anything.
Nothing works! Help!
The screen first shrinks into a 14'' area in the upper left corner of my 17'' monitor. Then the game starts. The intro worked perfectly, but as soon as I got to the main menu, I saw the copyright information is all jumbled at the bottom. I though, oh well, could be a small bug. I selected "new game". Then I chose the specs, and pressed the circle button at the lower right corner. All of a sudden, an illegal operation thing came up. The details said it was a divide error.
I press close, and the game exits. For some reason, my screen is still 14'' at the upper left corder of the screen. I have to change the resolution to make it normal.
I checked the Infrograms site. I closed anything that had to do with my scanner. I moved most of my 1100 fonts until I only had 193. It didn't change anything.
I even called technical support but it accomplished nothing. I unchecked load startup group items. That didn't do anything.
Nothing works! Help!
There is a memory leak somewhere in civilzation3.exe. Either that or the game was very badly engineered.
I know this because I have experienced the problem, posted earlier here, of having the game slow way down after several turns. For me, about 40-50. The last time this happened I checked my memory usage. It was at about 490 megs. I saved, then restarted the game at the save, ran a few turns and I was at 200 megs.
I am playing a huge map with 16 civs. This is not affecting the problem other then making it happen faster.
I am running:
win2k sp2
k6-2 500
192mb ram
via chipset
tnt2 ultra 32mb (2.3.1.1)
SB PCI 128
I had to replace the bink file and change to registry to run the game.
I do have a lower end system for the game, but it runs fine for the first 20 turns or so, then it starts to slow down.
I'm upset that this was a microsoft'd release. This game really needed more beta.
If anyone at the company's tech support has any ideas thery would be welcomed. I sure feel for you guys. Otherwise I will wait for the patch.
Abaques
I know this because I have experienced the problem, posted earlier here, of having the game slow way down after several turns. For me, about 40-50. The last time this happened I checked my memory usage. It was at about 490 megs. I saved, then restarted the game at the save, ran a few turns and I was at 200 megs.
I am playing a huge map with 16 civs. This is not affecting the problem other then making it happen faster.
I am running:
win2k sp2
k6-2 500
192mb ram
via chipset
tnt2 ultra 32mb (2.3.1.1)
SB PCI 128
I had to replace the bink file and change to registry to run the game.
I do have a lower end system for the game, but it runs fine for the first 20 turns or so, then it starts to slow down.
I'm upset that this was a microsoft'd release. This game really needed more beta.
If anyone at the company's tech support has any ideas thery would be welcomed. I sure feel for you guys. Otherwise I will wait for the patch.
Abaques
I did not succeed to play Civ3, since I bougt it a month ago, on my main system.
Yes I have a Via chipset and a Soundblaster Live X-Gamer sound card.
I also have Windows XP, ATI Radeon 64 VIVO, 768 Meg RAM, 60 Gig HDD (I have five partitions, and the CD-ROM has been attributed the letter H instead of the usual D. Could it cause tle loch-ups (Note: Civ.ini does'nt have a reference to the CD_ROM, so I cannot change it)).
I tried evything that is on the manufacturer site, to no avail.
I wrote to support, but, like all the others, did not have an answer. What a rotten service.
I play civ3 on my old system, Win 98, 350Mz, 256Meg Ram, no problem.
Note: I have exactly the same problem with Alpha Centauri.
Yes I have a Via chipset and a Soundblaster Live X-Gamer sound card.
I also have Windows XP, ATI Radeon 64 VIVO, 768 Meg RAM, 60 Gig HDD (I have five partitions, and the CD-ROM has been attributed the letter H instead of the usual D. Could it cause tle loch-ups (Note: Civ.ini does'nt have a reference to the CD_ROM, so I cannot change it)).
I tried evything that is on the manufacturer site, to no avail.
I wrote to support, but, like all the others, did not have an answer. What a rotten service.
I play civ3 on my old system, Win 98, 350Mz, 256Meg Ram, no problem.
Note: I have exactly the same problem with Alpha Centauri.
Poulin, I also had that problem with alpha centauri. This is just unexceptable. Via make alot of chipsets now. Soundblaster has been the best or close to it forever. It is just not good buisiness to make a game that excludes large portion of its marketshare from playing it and not warning people about it. I strongly dobt that this will be fixed in the patch either.
Well, I hope that someone who can do something about this is reading it.
Abaques
Well, I hope that someone who can do something about this is reading it.
Abaques
I skimmed through most of the posts, and didn't see this unique problem.
1)Game used to run fine for me on win 98
2)Upgraded to XP, game would play, but units animated at like 10% speed (i.e. miners moving REAAAALY slow)
3)Downloaded NEW version of patch (the 2nd one) and installed it
4)Double click on desktop shortcut, or autorun menu, etc. nothing at all happens. Hourglass for a few seconds, then nothing, but it does not hard lockup the system.
Ack! I miss playing this since I put in XP!!!
1)Game used to run fine for me on win 98
2)Upgraded to XP, game would play, but units animated at like 10% speed (i.e. miners moving REAAAALY slow)
3)Downloaded NEW version of patch (the 2nd one) and installed it
4)Double click on desktop shortcut, or autorun menu, etc. nothing at all happens. Hourglass for a few seconds, then nothing, but it does not hard lockup the system.
Ack! I miss playing this since I put in XP!!!
I cannot play with Civ3.
The patch (the good one) does not help, my system still locks up after maybe 30-50 turns, i.e the hourglass appears from nowhere, nothing answers, even control-alt-delete, and I have to use the emergency switch to shut and restart the system. I wrote for support->nothing, no answer. Grrrrr.
And I paid good money for that.
Windows XP
60 Gig HDD Maxtor, 5 partitions
Pioneer DVD 115
ATI Radeon 64 Meg VIVO
Intel 866 EB CPU
Intellimouse
Sound Blaster Live X-Gamer
Samsung 17" NF 700 screen
Abit Via chipset
The patch (the good one) does not help, my system still locks up after maybe 30-50 turns, i.e the hourglass appears from nowhere, nothing answers, even control-alt-delete, and I have to use the emergency switch to shut and restart the system. I wrote for support->nothing, no answer. Grrrrr.
And I paid good money for that.
Windows XP
60 Gig HDD Maxtor, 5 partitions
Pioneer DVD 115
ATI Radeon 64 Meg VIVO
Intel 866 EB CPU
Intellimouse
Sound Blaster Live X-Gamer
Samsung 17" NF 700 screen
Abit Via chipset
Blackjack
Chieftain
Too bad, if so, that was really nice of them to come by and help back in November, but they're probably fighting a losing battle.
Okay, here's a problem that I reported a while back that I suspect I was possibly given an error message response form-letter in reply to. I had no problems actually playing the game (well, until the patch, that is, but I'm talking about before the patch here) other than a very occasional lock-up or corrupted save file. The only problem that I could duplicate consistently was with the editor. There are certain colors that cause the game to crash if they are assigned to a civilization. I have even isolated some of them. Three are the darker orange, the light sea-green, and the tannish straw/ivory color, all three of which are right next to one another about 3/4th of the way down the color selection menu on the edit civilizations screen. There are other colors too, but I've singled these out. If a civ is assigned one of these colors, the game crashes either at the beginning of your first turn or during the first AI turn. The advice I got from Inforgrames seemed to be more for if I had not been able to get the game to run at all, which isn't the case, it ran fine other than this. And it's not the result of two civs being assigned the same color, either, I made sure it wasn't. Anyone else experienced anything similar? Wierd, I know, but I have cofirmed this as the cause of the problem after quite a bit of troubleshooting.
Have you tried running in Win98/ME compatability mode, ebolav? That got mine running again after all hell broke loose upon installing Windows XP.
And I have an ATI Rage Pro card. While I was at ATI's site, looking for the lastest drives and finding that I already had them, I saw something about new drivers for ATI Radeons for operating under XP. Did you get those, Poulin?
Okay, here's a problem that I reported a while back that I suspect I was possibly given an error message response form-letter in reply to. I had no problems actually playing the game (well, until the patch, that is, but I'm talking about before the patch here) other than a very occasional lock-up or corrupted save file. The only problem that I could duplicate consistently was with the editor. There are certain colors that cause the game to crash if they are assigned to a civilization. I have even isolated some of them. Three are the darker orange, the light sea-green, and the tannish straw/ivory color, all three of which are right next to one another about 3/4th of the way down the color selection menu on the edit civilizations screen. There are other colors too, but I've singled these out. If a civ is assigned one of these colors, the game crashes either at the beginning of your first turn or during the first AI turn. The advice I got from Inforgrames seemed to be more for if I had not been able to get the game to run at all, which isn't the case, it ran fine other than this. And it's not the result of two civs being assigned the same color, either, I made sure it wasn't. Anyone else experienced anything similar? Wierd, I know, but I have cofirmed this as the cause of the problem after quite a bit of troubleshooting.
Have you tried running in Win98/ME compatability mode, ebolav? That got mine running again after all hell broke loose upon installing Windows XP.
And I have an ATI Rage Pro card. While I was at ATI's site, looking for the lastest drives and finding that I already had them, I saw something about new drivers for ATI Radeons for operating under XP. Did you get those, Poulin?
Thanks for the suggestions! 
Unfortunately, I tried compatibility mode, and still nothing. I can either run it at like 10% speed without the patch and XP, or the game hangs without a hard lock up with the patch. It ran fine with 98, but I refuse to let shoddy programming force me into downgrading my OS.....argh!
Unfortunately, I tried compatibility mode, and still nothing. I can either run it at like 10% speed without the patch and XP, or the game hangs without a hard lock up with the patch. It ran fine with 98, but I refuse to let shoddy programming force me into downgrading my OS.....argh!Yes, I have al the new drivers for the graphic and the sound cards.
I suspect that the problem has a relation with the Via chipset. A similar problem is described with the nVidia cards and the Via chipser and Windows XP (see viaarena.com). Does somebody else with a Via chipset also have this problem?
There were others having lockups. Are you still here? Is it corrected? How?
Remember: the game installs well, plays initially well, until it locks up, i.e. an hourglass appears, I hear a monotone sound coming from the HDD (I think), and nothing works, except that I can open the CD-ROM bay, and I have to restart the system, using the emergency switch, nt the regular one, because all the system is frozen.
I suspect that the problem has a relation with the Via chipset. A similar problem is described with the nVidia cards and the Via chipser and Windows XP (see viaarena.com). Does somebody else with a Via chipset also have this problem?
There were others having lockups. Are you still here? Is it corrected? How?
Remember: the game installs well, plays initially well, until it locks up, i.e. an hourglass appears, I hear a monotone sound coming from the HDD (I think), and nothing works, except that I can open the CD-ROM bay, and I have to restart the system, using the emergency switch, nt the regular one, because all the system is frozen.
hoshie
Chieftain
Great job you guys are doing here helping everyone out, especially dan and scotie.
I've sifted through numerous message boards and no one seems to have the problem I have. I insert the civ3 cd in the drive, autoplay comes up and I start to install Civilization III. However, at about 42% (on a typical install size) the cd drive powers down after copying a file to the art/flic/ directory. After about 10 seconds I get an error message saying data3.cab cannot be located and it asks me for its location. There is no data3.cab file on my Civilization III CD! I have tried installing this game on 3 computers with different cd-rom drives to no avail so I think it must be a problem with the CD I have? I tried copying the cd to the hard drive to see if it would work then, however I am unable to copy data2.cab (I get an error message in windows explorer saying that it 'cannot read the specified device'). Therefore I think I have a problem with my cd, any solutions? can i get a new cd? what is wrong???
I bought my copy of Civ3 from Revolution CD, is this a bug in the installation program or do you think I have a pirated/broken cd? All you guys don't seem to have this problem, do your game discs have data3.cab on them??? The manual and box looks fine and the cd is not scratched at all.
Help please!
I've sifted through numerous message boards and no one seems to have the problem I have. I insert the civ3 cd in the drive, autoplay comes up and I start to install Civilization III. However, at about 42% (on a typical install size) the cd drive powers down after copying a file to the art/flic/ directory. After about 10 seconds I get an error message saying data3.cab cannot be located and it asks me for its location. There is no data3.cab file on my Civilization III CD! I have tried installing this game on 3 computers with different cd-rom drives to no avail so I think it must be a problem with the CD I have? I tried copying the cd to the hard drive to see if it would work then, however I am unable to copy data2.cab (I get an error message in windows explorer saying that it 'cannot read the specified device'). Therefore I think I have a problem with my cd, any solutions? can i get a new cd? what is wrong???
I bought my copy of Civ3 from Revolution CD, is this a bug in the installation program or do you think I have a pirated/broken cd? All you guys don't seem to have this problem, do your game discs have data3.cab on them??? The manual and box looks fine and the cd is not scratched at all.
Help please!
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