Civilization III Fixes (PLEASE READ)

Has anyone else noticed this?

If I start my PC and then run Civ3, on the next boot or restart I get the message:

__________________________________
Please wait while Setup updates your configuration files. This may take a few minutes...


Completed updating files, contiunuing to load Windows...
__________________________________

To test, turn on your PC. Do not run anything. Restart. Watch for message while booting. Run Civ3. Quit. Restart PC. Watch for message while booting. I can reproduce this without fail.

Now I know this isn't much of a big deal but it takes my system boot time (from the Starting Windows 98... bit) from 13 seconds up to about 14 or 15 seconds so I don't like it.

Win98SE
Civ3 1.16f

I don't know if this really helps for this problem but here are the specs anyway:
Processor and Speed Intel Pentium III ~550MHz
Total System Memory 384Mb
DirectX Version DirectX 8.1 (4.08.01.0881)

Video Card Name NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro
Manufacturer NVIDIA
Approx. Total Memory 31.5Mb

Sound Card Name Creative SBPCI Direct Sound Driver
Manufacturer Creative

Video Driver: 4.13.01.2183
Sound Driver: 4.12.01.2011

I have read this thread but i havent found anything that helps me.
When i instal the 1.16f patch the game starts as it should. I can start gaes but when i hit F8 or F9 the game does an illegal operation. This allso happends during trading with other civs. When i klick on any of the oftions ( like technology ) the games does an illegal acction again. This happends all the time.
I didnt have this problem before the patch, and when i reinstalled the game without the path it worked as it should.

Would be very happy if i could get some tips on how i can cure this problem.

Hi,
I can't uninstall my Civ3. Every time I try to uninstall it, the screen of the installer pops up and after a second or two another screen comes up with finish the only option possible. also, after each time I try to uninstall there is a Civilization.exe file created in C:\Windows.
I would really appreciate it if you'll help me 'cause my game is not working and I want to unistall it to check if that helps.

Good point about the EULA-unfortunately, when my copy ran fine with '98, I shredded my receipt, thinking the game would be smooth sailing. So, even though I have the disc and instructions, I doubt they'll give me a refund without a receipt...

You might be able to get a duplicate receipt from the store where you bought it if you can tell them when and where (you should be able to get one if their database is any good). It might be worth a try if you want your money back, anyway.

Hey, I need help! You know how you said that I must uncheck load startup group items? Well on my computer it is checked and the box is kinda gray... When I uncheck it and apply then restart my computer it is checked again!!! How do I keep it permanently unchecked?

The first turns very quickly, later to a very low pace, now 90 bc, it takes op to 3-4 minutes for a turn to finish after enter. And it's noway mine system!
duron(800@1000)
768 mb
45 GB harddisk
geforce MX 2(210/220)
everything is updated
nvidia 23.1
via 4.36
altered page-file sizes
everything!

it doesn't help
i hope soon i and the other ones get some answers overhere [/B]

Click to expand...

ok, I changed mine videocard, I bougt a matrox 550, no difference but very handy so i can play civ on monitor one and the other stuff on monitor 2.

To the point, mentioned in other post i promised some tests.
I installed I) Bysoft Freeram. The ram was never a problem, BUT the cpu-load rose very fast to 46 percent when loading the game, 2 percent on the opening screen. Loading a save game boom: 100 percent load! back to 28, 100 % in the end and finishing the loading. Finished at 25 percent. Clicking on the game after loading to start it: 100% and it STAYS 100 procent. II)Windows task manager: civlization3.exe says 92 percent!
Changed priorities on the processes in the manager: nothing!
So my guess is there is somekind of memory leak. Raw power will cope with this problem but a duron at 1 gigaHz isn't enough. Hopefully will there be a solution soon
..... ..... .....

Yep, I noticed the updating config files too. Usually happens after I reboot from a Invalid Page fault error from civ3.

I'm here over the safedisk problem. I went to gamecopyworld, but the file it gave me was in .ace format, so I don't know how to make it work. Also, I am very clueless in how to make the program unsafedisk work right.

To anyone who managed to solve the problem, I'd sure appreciate the help.

"And I wanted to do was conquer the world."

Originally posted by Jim Faulkner
Hey Dan -

Are you guys aware of the declaration of war crashing bug? See the threads "I have little hope of finding a solution here" and "Consistent, reproduceable crashing bug in 1.16f". I just want to make sure this is fixed in the next patch, this bug ended my last game rather early.

Thanks for the awesome game!
Jim Faulkner

Click to expand...

Hi Firaxis (Dan or anyone) can you please look at the threads Jim has above. AND PLEASE RESPOND WITH A POST HERE.

I don't think this is a currupt save game. Looks like an error in the game code. The problem only appears to have started since the patch was released. I reinstalled W2K and Civ3 and patch and started a new game, still got this error late in the game, about 1950 (so I don't think the fault is to do with bad upgraded save games) I have logged it with
http://www.ina-support.com/cgi-bin/mailform.pl

Just a tip, please become more active in the forums. I know its the holidays (even for tech suport), but that is why we are all so eager to play. Please post a list of the Bug DB.

PS there is no way i'm returning my CIV3 - I love it too much. (thats why i'm here trying to get it fixed)

Hi PinkyGen

ACE is like ZIP.
http://www.winace.com/

It's funny you have to go to gamecopyworld for a game you bought legit just because safedisk doesn't work .... you did buy it didn't you, this is not your "friends" copy ;-)

Thanks lobo, yes it's my game, and I'm quite mad it. I got the files from gamecopyworld (finally figured what winace was), and Civ tech support finally sent me a file, but neither of them worked. The game simply won't load? And I want to take over the world.

Originally posted by Asmod
Does anyone else notice most people having problems are using either one of the follow or a combination of the following

1. VIA Chipset
2. Win2k
3. A SB Product

Click to expand...

I agree with you on that issue. In fact I'd have brought it up if you haven't. But this is my observation based on my own experiences.

My PC:
Jurassic Period Processor - P2 300mhz
384MB RAM
P3V133 VIA Mobo
Geforce 2 MX-200 64MB RAM
ESS Tech 1938 Soundcard
DirectX 8.1
10GB HDD

1st time I installed Civ3 was on Win98SE. It worked well, good response times, nice animations, video ran ok, smooth scrolling, in other words - no problems whatsoever. I played my first game right up till the retirement date - I discovered was a horrible Roman leader. I only had only one problem which hung the game when I clicked the lil red more button of the speech bubble on the advisor screen too many times. And that only happened ONCE.

Then so happened one day I decided that Win2k will be my OS (I'm working towards my MCSE 2k, heh). Installed Win2k, managed to get my hardware to cooperate with my drivers.
Updated to Service Pack 2.
Then I installed Civ3 again a couple of days ago and found two problems:

1. Slow movie playback (as per readme file, copied the bink file from the CD and solved the problem)
2. Horrible scroll rate (no solution yet)

I did not have these two problems on the same hardware, running win98SE, but I did running Win2k. It could be the drivers, but other games/apps run just fine on it.

What I really do suspect is the combination of Win2k and VIA chipsets that really slow the display (menus, scrolling, text displays).

I'll give the color resolution change (24bit to 16bit) as well as the reducing # of fonts a try, but I doubt it.

But if you bare with it, you'd be able to play the game with the slow scroll rate (I'm in the 1960s, doing Babylonian Borg Assimilation - cultural takeovers rulez!).

FYI: No other problems encountered. Not using any patches.

This "war" bug in the late industrial era does not seem to like either a Soundblaster Live card or a Via Apollo chipset from my own experiences and messages posted in this forum.

I do not have a VIA chipset, as far as I know (Celeron 128K processor) but I do have the "war" bug.

Ok heres the problem, I can get through the intro with no worry unlike alot of people, but into the game it will crash endlessly. The first time I played Civ 3 I got through about 1/2 hour starting a new civ and then it just froze. It does it randomly. I couldn't Cnt'l-Alt-Delete out to windows, and the music kept repeating. I had to reboot the computer. Now I try again and it would crash between the very start of a saved game or a new one or by 15 minutes.(I cant go a turn or 2 without it crashing)
Ok I tried everything I could possibly think of that doesn't take a masters in programming to do. I checked if all my drivers and direct x were updated and working, they were fine. I tried reducing hardware acceleration (tech support's first suggestion), no avail. I turned off sound, animations and no other programs were running. I cant seem to change the resolution. I dont know what the heck to do. I have kindof a cheap sound card, could it be a problem(even though the sound seems fine on a surround sound sterio) Could my copy be a defect? someone help, please?
heres my specs:
Windows ME
Athlon T-bird 900mhz
640mb sdram
Winfast GeForce 2 MX 64mb
19" Gateway EV900 (resolution is at 1024/768 32 bit 75hz)
ALS 4000 sound card
40gb and a 20gb drive

I really hope there arent too many out there in the boat I am.

Because of my DVD drive and the "safedisk" software, civ3 wont run on my computer. There IS a remedy to this, BUT Im not allowed to have it because I dont live in North AMerica, I have been told to "contact my local tech support" but there are none in New Zealand!

I might live in a small country, and there is no way Id expect Firaxis to open up a branch here but I feel really left out on a limb. : (

I have tried everything from gamecopyworld to hours and hours and hours of endless toggling. I would guess it is probably against Firaxis's policy but is there any one that could give me a hand or totally BLOW MY SOX OFF by sending me a copy of Firaxis's modified exe file for version 1.17.

I am nothing short of desperate to play this game, I have waited over a month now spending hours a day trying to remedy the problem, I wouldnt be surprised if those living with me thought I was a bit nuts - but its just I so desperately want to finally play civ3.

If any one could email me this file and finally put me out of my misery I would be phenominally happy, it would make my year!

I can't wait to finally join in on this (what looks like) awesome game

Kind Regards,

pascal_nz@hotmail.com

If you want some advice you'll thank me for this is it:
Don't by World War II Online, has more bugs then the Amazon, and bigger ones too.

just thought I'd try to save whoever didn't get that game from pulling all their hair out

Hey there, PinkyGen.
.Ace files have just been archived using another archive program. There are a bunch that can "decode" them, just do a search using google.
Otherwise you can use PowerArchiver

I have only been affected by the "wait 12 hours between turns" issue and have yet to sort it out...

Okay, first I must echo again the praise towards sk0tie and Dan at actually coming to this board and offering to help - especially as they are doing it in their own time.

Right, now onto my small but irritating problem. The game all loads okay and runs fine (apart from me playing crap ) anyhow, every so often, for no apparent reason, the game will crash. The error reported mentions OpenGL. Okay, so I think update my graphics drivers, only apparently I already have the latest.
I'm not sure if this is a similar problem as a couple already listed, as I have Windows XP which is able to remain running and terminate Civilization.exe
Luckily I have autosave activated, so I don't lose more than a turn, but obviously it's not good for a program to repeatedly crash.

I don't have this problem with Windows 98, only XP... but it is a <strike>bit</strike> lot of a pain having to switch my HDDs from slave to master and vica versa just for one game. Even if it is a very good one.

Anyhoo, you might be interested in my system specs, so here they are:

Processor: AMD Duron 600
Mainboard: VIA KT133(VT 8368)
Video: 32MB ATI Xpert 2000
Audio: Hercules Gamesurround Muse XL
Memory: 256MHZ RAM at 133MHz
Monitor: 15" Relisys pile of crap.
Resolution: 32-bit 1024x768 60Hz
CD-R/W: 32x4x4 TEAC W54e
OS: Windows XP Proffessional

uh, that's possibly more than you need to know, but hey - knowledge is power.

Oh, and one more request - is it possible to bypass the intro movie, it takes a while to flick into 640x480 start the movie, I have to click to cancel it then it flicks back to 1024x768 - I'm thinking maybe if I remove the file, or does it read from the CD?

Thanks as a pre-whatsit to anyone who can provide help.