Black Screen Prob

[cthulhu]

The screen is black when I try to run Civ III. I just reinstalled it (vanilla), and I can't tell what version it currently is. Any solutions?
-Disciple of Cthulhu

 

[COMDAT]

I had the exact same problem. All I had to do was run the game in Windows 98/ME compatability mode but there are accounts of others having to update their video card/sound drivers, updating DirectX, or removing threads/processes.

 

[cthulhu]

Recent circumstances have forced me to use the accursed Windows XP version, and I've heard of people having this problem with this OS. How do I run the game in Windows 98 "compatability mode" ?

 

[COMDAT]

Right-click on the Play Civilization III icon/shortcut, a menu will open up. Select properties from this menu, a window should open up, go to the Compatibility tab in this window, check the Run this program in compatibility mode for: box and select Windows 98 / Me.

Hope it works out okay for you.

 

[cthulhu]

For some reason, changing it made it so that it wouldn't even start up; it affected several other games and applications as well. The drag and drop function has been intermittently disabled, too. I monkeyed around the machine and have managed to get it back as far as loading the Civ III intro screen, but it doesn't progress to the opening movie anymore. Since none of the panzy techinical procedures seem to be working, I'm contemplating using a large, heavy, dull instrument to remind my machine who's boss; I'll trying smashing the keyboard a fair amount first though.

Devoted Disciple of
-Cthulhu

 

[COMDAT]

Yes, I've realized that the 'not being able to start' problem was the case with later versions of CivIII. Try reinstalling CivIII and keeping it unpatched, as a reference, my current version is 1.07f.

Sorry about not being able to respond quickly, unfortunately, I've been very busy lately. I can imagine the suffering that you must have felt not being able to play the game.

 

[cthulhu]

For any other poor fools in a similar situation: My problem was that I couldn't find an XP driver for my old HP monitor; for whatever reason, the game doesn't like having the monitor run off of "plug and play." What I did to fix it (and it was a stroke of genius, to put it modestly), was to download a Win 98 driver and load that - the computer whined about it not being for XP, but it worked anyway I'm no long experiencing the black screen prob.
Good luck, and may Cthulhu curse your black souls!
-DOC

 

[penelopody]

so you downloaded a win 98 driver and then played in win 98 compatability mode?

(working on solving what I think is the exact same problem on my pretty computer and ugly second hand monitor - so thank you.)