Civ works bad on PC

[CivFan2k1]

Hi. I'm a civ fan from 1994, civ 1 (DOS) is very nostalgic.
I have Pentium 4 and it works slow, all the units... all the animations in the game... I had the same problem on 450mhz and 166mhz too.
Please, could someone help me to solve this problem?
Thanks!

 

[GhostMutt]

I believe there are programs that you can download for free that correct when older DOS games play to quickly on newer PC systems, but if the game is playing slowly, it might be *how* you're running the game. I don't have a copy of CIV 1 handy, so I can't promise you how it will work, but take a stab at running in "Protected DOS mode" first. It can be irritating, but if it works...

 

[Siggy]

Last time I played this on PC, it ran slow with Windows in the background. Always start the game in DOS.

 

[stormerne]

This is very common. For that reason, I have two PCs: one the one I'm typing on now, an MX200, which I use for Civ2 running in Windows; the other a very cheap 10 year old 486/33 which I use only for Civ1 running on DOS. The advantages of running a second machine on DOS are - apart from being very cheap - that it's very stable, it never crashes, and I can leave the Civ1 game up there.

 

[CivFan2k1]

Thanks.
Well, I have win2k so i can't go in to DOS, when I had win 98 and got into dos, Civ 1 didn't work at all, it stuck in the introduction even before it wrote civilization on the screen.
Well, thanks anyway, I guess I'll live without the game.

 

[GenghisK]

Hey, and what about playing Civ1 for Macintosh on your PC?
Nah I'm not kidding. That's what many of people do. At least those who contacted me for that problem. Civ 1 for mac is exactly the same, with better graphics, and the emulator runs smoothly on any PC, with Win2k as well as Win98/ME... The world is beautiful, isn't it?
Oh sorry, forgot there was Bill Gates to make it bad

 

[Xevion]

At that point you could just get Civilization for Windows, which can be found with a quick search on Google

 

[CivFan2k1]

Thanks, but I like the old graphics of the original Civ.
Anyway, it all works now, I got a boot DOS disk and it has all the sounds and works fine!
thanks guys for trying to help, I appreciate it.

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

I know it is not the same, but there is also the civ 1 mod pack for civ II by John Valdez. I just found it on Monday and it has much of the look and feel of the original game. Well worth a look. It is in the down load section for civ II.

 

[CoolLizy]

Originally posted by CivFan2k1
Hi. I'm a civ fan from 1994, civ 1 (DOS) is very nostalgic.
I have Pentium 4 and it works slow, all the units... all the animations in the game... I had the same problem on 450mhz and 166mhz too.
Please, could someone help me to solve this problem?
Thanks!

Restart in MS-Dos and then start the game!
By the way, is the Windows version legally a free download? If so, I'd like to check it out and see how much a peice of trash it is!

 

[Akka]

Just seeing that people had some trouble with DOS, and as a fan of DOS game too I couldn't do any less than giving a hand

In fact, Windows 2000 is the best platform to run DOS game so far, and I often even better than true DOS. All it requires is a little freeware program, called VDMS, which emulate the sound via DirectSound, and manage for you the conventionnal memory.

All you have to do is to download it from
http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/

Then install it, and you will just have to right-click on the program you want to run in DOS mode and chose "run with VDMS" and *magic* it will run just fine !

Okok, it's not all that beautiful, there is some rare cases when things will not work properly, but so far the only game I couldn't run were Death Rally and Ultima 7, and I had to shut down the sounds effect (not the music) in Realms and Master of Magic.
But except that, it's really a lifesaver for us DOS-game lovers

 

[CivFan2k1]

Hey Thanks!
Like I've said before, it all works fine, all I needed was a boot disk, besides, I'm playing the new one now, but thanks anyway.
Akka - thanks, I will try this program on other DOS games.

 

[vladr]

You can use PITSET at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=422404&group_id=20091&atid=220091 to speed up Civilization. Should work on any Windows (or DOS) platform.

V.

 

[Caos Dragon]

Originally posted by CivFan2k1
Well, thanks anyway, I guess I'll live without the game.

ARE YOU KIDDING??????

 

[Hyperion]

Originally posted by Akka
Just seeing that people had some trouble with DOS, and as a fan of DOS game too I couldn't do any less than giving a hand

In fact, Windows 2000 is the best platform to run DOS game so far, and I often even better than true DOS. All it requires is a little freeware program, called VDMS, which emulate the sound via DirectSound, and manage for you the conventionnal memory.

All you have to do is to download it from
http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/

Then install it, and you will just have to right-click on the program you want to run in DOS mode and chose "run with VDMS" and *magic* it will run just fine !

Okok, it's not all that beautiful, there is some rare cases when things will not work properly, but so far the only game I couldn't run were Death Rally and Ultima 7, and I had to shut down the sounds effect (not the music) in Realms and Master of Magic.
But except that, it's really a lifesaver for us DOS-game lovers

Will it work with Win XP too?

 

[vladr]

VDMSound will work on XP as well. PITSET may not work on certain systems (no pattern there, though), but you can edit the source code (comes with the .zip) and tweak it until it works.

V.

 

[voodoo chile]

Hi, i had the same problems on with the original Civ going really, really slow in Win98, and for some reason it is when you play the game with Soundblaster (or whatever) sounds and music or even no sounds at all, the game runs terribly slow.

when i started the game with the computer speaker sounds turned on it played at a normal resonable speed!!!! i dont have an axplanation for this, maybe it is just my computer but if u cant be bothered upgrading, downloading anything or getting a dos boot disk try it out! i would love to hear if it works!

plus this only works when starting from windows, it wouldnt work at all from the Restart in dos mode!

if i don't meet you this world, i'll meet you in the next one, don't be late!

 

[voodoo chile]

oh yeah, that last post about the computer speaker option might confuse some, i meant the PC Speaker option when u start up!!
oops......

 

[vladr]

The explanation is simple, it's the way Windows emulates the timer and the fact that the game reprograms the timer differently depending on your sound options. See the post about PITSET, PITSET will help you get any speed you want out of CIV, faster or slower.

V.

Originally posted by voodoo chile
... when i started the game with the computer speaker sounds turned on it played at a normal resonable speed!!!! i dont have an axplanation for this ...

 

[peterval]

I had same trouble with slowness under (only) Win Me. My simple solution was to use the Me Startup disk. I needed to load a mouse driver (simple).
But I can only use IBM sounds. Could anyone suggest a safe way to load a sound driver for SoundBlaster64?