Civ3 complete wont load

[maltesecorsair]

Hi everyone
I've just loaded 'civ 3 complete' on my system- core 2 duo,2 gb RAM,nvidia 8600 GT, AOC widescreen monitor(which doesnt normally support 1024*768),on board sound and it is not working. When the desktop icon is pressed it merely shows a 'spinning cd' mouse pointer and then goes back to the normal pointer. I havent run any patches on civ 3,(I dunno which version I have). Could someone kindly tell me how to rectify the problem please?

 

[Padma]

If you have 'Complete', you won't need any patches.

XP or Vista?

It might be that it is having trouble with the intro movie?

 

[maltesecorsair]

Ty for the reply,Padma, I have got Windows XP with SP2. Hoping someone can clear this up

 

[Padma]

Okay, let's give this a shot.

In Windows Explorer (or your favorite file system tool) navigate to
C:\Program Files\Firaxis\Civilization 3\Conquests
(the Firaxis folder may be Firaxis, Atari, Take2, or 2K Games. I don't have Complete installed on the computer I'm at, so I don't remember which Complete uses. )

Look for a file named conquests.ini. (You may need to go to menu Tools --> Folder Options --> View and UN-check the option to "Hide extensions for known file types" in order to identify the file correctly.)

If the file exists, open it for editing (any text editor - e.g. Notepad).
If the file does NOT exist, create it, and open for editing.

Add the following lines to the file:
KeepRes=1
PlayIntro=0

Then save the file. (If you had to create it make sure it is named conquests.ini, NOT conquests.ini.txt)

What those two lines do is
1) force the game to use your computer's current screen resolution (some screens will still be 1024x768, but they will be centered in your window)
2) force the game to NOT play the intro movie (and therefore not try to switch screen resolution)

 

[maltesecorsair]

Sorry for being late with my reply,sir. I navigated to 'E:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Civilization III Complete\Conquests' folder and found a conquests.ini in there and added the lines you asked me to, but the problem persists If I bring up the task manager I can see conquests.exe running in the 'processes' window. But all that I get is the spinning cd mouse pointer which displays for a few seconds, as I had posted.

 

[Turner]

What resolution are you running your monitor? Also, what refresh rate?

 

[maltesecorsair]

Sir, my monitor is running at 1280*720, 60 Hz. I tried changing the resolution to 1024*768 (forcing it to run at that res using Nvidia control panel) but that didnt work either

 

[Turner]

Well, Civ3 needs one of the following resolutions to run:

1024x768
1152x864
1280x1024
1600x1200
1792x1344

You can also manually force the refresh rate of 60hz by adding the line Refresh=60 to the file Padma referenced, that may help. But the minimum height Civ3 needs is 768. If you can force your monitor higher than that, it should work.

 

[maltesecorsair]

Ty for the reply sir. I forced the monitor to 1024*768 resolution and added the
'Refresh=60' to the config file but that doesnt help either

 

[NubianMercenary]

Hmmm,

I had a similar problem with the mouse pointer, but it was with Civ IV and the game actually started up, but with the mouse pointer tearing into the game while I was playing it.

I resolved this problem by simply changing my mouse pointer in the Control Panel i.e - from that little Dinosaur to a normal mouse pointer. It worked, and I never experienced the problem again. Something about the animation of the mouse pointer corrupting the pointer-animation in CIV IV.

I dunno, may help, doubt it will. But give it a shot anyways.

 

[maltesecorsair]

Ty for the reply sir, I tried changing the mousepointer(it was the windows default pointer scheme) but that doesn't help with the game.

 

[CommandoBob]

Hi everyone
I've just loaded 'civ 3 complete' on my system- core 2 duo,2 gb RAM,nvidia 8600 GT, AOC widescreen monitor(which doesnt normally support 1024*768),on board sound and it is not working.

What resolutions does your monitor support?

 

[maltesecorsair]

My monitor supports 800*600,960*600,and 1280*720 sir. I have had problems with games like Anno 1701, but in that instance,it worked well when I forced the monitor into 1024*768 using Nvidia control panel

 

[CommandoBob]

What happens when you change the resolution to 1024*768 and then start C3C?

 

[maltesecorsair]

Even when the monitor is at 1024*768, upon clicking the desktop shortcut icon, I merely get the mouse pointer change into a spinning cd one,sir. A couple of seconds later it changes back into the normal windows mouse pointer.

 

[CommandoBob]

Two things to consider:

1: How much free RAM do you have when you start the game? (CachemanXP is a freebie tool that can tell you that information.) C3C creates a rather large temp file (I forget the name of it, but it will show up in Task Manager), but I don't know the minimum size needed for that file.

2: You may want to uninstall/reinstall the game.

PC Cleaning
If you go the uninstall/reinstall, I would suggest that you take some time and do some housecleaning for malware. My thinking is that if the game did not install properly, it could be to a very fragmented hard drive. So let's defrag the hard drive. But, it doesn't make sense to organize garbage, so let's take some time to get rid of known garbage (spyware, adware, tracking cookies, etc). Once the garbage is gone, there will be less defragmenting to do. And then, when the game installs, it will be in one big chunk on the hard drive, which is good.

First, uninstall the game. Then download SpyBot Search and Destroy (freeware), Spywareblaster (freeware), Adaware (free for home use), WinASO (unlimited trialware), in addition to CachemanXP. Run SpyBot (about 20 minutes or so), Spywareblaster (5 minutes) and Adaware (30 minutes on Smart Scan, over an hour on Full Scan). These programs will notify you if you have any spyware or adware installed on your system. Remove that stuff.

(CachemanXP can run at start up. It displays an icon down by the date/time area that shows how much RAM you have available to use. It does not help with spyware.)

Once you've gotten all the known spy junk off your system, run WinASO to clean up your registry. It will fix 10 problems at a time, but you can run it as many times as you need to.

Then I would defrag the harddrive. That could take a while. How long depends on the last time it was defragged.

Once the hard drive is all nice and organized, I would update Windows and get all the latest patches and stuff.

Then I would reinstall C3C.

At work, I do most of these steps every Monday morning (except the C3C stuff ). At home, I try to do it once a month.

 

[maltesecorsair]

Ty for the reply sir, I am running the programs you directed me to, but I cant find a 'scan' button in spywareblaster so I have just enabled the protection mode. (Also, there are a few programs named WinASO , I am d/l-ing WinASO registry optimizer 4.1- and it says some fixing features are disabled. Hope that is the one you meant.)

 

[CommandoBob]

My bad. Spywareblaster doesn't scan; all it does is protect. WinASO 4.1 (from www.winaso.com) is the correct one (mine is only 2.5).

 

[maltesecorsair]

Sir, I have d/l-ded all the programs that you indicated and have run them all, but I am still experiencing the same difficulty. Btw the CachemanXP indicated that I had around 1535 mb of memory free when I tried to start up the game. (I asked about this to the take2 games support and they are saying that the problem must be with securom copy protection,and asked me to contact securom support )

 

[CommandoBob]

Sir, I have d/l-ded all the programs that you indicated and have run them all, but I am still experiencing the same difficulty. Btw the CachemanXP indicated that I had around 1535 mb of memory free when I tried to start up the game. (I asked about this to the take2 games support and they are saying that the problem must be with securom copy protection,and asked me to contact securom support )

You've got plenty of RAM; that is good.

SecuROM, well, that is bad (I think).

I Googled for 'securom' and 'securom civ 3'.

C3C has SecuROM 7.0 . 'SecuROM is a form of copy protection or Digital Rights Management (DRM) created by Sony DADC.' >>Link Here<<

SecuROM's website has directions on how to send them data about your issue. >>Support<<

Now my mind gets fuzzy. I recall reading about some DRM stuff that would look for specfic software on a PC. If it found that software, the game would not run. I don't know which game this was nor DRM program name. At that time, the only choice was either remove the offending software or remove the game.