Civ3 not playable

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

just called a friend who told me about his civ suddenly not running anymore, then yesterday mailed me a savegame.

His Civ quit work totally, WinXP gave the above mentioned kind of error message.

He bought Civ III and since he uses an original CD his game runs w/o fault.....

Firaxis: great idea! I`m happy I bought it right away. Saved me lots off headaches.

 

[Ripley]

I downloaded the save game and it crashed for me. My own games never do.

It crashes whenever I give the new build order for Miami, no matter what build order I give. I tried going into anarchy as some people have suggested (as a way around crashes) and it simply crashes at some random point in the same turn, rather than when giving the Miami build order.

Whatever is causing the crash, it is being passed on in the save game.

Dual P3 1GHz
Abit VP6
768MB RAM
WinXP Pro Retail
Nothing overclocked

 

[ferenginar]

If your computer is below 500mhz then CivIII will crash quite often and maybe no even start up.

I'm using a PII 400, 128RAM 8meg graphics card, Win98SE

I admit it is slow, but so far no crashes.

However, if i play for more than a few turns it refuses to exit, the only way out is the reset button. As it doesn't effect game play i'm not complaining, but it is a little frustrating.

ferenginar

 

[arttu19]

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 016f:00460461.
Registers:
EAX=078bd2f4 CS=016f EIP=00460461 EFLGS=00010216
EBX=00000005 SS=0177 ESP=00abfa48 EBP=00000000
ECX=013390b4 DS=0177 ESI=00000019 FS=430f
EDX=000083e7 ES=0177 EDI=ffffffff GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 0c 91 8b 54 24 14 81 e2 ff 00 00 00 8b 01 52
Stack dump:
00000000 078bd2f4 0afa0018 078bd2f4 00467196 00000001
ffffffff 00000019 00000008 00609970 005dc980 078bd2f4
004835d0 00000000 00000008 078bd2f4


I downloaded the saved game, and it truly seems to crash...dunno why, yet??
I'm running official and patched 1.16f version.

System specs:
------------------

Celeron 466, 256 Mt RAM
Ati Radeon 64 DDR vivo
Win 98

 

[Grotius]

FWIW, I've had to abandon 3 different games because of exactly the same kind of crashes. When I reload a savegame, even a savegame from 2-3 turns earlier, I still get the crash -- even if I make a few different moves. I crash to desktop, which is suddenly in 1024 res instead of my default 800. I usually reboot voluntarily just to clean out everything.

I'm using Win ME as well. Athlon 900, GeForce II GTS 64M, SB Live!, 512M SDRAM. Unfortunately, I think I've deleted all the nasty files in question, so I can't upload any of them. But maybe Firaxis could have a look at Dino's uploaded save?

 

[Readylander]

I have been playing too much Civ3 since about noon of they day it was released in the US.
I don't believe I have ever had Civ3 crash on me. Except the known bug of a civ's last settler being killed while at sea.
I have a legal copy with the correct patch.
My system is:
P3 800
128M ram
Win 98SE
32MB nVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64 - Gateway version
Soundblaster Live Value

I tried dino's savegame and had Civ3 crash on me. I played around with some things and found that I could avoid the initial crash but it would just crash later. Here are some details of what I found:

1. Before ending initial turn:
No changes

Crashed when Miami completed production

Error details:
CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 0167:00460461.
Registers:
EAX=07d9d874 CS=0167 EIP=00460461 EFLGS=00010216
EBX=00000005 SS=016f ESP=00abfa48 EBP=00000000
ECX=01339474 DS=016f ESI=00000019 FS=3a47
EDX=000083e7 ES=016f EDI=ffffffff GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 0c 91 8b 54 24 14 81 e2 ff 00 00 00 8b 01 52
Stack dump:
00000000 07d9d874 0b380018 07d9d874 00467196 00000001 ffffffff 00000019 00000008 00609970 005dc980 07d9d874 004835d0 00000000 00000008 07d9d874


2. Before ending intial turn:
Chose to replace government type, went into anarchy

As 1130AD begins, get various messages about cities in civil disorder or where it had ended. When I get message that New Orleans is in disorder, crash

Error details:
CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 0167:00460461.
Registers:
EAX=07cfe17c CS=0167 EIP=00460461 EFLGS=00010216
EBX=00000001 SS=016f ESP=00abfa48 EBP=00000002
ECX=01339474 DS=016f ESI=00000027 FS=4c57
EDX=00008617 ES=016f EDI=ffffffff GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 0c 91 8b 54 24 14 81 e2 ff 00 00 00 8b 01 52
Stack dump:
00000000 07cfe17c 0b3b0026 07cfe17c 00467196 00000001 ffffffff 00000027 00000007 00609970 005dc980 07cfe17c 004835d0 00000000 00000007 07cfe17c

3. Before ending intial turn:
Set governor in Washington to manage citizen moods in all cities

Crashed when Miami completed production

Error details:
CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 0167:00460461.
Registers:
EAX=07d9d874 CS=0167 EIP=00460461 EFLGS=00010216
EBX=00000005 SS=016f ESP=00abfa48 EBP=00000000
ECX=01339474 DS=016f ESI=00000019 FS=53df
EDX=000083e7 ES=016f EDI=ffffffff GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 0c 91 8b 54 24 14 81 e2 ff 00 00 00 8b 01 52
Stack dump:
00000000 07d9d874 0b380018 07d9d874 00467196 00000001 ffffffff 00000019 00000008 00609970 005dc980 07d9d874 004835d0 00000000 00000008 07d9d874

4. Before ending initial turn:
Set governor in Washington to manage citizen moods in all cities
Chose to replace government type, went into anarchy

During Egypt's turn in 1170AD they declare war on us
As 1180AD begins, chose Republic
As 1190AD begins, Miami completed production, no crash
As 1260AD begins, civil unrest is prevalent due to war weariness, crashed as I agreed to have some entertainerment added in Baltimore

Error details:
CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 0167:00460461.
Registers:
EAX=07d9e17c CS=0167 EIP=00460461 EFLGS=00010216
EBX=00000001 SS=016f ESP=00abfa4c EBP=00000002
ECX=01339474 DS=016f ESI=00000027 FS=0cd7
EDX=00008617 ES=016f EDI=ffffffff GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 0c 91 8b 54 24 14 81 e2 ff 00 00 00 8b 01 52
Stack dump:
00000000 07d9e17c 0b870026 07d9e17c 00467196 00000001 ffffffff 00000027 00000007 00000004 005dc980 07d9e17c 00483706 00000000 07d9e17c 00000004

5. Before ending initial turn:
Set governor in Washington to manage citizen moods in all cities
Chose to replace government type, went into anarchy

During Egypt's turn in 1170AD they declare war on us
As 1180AD begins, chose Republic
As 1190AD begins, Miami completed production, no crash
1200AD raise entertainment tax to 40%
As 1250AD begins, cities start to fall into disorder, chose to let Detroit? finish production of what it was working on prior to beginning production of aqueduct?, crash

Error details:
CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 0167:00460461.
Registers:
EAX=07d9d874 CS=0167 EIP=00460461 EFLGS=00010216
EBX=00000005 SS=016f ESP=00abfa48 EBP=00000000
ECX=01339474 DS=016f ESI=00000019 FS=1c8f
EDX=000083e7 ES=016f EDI=ffffffff GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 0c 91 8b 54 24 14 81 e2 ff 00 00 00 8b 01 52
Stack dump:
00000000 07d9d874 0b380018 07d9d874 00467196 00000001 ffffffff 00000019 00000008 00609970 005dc980 07d9d874 004835d0 00000000 00000008 07d9d874

NOTES:
There were more crashs that occured that I didn't document, all similar in that they occured as cities were going into civil unrest due to war weariness, they did occur in slightly different years though.
When civil disorder occured in a city I either chose to give them entertainment, if available as a choice, or zoomed to city but made no changes
All units were fortified in the cities they were originally in or in the closest available city. Even units produced were just fortified in the cities in which they were produced.
Workers, when the became available, were set to cut forests, I know I wasn't totally consistent in the order of which I performed the forest cutting.
As cities completed production I had them start production on whatever was the default
I never was offensive in war with Egypt. The results of Egypt's attacks did change, in one instance of my testing we got an elite unit, in another a city was taken (neither of these occured in the testing documented).
I did not reboot between crashes.

Dan,
I hope this is of some help.
Love the game.

 

[Beam]

Some observations from system specs:

Crashers occur:
On a variety CPU's (Celerons, PIII, Athlons)
On a variety of OS (98, Me, 2000, Xp)
Ram does not seem to make a difference

Yet only on Soundblaster and only on nVidia chipsets.

Please respond wether these observations yes/no apply in your configuration for this particular save!

 

[etj4Eagle]

[QUOTE"Civilization 3 has caused an error in
CIVILIZATION3.EXE
Civilization 3 will now close."

This happend also on three other machines all with different configurations.

I have also included my save game. Pass the settlers move, wait till the 3rd city popup appears and enjoy. Try it out and tell me if it crashes as well. Thanks [/B][/QUOTE]

Well I just gave your game a try as well and it crashed my machine. This the first crash I have had since before the patch (and those were caused by the memory leak, and would only occur after 3hrs of play). My guess is that something is corrupting your game files and then at some point that corruption comes to head and crashes the game

For the record my machine is a Win2000 unit with 128MB RAM, 600MB virtual mem file, Ultra TNT2, SBLive, and a PIII 700 (or something like that, forget which chip I bought exactly)

 

[Zachriel]

I have seen this problem. Use auto-save and backup a turn. That has always solved the problem for me. Something is getting corrupt in the save file.

Zachriel

 

[FM_Freyland]

Originally posted by Dillo
Yes the game is unplayable, and there fore a toatal waste of cash. If you cant make it to modern tomes without the game terminaly crashing, then whats the point? I cant complete a whole game.Ridiculous

And this would explain the origin of Dillo's highly acclaimed and truly popular RAFT mod. If the game is a waste of your time, how can the forum be of value?

Otherwise, great thread guys! Though I have never had a crash, and have not d/l'd the saved game yet (at work), I really applaud those of you have taken the time to analyze a puzzling, and probably fixable bug.

Jonathan

 

[mizzouman6]

Over the past two days I've had three games go belly up on me. I reloaded each one of them after a reboot, and the same thing happend at the exact same point. I tried changing parameters, start a war, make peace, change gov., but to no avail ... each one died again.

Some games were in the mid 1800s, so a lot of time spent to lose a game.

My system is a Celeron 400, 256 MB with int-video. Have the patch v1.16f. If anyone wants to try mine out and see it it happens to them, I'll gladly send it along. Haven't been able to complete a game since this started happening.

It's a shame.

 

[GreatfulDad]

I also dloaded the savegame running a P2 450,SBLive, and
nVidia TNT. First game crashed after about 6 moves. I then
reloaded the game and unchecked the "Show civil disorder
pop-up" and no more crashes! Not sure if this will help everyone
with this problem, but it worked for me.

 

[flip]

I have:

P2 - 450, 327MB Ram
Voodoo 3, 3000
nothing is overclocked


Civ 3 has never crashed or otherwise misbehaved.


All the problems above... collectively... sound like a chair to keyboard interface problem to me.


-Flip

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by flip
All the problems above... collectively... sound like a chair to keyboard interface problem to me.
-Flip

Actually, most of the problems as described could not normally be caused by the operator. It is usually a glitch in the hardware interacting with the software. A hiccup.

I have almost never had a crash, but I could always solve the problem by backing up in time by one turn. So, the program is stable, except when fed the damaged data.

 

[flip]

I have:

P2 - 450, 327MB Ram
Voodoo 3, 3000
nothing is overclocked


Civ 3 has never crashed or otherwise misbehaved.


All the problems above... collectively... sound like a chair to keyboard interface problem to me.


-Flip

 

[Exile_Ian]

Dino:

From what I read above, it seems that your save file has somehow got corrupted. I assume this is a game you started after applying the patch? I know there were issues with games save pre-patch (or at least with the first - bad- version of the patch).

As an alternative type of test, I'm attaching one of my saved games (Huge World Map - well progressed - 15 countries - me playing as Zulus and kicking butt). I would be interesting to see whether this plays on your setup at all.

The zip file contains my current game but saved @ 500AD - I've played up to 1540AD so I know there's nothing wrong with the SAV file (on my PC anyway). I would have offered a more modern save, but even zipped, the later ones exceed the 500k upload limit for this forum (I'll email one if you're interested).

Let me know if you get a chance to try it and whether it works ok.

 

[dino_schoen]

>>I also dloaded the savegame running a P2 450,SBLive, and
nVidia TNT. First game crashed after about 6 moves. I then
reloaded the game and unchecked the "Show civil disorder
pop-up" and no more crashes! Not sure if this will help everyone
with this problem, but it worked for me.<<

YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!!!

That solves also my problem with the posted savegame.

Thank you GRATEFUL DAD.

 

[Beam]

Works here as well (switching off civil disorder popup). Still strange since no city announces disorder!

Dan, this should give you enough meat to track this down. I'll save this game to test the new patch!

 

[DilithiumDad]

Never had a crash on my Dell once I set smoothed fonts. On the other hand, Internet Explorer crashes frequently! Maybe FIREAXIS should make a browser!

 

[Minuteman]

Well, it looks like I jumped the gun in pummeling Firaxis for what I thought was shoddy programing.

Disabling civil disorder pop-ups and enabling smoothed font handling has eliminated the crashes that I had been experiencing, and had complained about so extensively.

Since I had the temerity to come here and complain so adamantly when I thought the game was so fatally flawed, the only decent thing for me to do now is to apologize, especially to Firaxis Dan, for some of my earlier comments.

Sorry Guys!