Civ3/WinXP Solution

I ran into the problem running Civ3 on WinXP with a Voodoo5 where it would play the initial movie then once it got to the game menu my monitor would phase out and not recieve a signal (went to standby mode). Not too sure what the cause was, seemed civ was telling it to go to a too high res or something, yet my monitor can do 1600x1200 quite easily, 1024x768 would be a joke.

After much fustration I decided to try WinXP's compatibility feature. Setting the compatibility of civilizations exe to Win98/Me mode solve the problem and the game now runs flawlessly. Hope this helps anyone having problems!

Tys von Gaza - gaza@fragapalooza.com
Fragapalooza (http://www.fragapalooza.com)

 

thanks!! that solves that problem.
winxp is cool but it requires too much setup

 

I'm having the same issue on Win2k. Anyone have any thoughts?????

ScrewWorkn

 

try to play around with the settings of your video card, or if not it should be sufficient just to change the settings in display properties.

hope it works!

 

I tried about a dozen different video settings but could not get Civ III to work.

The intro movie plays normally, but then the main menu is scrambled as if Civ switches into some unsupported refresh rate or video mode.

At someone elses suggestion I used the compatibility wizard, using windows 98/ME, and have the game running normally now.

There is obviously some XP issue though.

I'm using a Geforce vid card

 

It does appear that this is happening with more than 1 type of card, and O/S. I am runing Windows2K with a Voodoo3 2000 video card. I have the same problem reported above.

When I run the game it switches shortly to a mode where the refresh appears to be off, then the intro blink movie runs fine, then when it appears as if it should be getting to a menu screen after the movie, the refresh rate is all out of whack again.

if anyone finds a fix for the win2K O/S, give us all a shout 8)

cheers,

Trash

 

After some experimenting, It seems that the monitor is a possible problem spot. I am curently using a default monitor display adapter. If I attmept to change the Hertz settings to 120 Hz, I get the exact same image problems on the desktop that I am experienceing in the game. Im just guessing here, but is it possible that the game is attempting to run in 1024 X 768 with a refresh rate of 120Hz as a default?

Im going to see if I can get my 3d card to also use a lower Hz setting, but im not totally sure i can do this without going to specific drivers for my monitor.

Just a couple thoughts to try anyway.

cheers,

Trash

 

Same issue in Win2K - don't bother with tech support as he didn't have an answer other than try the compatiblity download.

I got an error running the compatibility software, so I gave up and installed it in 98 (dual boot) and it ran perfectly. I hope someone can come up with a solution since I'd like to play in 2000.

 

civ is supposed to support 98/Me/2000 but it says nothing about XP. XP thankfully lets us run in apps in 'compatability mode'.

i am not aware if 2000 has that option.

 

All you have to do to fix the resolution problem is add this to the civiliziation3.ini:
*KeepRes=1


That fixes it, but it still doesn' fix the lagged out scrolling