Thomas Davie
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2001
- Messages
- 98
First off, here is the main (first) system that I tried to get the game to work on.
AMD 64 x2 @ 4800+, 2 gb ddr400 ram, Geforce 7800 GTX video card. Everything was up to date; drivers, bios, motherboard drivers, Windows XP updates....everything. This system was purchased on Sept 30; so I refused to believe it couldn't work. Prior to trying to run the game, I looked around to see how to back it up. I ended up using Alcohol 120. I found out that you had to take the copy protection into conderation, so I ended up downloading something called anti-blaxx. I installed the game from DVD, and tried to run the game using the image file I had on the hard drive. No go; Civ repeatedly choked upon startup and I had an error which seemed related to the copy protection. I uninstalled, reinstalled and even backed up my computer using system restore and finally reinstalled a set of Norton Ghost images from about 3 weeks ago. Didn't work.
AMD 2300+ laptop with 512 mb ram and IGP-320 ATI graphics. The game installed and actually started, but I had the black terrain problem.
P4 @ 2.8 ghz, 1 gb ddr333 ram and ATI AIW 8500. Same problem as my newest system. Didn't even start.
And then after having a few beers, I realized that on my laptop (2 years old) I did not put the image file on the hard drive because I did not have enough hard drive space; I kept the image file in the DVD/CD burner. So I went back to computer #1 (the dual core), reinstalled the game, and this time I kept my backup image file ni my DVD....and it worked.
So to recap, original DVD in drive; doesn't work, game chokes on start. Original DVD in any of two other drives, same thing. DVD image file on hard drive; doesn't work, game chokes on start. But if I place the image file on a blank DVD (one big 1.3 gb .iso file), and have that in any of the 3 DVD drives I've got, it works as long as I've got that anti-blaxx file installed on my computer. However, IF I burn the backup image file, attempting to COPY the oringal DVD, it doesn't work.
I'm really, really puzzled now, and don't pretend to understand it in the slightest.
I hope this helps at least someone. If you've got a DVD burner, I would suggest that you backup your DVD (or CDs?), and place them on DVDs (or CDs?) as single files and try to run the game using anti-blaxx and those files.
Tom
(I apologize if I'm not being too clear)
AMD 64 x2 @ 4800+, 2 gb ddr400 ram, Geforce 7800 GTX video card. Everything was up to date; drivers, bios, motherboard drivers, Windows XP updates....everything. This system was purchased on Sept 30; so I refused to believe it couldn't work. Prior to trying to run the game, I looked around to see how to back it up. I ended up using Alcohol 120. I found out that you had to take the copy protection into conderation, so I ended up downloading something called anti-blaxx. I installed the game from DVD, and tried to run the game using the image file I had on the hard drive. No go; Civ repeatedly choked upon startup and I had an error which seemed related to the copy protection. I uninstalled, reinstalled and even backed up my computer using system restore and finally reinstalled a set of Norton Ghost images from about 3 weeks ago. Didn't work.
AMD 2300+ laptop with 512 mb ram and IGP-320 ATI graphics. The game installed and actually started, but I had the black terrain problem.
P4 @ 2.8 ghz, 1 gb ddr333 ram and ATI AIW 8500. Same problem as my newest system. Didn't even start.
And then after having a few beers, I realized that on my laptop (2 years old) I did not put the image file on the hard drive because I did not have enough hard drive space; I kept the image file in the DVD/CD burner. So I went back to computer #1 (the dual core), reinstalled the game, and this time I kept my backup image file ni my DVD....and it worked.
So to recap, original DVD in drive; doesn't work, game chokes on start. Original DVD in any of two other drives, same thing. DVD image file on hard drive; doesn't work, game chokes on start. But if I place the image file on a blank DVD (one big 1.3 gb .iso file), and have that in any of the 3 DVD drives I've got, it works as long as I've got that anti-blaxx file installed on my computer. However, IF I burn the backup image file, attempting to COPY the oringal DVD, it doesn't work.
I'm really, really puzzled now, and don't pretend to understand it in the slightest.
I hope this helps at least someone. If you've got a DVD burner, I would suggest that you backup your DVD (or CDs?), and place them on DVDs (or CDs?) as single files and try to run the game using anti-blaxx and those files.
Tom
(I apologize if I'm not being too clear)
