No sound during diplomacy.

Chukchi Husky

Lone Wolf
Joined
Jan 28, 2004
Messages
8,506
Location
Carmarthenshire, Wales
I recently bought a copy of Civilization III Complete from GOG.com. I've only played with that copy for a short while and so far came across two problems.

The first is that the game has some slow down, but that either disappears after a few turns or never appears in a game.

The second problem I have is more annoying. Whenever I enter diplomacy, such as when I meet another civilisation for the first time, instead of playing that twinkling sound and the background music, what happens instead is either a quick loud pop or a half second of noise followed by silence. After quitting diplomacy, the in game music returns to normal.

I'm playing the game on a Windows 10 computer. So far all I've tried is the compatibility options, I'm not sure if they've made any difference or not but none have fixed that sound problem.

I have checked to see if the sound files exist in the game folder and I've played them with a media player.
 
This is also plaguing my game. I'm looking for a fix now, but the only thing I could think of was messing with my ini files to allow for my large resolution monitor to lock a resolution to the game so it doesn't get super zoomed out. I'm wondering if this is the cause of the no music during diplomacy.

Does your diplomacy screen also get placed near the top left of your screen? Mine does that, and it may be related, I'm thinking.
 
My diplomacy screen is close to the top left of the screen, but I think that's because of changing the ini file to make Civilization III run at my desktop resolution. Changing it back, the diplomacy screen does appear in the centre of the screen, but I still have the sound problem so I don't think that's the cause.
 
My diplomacy screen is close to the top left of the screen, but I think that's because of changing the ini file to make Civilization III run at my desktop resolution. Changing it back, the diplomacy screen does appear in the centre of the screen, but I still have the sound problem so I don't think that's the cause.

Likewise I found this out myself as well. In fact, changing everything back to default and then messing with compatibility versions did nothing, either. If someone doesn't have these problems, can you please post a picture of your Civ 3 Complete sound folders for vanilla, PTW, and Conquests, please.

Hopefully someone else will see this.

I have the Steam version, by the way.
 
So I just tried alt-tabbing while having a diplomacy window open to my speaker properties. I changed the sound sample rate from 48000 to 22050. Alt-tabbed back, and low-and-behold, there was the diplomacy music and game sounds as normal. However, closing the diplomacy window then opening it back up again just had the issue persist. Alt-tabbed again, changed back to 48000, and sound played fine once alt-tabbed back into Civ.

What in the heck is going on, please tell me someone has a solution for this because even 2K can't help me.
 
I had this issue on an old laptop. What worked for me was changing the sample rate for my speakers and also forcing Civ3 to run in windowed mode.

(X-post with Solborn so I assume nobody needs instructions for the former, but the latter: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1244739)

Thank you for the information. I tried this, both changing sample rate and running Video Mode=1024, 1920, 1920x1080, even lower resolutions. Unfortunately various combinations did not solve the sound issue.

Do you have this issue anymore? May I ask what system you're running it on and are you playing the Steam version?
 
Thank you for the information. I tried this, both changing sample rate and running Video Mode=1024, 1920, 1920x1080, even lower resolutions. Unfortunately various combinations did not solve the sound issue.

Do you have this issue anymore? May I ask what system you're running it on and are you playing the Steam version?

I don't have the issue anymore, no. I switched from a Lenovo to an MSi and I never ran into the sound issue on the latter.

The largest change besides specs (both run Windows 10 although the Lenovo originally ran Windows 7) was the sound card. My current MSi uses Sound Blaster Cinema while the Lenovo used Realtek.

I used the Steam version on both.
 
Changing the sample rate of my sound card and forcing Civilization III to run in a window didn't solve the sound problem.

I'm running the GOG.com version, although I do have a box copy of the game. My current computer has a Creative Sound Blaster Z sound card.
 
I tried to verify integrity of game cache, but the issue persisted. I then completely uninstalled the game, did a system restart, and did a system clean including of registry with CCleaner, and restarted again.

I then updated Realtek audio drivers, as well as made sure my GPU had updated drivers. I again repeated the process of cleaning the system files and registry and restarting.

I then reinstalled Civ 3 Complete on Steam, and restarted after install was complete. I then tried to run it through Steam only without messing with any files, but it wouldn't run without admin privileges, so I ran it through the shortcut with admin privileges instead. I ran only new game, no scenarios, and I did not install any files or mods. The issue with diplomacy window not playing any sounds persisted.

I then ran the game in compatibility modes and retried some of the things from before, but the issue remains the same.

My system specifications are:

Mobo: Asus Rampage IV Black with onboard Realtek HD audio
CPU: Intel i7-4930k
GPU: EVGA Nvidia 980 GTX
OS: Windows 10

I also have tried running the game off my Logitech G930 (made sure drivers up to date on that as well), as well different board audio plugins front and back. The issue remains -

Something about the diplomacy window completely cuts off audio in-game, even if I run it in windowed mode via .ini edits (which I only tried after everything else). When I exit diplomacy, I can faintly hear the diplomacy music cutting out as sound returns to the game.

EDIT: Disregard the following, people on Steam are saying this was dev testing save files that Steam didn't vet out of the release (makes me wonder what else Steam screwed up if there's compatibility issues with some version of Realtek sound systems):

By the way, Husky, when you first ran your game and tried to load a save, did you see a bunch of weird saves? This is what my clean install (both first time and after this recent time) via Steam came with:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/who-has-the-steam-version-weird-saves-issues.616462/

The saves have been played, even. Did Steam give me someone else's copy? Is that possible?
 
Last edited:
I have the same problem too , it seems the windows 10 update messed up some things hopefully it will be fixed in future updates
 
I have the same problem too , it seems the windows 10 update messed up some things hopefully it will be fixed in future updates

I can only wish. Unfortunately it's still an issue, and I doubt it will ever be fixed for those unlucky of us that experience it. 2k support just decided to call it a sound driver issue and gave me their condolences. They said likely the issue is with the use of different kinds of digital audio software (which is pretty standard these days). I've tried different audio ports, usb vs composite vs hdmi, I've tried different hardware, monitor vs speakers vs headsets vs wireless. I've tried clean installs, including removing some of the digital audio software I have for my headsets. I've tried firmware updates and rollbacks for the audio drivers on my motherboard. I've tried running the game in different compatibility modes or without. Always the same problem and no one can think of a fix.

There might be a fix but I'm not skilled enough to figure out how to start. The problem for me seems to be in the way the game transitions from menu-to-game music, and from game-to-diplomacy music. When the game is first set up/save loads, sometimes a screeching sound can be heard as the audio transitions. It's kind of the same when diplomacy windows open, but there is no screeching, instead it just goes dead. Then sometimes when you alt-tab out and back in, the audio will sound normal and you can hear the diplomacy music. This is telling me that maybe a pause or some kind of partition needs to be added for some of us Win10 users.

Whatever the cause and if there is any hope for a fix, for now I'm just bummed I can't hear the diplo music without some luck and a little messing about. :(

Will update when I try different things whether successful or not. If anyone finds a fix that worked for them, please share with the rest of us sad suckers.
 
I have the same problem. As my Civ 3 worked very well on my PC (Realtek audio drivers) until that windows 10 update, I´m convinced that it must be a windows 10 problem.
 
This guy solved his: http://steamcommunity.com/app/3910/discussions/0/1473095331503895056/

"I fixed this by downloading this ---> http://www.indirectsound.com/

Put the two files in the zip in the "Conquests" folder. I've used this for a lot of older games to enable direct sound in Win 10. In this case it seems to fix a channel issue in the game under Win 10 recent update where sounds are limited to just 2 channels. Putting this in the directory allows multiple channels again so that you can hear diplo music and sound effects without them cutting out due to having no open channel to go in to."
 
Yessss !!! It all started with that windows 10 update and till now no solutions or any updates fixing this issue , I do have a second older laptop that I kept windows 7 on it and didn’t go to windows 10 and I can confirm that Civ 3 complete plays wonderfully on it without any issues in anything.
 
This guy solved his: http://steamcommunity.com/app/3910/discussions/0/1473095331503895056/

"I fixed this by downloading this ---> http://www.indirectsound.com/

Put the two files in the zip in the "Conquests" folder. I've used this for a lot of older games to enable direct sound in Win 10. In this case it seems to fix a channel issue in the game under Win 10 recent update where sounds are limited to just 2 channels. Putting this in the directory allows multiple channels again so that you can hear diplo music and sound effects without them cutting out due to having no open channel to go in to."

Nathiri, thank you very much! :thanx:
It is working! :high5:
 
This guy solved his: http://steamcommunity.com/app/3910/discussions/0/1473095331503895056/

"I fixed this by downloading this ---> http://www.indirectsound.com/

Put the two files in the zip in the "Conquests" folder. I've used this for a lot of older games to enable direct sound in Win 10. In this case it seems to fix a channel issue in the game under Win 10 recent update where sounds are limited to just 2 channels. Putting this in the directory allows multiple channels again so that you can hear diplo music and sound effects without them cutting out due to having no open channel to go in to."

Amazing! That works wonders. I knew it was a Win10 issue and not my hardware because I used Win7 on this same hardware before and it was fine. Thank you for bringing this to our attention here. I will re-open my ticket with 2k support and let them know about this so if someone else in the future tries to go to them, they will have this solution as a possible fix.
 
I've just tried out that fix on my computer and it works. The diplomatic music and all of the sound effects are working properly.
 
This guy solved his: http://steamcommunity.com/app/3910/discussions/0/1473095331503895056/

"I fixed this by downloading this ---> http://www.indirectsound.com/

Put the two files in the zip in the "Conquests" folder. I've used this for a lot of older games to enable direct sound in Win 10. In this case it seems to fix a channel issue in the game under Win 10 recent update where sounds are limited to just 2 channels. Putting this in the directory allows multiple channels again so that you can hear diplo music and sound effects without them cutting out due to having no open channel to go in to."

If you want to create a dedicated thread for this fix here in Tech Support, I'll pin it. :)
 
Top Bottom