problem solved, new problem.

[civterror]

Like many others, I have had problems with slow animations. After trying everything (even purchasing new videocard, waiting around for atarisupoport to make sense etc.) I went nuts and used the ctrl-alt-del command and shut down just about everything. After trying and re-trying, I found that by ending a process called svchost.exe (there are 4 running, I shut down the largest one running under SYSTEM). This miracolusly solved the problem. The animated figures suddlenly sprang to life again.

BUT!

By shutting down svchost.exe I cannot get the hotseat game to work. I get an error message and the program terminates before the multiplayer screen appears. The siungle player mode work just fine, I haven't tried the other MP-modes, just hotseat. In the process of solving this, I have eliminated any hardware \ driver \ OS issues and is left with this, final, nut to crack.

Any clues on how to work around this problem?

 

[Duantalus]

svchost.exe is a windows file that allows the computer to dynamically load and run it's .dll files, without many of these files there are a number of services that will not run. You get several svchost.exe because each instance will control a variety of different .dll's.

The most likely problem is that the svchost.exe is also hosting some vital service for that kind of game play.

If you are using windows XP you can check to see what services are being ran by svchost.exe by going to start -> run and typing cmd into the input box. At the command prompt type in

tasklist /svc

and then scroll through the list the svchost.exe and look to see what the one you are shutting down is running, then you can try to eliminate the programs individually instead of the whole lot.

 

[civterror]

Thank you very much for the input, it certainly narrowed down the troubleshooting!

Actually, it narrowed it down so much I actually nailed it down. It is the "Plug-and-Play" feature. When I disabled it, the single-player mode worked fine, animations whooshing along just like in the good old days. However, the hotseat MP still crashes the game before the setup screen appears. I saw this problem mentioned elsewhere, but I can't recall where i saw it and if it included a fix for the problem.

Any clues?

PS, I now officially love these forums, you guys are the best!