Spaceship Launch crash: any other fixes?

[Dirx]

Ok, so I'm getting that bug where my game crashes as soon as I try launching my spaceship. I've reinstalled the game, and tried out both fixes described here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=118126#4

Neither fix works (and even if the second one did, it would be a crime to play the game permanently muted). Are there any other known fixes for this problem? The space race has always been my favorite victory in the Civ games, and it'd be a shame to have to go without it.

I'm running Civ3Complete, which, as I understand it, is already fully patched. So what's the deal? Thanks in advance for any help you guys can provide.

 

[ainwood]

Does the opening movie play OK? You could try updating the BINK video tool (that's also in that thread - here).

Is it a generic problem - does it occur in every 'space race' victory - or only one game? If its one game, it might be something other than the movie, in which case, can you post a save from the turn before?

Another thought is that I think it changes the video mode when it goes to play a video. Maybe (long shot), you could try using the .ini settings to specify the video resolution.

 

[Dirx]

The opening movie plays just fine, and the issue is (so far) every game I try to launch the spaceship. I'll try both of those fixes tonight and let you know how they go.

 

[Dirx]

ok, specifying video resolution in the ini settings didn't work (used "Video Mode=1024" as that's the resolution I use). I'm hesitant to use the installer linked in that other thread though; a simple .exe file with no documentation, no valid digital signature, and from an unknown publisher, wanting to install Bink and Smacker. Despite the quality and helpfulness found in this community, you can understand if I'm just a tad bit questioning. A little exposition would be helpful here, especially regarding this Smacker thing and why exactly I'd want to install it.

Something I noticed: When I click the Launch button, a sound starts to play right before it crashes. It sounds pretty spaceship-esque (I certainly haven't heard it anywhere else in the game). Is it a seperate sound file, or part of the movie? If it's the latter, then I'm not sure why that'd be happening, seeing as my race.bik file is currently a copy of the intro movie.

 

[ainwood]

ok, specifying video resolution in the ini settings didn't work (used "Video Mode=1024" as that's the resolution I use). I'm hesitant to use the installer linked in that other thread though; a simple .exe file with no documentation, no valid digital signature, and from an unknown publisher, wanting to install Bink and Smacker. Despite the quality and helpfulness found in this community, you can understand if I'm just a tad bit questioning. A little exposition would be helpful here, especially regarding this Smacker thing and why exactly I'd want to install it.

Bink & Smacker is produced by RadTools - and is actually the company that licensed Firaxis to use their video decoders. Its quite safe to use - I am reasonably secutiry conscious, and have installed from that link with no problems. You can see from the download link where it gets it from, but if you prefer, you can go to their website - www.radgametools.com

Something I noticed: When I click the Launch button, a sound starts to play right before it crashes. It sounds pretty spaceship-esque (I certainly haven't heard it anywhere else in the game). Is it a seperate sound file, or part of the movie? If it's the latter, then I'm not sure why that'd be happening, seeing as my race.bik file is currently a copy of the intro movie.

Yes! You're right!

It plays "SpaceLaunch.wav" first. Maybe that is corrupted? Can you play it through media player or something? (its in the \sounds\ folder).

 

[Dirx]

Well, the sound file played just fine in my windows media player. The Bink tool allowed me to open and view the movie just fine. In game, however, the launch movie still crashes the game. On a somewhat positive note, at least, it doesn't crash anymore when I use a copy of the intro movie as race.bik. So there's no more jarring halt to my gaming, though it seems I won't be able to get the real space race movie during gameplay. Oh well, it's a good enough fix for now. Thanks so much for your help and patience!

 

[mwhewell]

I've been getting exactly the same problem, game crashes as soon as it tries to play the space launch movie. Although I havn't found a permanent soloution to the problem I've discovered that reinstalling the latest nvida driver (I'm using an nvidia 7800 and latest driver is 94.24) actually fixes the issue and plays the movie fine. However for some reason it only fixes the problem once and still crashes on the next space race victory. Reinstalling the driver again fixes the problem again. Apologies that this isn't a permanent solution but I thought it was interesting enough to let you guys know about it.

 

[gmaharriet]

On a somewhat positive note, at least, it doesn't crash anymore when I use a copy of the intro movie as race.bik. So there's no more jarring halt to my gaming, though it seems I won't be able to get the real space race movie during gameplay. Oh well, it's a good enough fix for now.

I had exactly the same problem with Complete and used the same workaround with the intro movie. At least now I can complete the game, but I haven't seen the space ship launch movie since my original separate Conquests disk became damaged and I had to replace it with Complete. Ah, well, I'd seen it several times with the older disk, so at least I know what it would look like. *sigh*

 

[Calis]

Same here, but additionally I had to adjust the resolution of my screen from 1680x1050 to 800x600. Then it worked finally...

 

[Aegis]

Making a copy of the intro movie and naming it "Race.bik" solved the problem for me so I could finally end my game.

It should be in the CivIII/Art/Movies folder