Weird error

[Red October]

I'm getting this weird error message. The game boots up fine. I set the temperature, world size, etc for my game and then click on the little O to continue on. An illegal operation error comes up saying that their was an error with Civilization3.exe. This is driving me crazy. I have reinstalled the game, it still won't work. Any ideas?

EDIT: Here is the error-

CIVILIZATION3 caused a divide error in module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 0177:005626c8.
Registers:
EAX=00000051 CS=0177 EIP=005626c8 EFLGS=00210202
EBX=00000040 SS=017f ESP=00a53c8c EBP=00000000
ECX=00a59ccc DS=017f ESI=00a596fc FS=1aa7
EDX=00000000 ES=017f EDI=00000000 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
f7 79 70 89 41 60 8b 46 04 8b 48 04 84 9c 31 a0
Stack dump:
80000200 00a59030 00a59ccc 00000020 0056289d 80000200 00a56980 00a596fc 00577f16 00a54194 00000295 00000094 00000000 00000013 00a56980 00000001

Anyone know what a "divide error" is?

 

[Red October]

21 views and no one has responded?!??!!?

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Sorry, can't help ya. I won't have mine until the weekend

 

[Red October]

I'll probably just have to wait for a patch........

 

[mrog]

I have a profoundly limited knowledge of such things, but I think that the error is caused by attemting to divide a value by zero.

Why it happens and what can be done about it are mysteries to me.

Sorry

 

[Sparrowhawk]

I know little or to nothing about programming, but if you really want to play Civ3 my only suggestion would be to reset (yes to factory settings) your computer and try again. I wouldn't really recommend that, but I don't know anything else. Have you got something like Norton Systemworks? Try running a few diagnostics if you can. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

[joespaniel]

Try using the link posted by Thunderfall at the top of the forum.

Aw, hell, here it is;

http://www.ina-support.com/faq/civ3_pc.asp

I feel realy bad for you guys. I hope I dont have the same problems.

Good luck, and Godspeed!

 

[poseidon]

I get the same error. Running ATI Xpert 2000, win98 se. If anyone knows how to fix plz help.

 

[Utrecht]

I too am getting this error. I suspect that is related to some Direct X compatability thing. Further sympoms include:

I am running into 2 (possibly related) issues.

First and foremost Machine Config

Win 98
Pentium III 933 with 512 Meg RAM
Radeon AGB Card with 64MB of SDR RAM with Latest Video Drivers (as of Oct 15th)
Direct X 8.0a installed and verified

When I launch the application (in 1024x768 16 bit colour) The introd video comes up and plays smooooth.

Now the Problems

1) The font on the main menu appears to be off. Especially the Text that would appear at the bottom of the screen. (i.e. it is written on top of itself - The credits are REAL bad)

It further manifests itself in the preferences screen where the text does not match the button (like a Florida Butterfly ballot

Next, I attempt to start the tutorial. It loads fine and the first settler appears. Again, the text in the unit description box is messed up with writing on top of itself.

Then I attempt to found my first City by selecting the button or Hot Key and am presented with a Fatal Error: Unable to allocate Draw Buffer)

 

[Red October]

Utrecht, you described my problem to the letter!!! Wow, so I'm not the only one with this problem!!!! Can you post all of your system specs, including your sound card? Maybe their is a common peripheral that is causing the problem.

 

[Malys Faisent]

Utrecht, it might be a problem with DirectX and the Radeon card. Two things I would try, even though I see that you've verified directx.

Reinstall directx, you might want to run DXDIAG and printscreen the files that it lists and then compare it to the ones you get after reinstalling, that way if it fixes the problem you can see exactly what file it was and post it here.

Second, try an older driver for your video card (yeah it sounds weird, but sometimes this makes the difference). New drivers might have some bells and whistles that are not completely dx compliant. If you've had good preformance in the past with your card maybe updating the drivers killed ya...you've got a ton of RAM and processing power so no problems on that end.

Oh, I forgot goto your display settings, then the effects tab, make sure that smooth edges of screen fonts is checked, it was in the readme that they recommended that...I dunno if it would help in this situation but it sounds like it might.

 

[rmsjazz]

I have an answer but unfortunatley, no solution. I have an ATI Radeon VE card, and CIV3 gave me nearly the same "divide error" and so I called tech support. Tech said update the drivers, sound and video, uninstall Civ, reinstall DirectX 8, then reinstall Civ. So I did, and long story short, it's still a no go. It crashes in the same spot it did before, after the menu and before I finish setting up a New Game. So I called tech support again. By this time they'd talked to who knows how many of us livid people. The techie this time says that they are having fatal problems with Radeon and GeForce3 vid cards. So I asked for a solution. He said: "uh....I don't have one. You'll have to wait for new drivers or a patch. And seeing as both ATI and NVidia just released updates for their drivers, you'll probably have to wait for a patch from us." I asked how long. He replies with a reasssuring: "I don't know, they haven't given me an ETA (estimated time of arrival.)"

Needless to say I was thoroughly unimpressed, on both the tech support and development sides. How do you miss so many cards on the market? Both Radeons and GeForce3 are highly respected and highly abundant video cards.

In any case, that's the answer I got from the not-so-helpful tech support.

 

[Red October]

I have one of ATI's older cards- the Rage Pro Turbo AGP 2X. I just reinstalled DirectX and I am having the same problem. I think the folks at Infogrames are looking for scapegoats......

 

[Utrecht]

Like Red October, I have installed and reinstalled Directx 8.X

Further I have attempted to run both older and newer ATI drivers to no avail.

The error really appears to me to be some issue with calls to Direct X - the Unable to Allocate Draw Buffer to me indicates this.

Based off of the comments above, it appears that I may have to wait for a patch......


BTW, Sound card is a machine Default (sits on the mother board)

 

[Red October]

Hey Utrecht, did you have trouble registering at the Apolyton Forum? I registered there but they won't email me my confirmation message. I can't post there until I click on the link in the email!!!!

BTW, I've come to the conclusion that all these problems are coming from an improperly coded game, not driver issues. When someone tells me that my game won't run because my computer is too old, or my graphics card is incompatible with DX8, I just laugh. I have plenty of games that use DX8 and run fine. These game include Half Life, which has way better graphics than Civ3!!!!!!!!

 

[Utrecht]

I have been registered Apolyton for over 2 years, so I have not had a problem .

Yea, there appears to be some issue as to how Civ 3 makes Direct X 8 calls and how our video cards support them. - BTW I also hate that excuse - "my computer is too old, or my graphics card is incompatible with DX8"

But as you said, I have Direct X 8 and my vidoe card before civ 3 and no problems - but civ 3 seems to be the only issue..............

Really all that I care is that it gets fixed - dissapointing, but it happens.


Here is the link on Apolyton for this issue: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31099

 

[Utrecht]

Just spoke to Tech Support......


And here is thier suggestion.

Turn off all 3rd part applications and try it again.

Apparently,

"Civ 3 is a robust application and needs alot of system resources"

I will not be able to actually do this for a couple of hours, so I will let you know.

 

[Hydropsy]

Yep.

Crash when I try to start after the map selection screen,
crash when I quickstart and encounter another civ,
crash when i try to build a city,
type totally overlapped and misaligned,
no msgs appear in advisor boxes or in dawn of civ window,...

I even went out yesterday and bought a new graphics card.
went from a Diamond nvida 16 meg something or other to a Hercules Geforce2 and nothing changed.

I don't think it has anything to do with video cards.

 

[Utrecht]

This is from a poster on the Apolyton Site..... makes sense in a twisted sort of way. I have not been able to verify this though...... Andy feedback would be great!!!!


A solution to the font and divide by zero error:

Uninstall fonts from your system, until you have <256 remaining. If you want to keep the fonts on your system, you can create a new folder somewhere on your hard drive, copy a bunch of files from your font folder to there, and the delete them from the font folder. You can add and remove them later if you want to by drag and drop, but CivIII can't seem to find the Lucidia Sans font with more than 256 fonts installed.

Have a nice day

 

[Smash]

oh my,this is horrible.A civ nightmare comes true.

I think,for now,if you can't figure a way to get it running properly yourself or thru freinds/forums you should just wait for patch #1.Tech support people have a nack for blaming everything but their product for problems.