AX Woes

[Vivant]

Hello folks,

I hate to be that guy who posts a technical question as his first forum post, but my copy of Alien Crossfire is having a most peculiar (and annoying) problem.

Whenever I attempt to start a new game, once I have selected the rules that I wish to use, the game switches to a solid black screen. A pop up appears saying "TERRANX.ICD has stopped working" followed by the usual drivel about Windows informing me if there is a solution. The game then closes to my desktop.

I run a Vista machine, which probably is the root of my problem. I have installed the AX 2.0 patch and the Windows 2000/XP one. Alpha Centauri functions fine.

Any suggestions? This error doesn't seem to match any of those addressed by the FAQ, so I thought I would ask.

Thanks,
Vivant

[vyeh]

Vivant,

hi.

Welcome to Apolyton!

Look at post #4 and #9 of this thread.

regards,
vyeh

[Vivant]

Thank you for your assistance.

For the record, I followed the instructions in the 9th post of that thread. Next I installed the 2000/XP patch. Then I adjusted the ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0 to =1. Presto! It works.

Are there any further patches or modifications you would recommend using?

[gwillybj]

Am I imagining this, or does the "...voxel..." change seem to be extremely common as a basic thing causing people trouble?

[vyeh]

Are there any further patches or modifications you would recommend using?

See the one in my signature: Unofficial SMAC/X Patches Version 1.0

Am I imagining this, or does the "...voxel..." change seem to be extremely common as a basic thing causing people trouble?

Yes. There is some discussion by scient in this thread that explains why. There is code that tries to take advantage of voxel algorithm with MMC, if your computer has MMC, that doesn't seem to work well. scient says that it appears to be the way the game checks CPU.

If Firaxis was still in the business of releasing patches for the game, a fix for this problem would be basic. Note that it is mentioned on their website.