HELP! Can't play ToT online... Any ideas?

[Ilkuul]

I've tried any number of times to play ToT in the Gaming Zone. Every time one of 3 things happens: I either get a SMEDS Error message ("PORTALLOC FAILED", whatever that means...); or it just freezes in the first turn; or I can play for a while, then I lose the flashing cursor on the active unit - which makes it impossible to continue, 'cos you can't see which unit to move!

I've contacted Microprose, and on their advice I've updated my graphics driver and my version of DirectX; and yes, I DO have the patch installed! In fact I've reinstalled the whole game, plus patch... no difference. Microprose now have nothing else to offer but sympathy!

Anyone have any bright ideas out there about what might be causing this problem??

[MGamer07]

I know your problem:

You bought a cheap under-budget game.

The multiplayer thing ticks me off too, because that and Midgard are the main reasons I bought the game. Mine always freezes, doesn't aknowledge that I changed my name from Abraham Lincoln (Americans), and often people don't have the patch, and they screw up the entire game. By the time you get things working, everyone has to go.

[Ilkuul]

Thanks for your sympathy, MG! I was beginning to wonder if anyone out there in the wide gaming world cared...

But yes, after reading many comments on this site and elsewhere, I've realised that ToT is nowhere near what it was cracked up to be. Can only hope CivIII will be a LOT better! For the meantime I've just had to give up on ToT for multiplayer and revert to good old CivII. (I've also had that refusal-to-recognise name problem - not always in multiplayer, either. I found that if you save and reload, it often puts itself right...)

Happy gaming!

[tobyr]

I get the "portalloc" error when I am low on some kind of memory. Before running ToT, see whether there are other programs and startup daemons that you can eliminate, and if you can, try to run the program right after booting up.

How much actual RAM memory does your machine have?

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[Ilkuul]

Thanks for the helpful suggestion, Toby. When you say to "eliminate" other programs, TSR's etc., do you mean remove them from my setup altogether before restarting Windows? 'Cos I've tried closing down all other programs & TSR's before loading ToT, and that hasn't helped.

Having to remove useful programs altogether (if that's what you mean) seems rather a high price to pay for a single multiplayer game (since they'd all have to be replaced/reinstalled again afterwards...)

My machine has 64Mb of RAM. I MUCH appreciate your help!