Can't run game but will run editor

[chris007jg]

I just got the game, LE, yesterday the 29th. I have a dell Inspiron 8000 purchased new in April 2001.
1GHz
256MB
32GB
ati M4 32 MB graphics that says its full open gl
dvd and cdrw seperate drives
WinME, Hey its what Dell put on it.

When i run the game i get the title screen then the program quits.
just stops and exits.
I have successfully installed and played on my tower, AMD K6-2/400 Win98SE with no major problems and like the subject says the laptop will run the editor just not the game.

Thanks
chris

[Madine]

I'm using a AMD k6-2 350 mhz 160 megs of ram and voodoo 3 3000 and I'm having the same problem

[Shadowstrike]

I'm getting this problem as well.... any solutions?

[xray2]

I'm having similar problems with a Dell Dimension bought in Dec '99. Specs are:

PIII 700 Mhz
256 MB RAM
GeForce 256 AGP
SoundBlaster Live Value
Samsung DVD-ROM
Win98 2nd Ed 4.10.2222A

I start the game, it gets to the title screen (I think) and hangs. I get a white rectangle on a black background, some music starts to play and the game hangs. There is a faint hint of the Infogames logo in the white rectangle. CTRL-ALT-DEL says that CIV3 is not responding. I can eventually terminate the program but my desktop is stuck in what appears to be 640x480 and I have to restart the machine. I suspect a conflict with the sound card but not sure where to start troubleshooting.

I can run the Civ3 editor with no problems. Just not the game. 8-(

[Utrecht]

This may (or may not) be related to the problems that I have been experiencing - I would refer you to the 3 Technical Problems thread.

Basically it involved reducing the number of fonts in your fonts directory below about 256.

I had to also reduce the amount of background applications to get my system resources to an"acceptable point"

[xray2]

In my C:/Windows/Fonts directory I have 238 fonts so its something else (at least for me).

[DarthRosie]

I'm int he same boat - open, show title screen, title screen closes. Played for hours with things, still no luck. I even bought a new monitor (cause my old one didn't support 1024x768). Been an expensive game
System:
AMD K6-2 500
~400Meg Ram
Voodoo3 3000
Mosnter Sound MX400
...and since I get no error message when the title screen closes, I can't figure out exactly WHAT is causing this. Really frustrating - since I would like to play, and don't want to return it.
If anybody solves this problem, let us all know.

[cassembler]

Same problemo, except mine just freezes... The computer was built to be an incredably stable audio computer for commercial music production and now I've gone a f'd it up...

PII 333Hz
300 megs ram
2x 20gb hard drives
cd burner and a cd player
ATI Rage Fury Pro
Gina by Event Electronics (high-end sound card)


more sad then mad...

[BBarl]

Suggestions that worked for me

I was having two of the problems mentioned here:

(1) the game often wouldn't start, or crashed as soon as I tried to leave the first game set-up screen.

(2) Much of the text was running together, and was not lined up properly on the preferences screen.

I followed the suggestions I saw here--strip down all but the essential two programs that are running in the background, and pare down the fonts in the Windows/Fonts directory. (After copying the full set to a separate location to reinsert later.)

It worked. I don't have my home computer specs with me--I'm at work--but I wanted people to know that this might help if you haven't tried it yet. (When a new game comes out, there's nothing worse than hurry-up-and-wait.)

Many thanks to those who posted these ideas. You ended my frustration, and I hope that of many others. Good luck to those still struggling!

[xiskool]

I have an IBM Thinkpad 570E running W2K Pro and I had the same problem running the game. I would double click civilization3.exe, the cd would spin up, a brief flash of music would play and the introduction/title screen would flash for about a second. Then suddenly I was back to the Windows desktop.

After many hours of troubleshooting and reading forum posts with no success, I installed a backup hard drive which had a fresh install of W2K Pro with the exact same video card and monitor drivers. After instlalling the new drive I installed Civ3 and ran the game the first time without any problems. I was absolutely shocked because after hours of troubleshooting on my original installation and reading all the negative posts I was certain that Civ3 was incompatible with my hardware.

I have gone back and forth between the two hard drives after reading the forums and can find nothing that will fix my original installation. I uninstalled almost every application I could find and still could not get Civ3 to work on the original drive (yes, I checked the fonts).

I wish I could be more help but if you have an extra hard drive laying around, you might want to consider installing Civ3 on a clean OS installation if all else fails. It worked for me and a friend of mine.

[DarthRosie]

Yes, once I back up all the crap on my hard drive that is too annoying/rare to find again, I'm going to do a fresh install. I sent off a quick note to tech support, and they relayed to me most of the information available in these forums. However, I am guessing the cause of this is some silly little file or registry item buried away under mounds of crap that was done ages ago by me/automatically by computer, and is causing a conflict. Which nobody will ever find So I'm just going to reinstall everything - 10:1 it'll work.

[DarthRosie]

OK, welcome to messed up land, starring me & CIV3. I got it running (i had the problem where the title screen would open, access drive, then shut down - with no errors. Nothing worked to fix it).

Well, I fixed it, in a really odd manner.

Now, I haven't gone beyone opening the main title screen with the option to start a new game, but it's gotten me this far, and I'm almost positive it will work.

Head on over to gamecopyworld.

http://www.gamecopyworld.com/

From there you can download the fixed .exe for civilization3. I believe it might be a no-cd patch, but mine access the cd for some reason when I play it.

I have no idea WHY this is working - it was really on a whim that I did this, thinking that I had a problem with my CD, but it worked nonetheless.

NOW, I'M OFF TO PLAY SOME DAMN CIV3!!!!!

[Shadowstrike]

Guys, I think I've found a missing link. But I need confirmation. Please tell me what speed CD-ROM drive you are using and not being able to access the game. This could be the clue......

[DarthRosie]

I tried my 32 & my 40 or 50 (i forget - and it's not written on it). Neither worked. Until I did that silly work around - which isn't the best because I can't watch wonder movies & stuff like that. If anybody find a real solution, I'll still be happy to use it - I'm just happy I can play the game - even though I munch at it.

[SCLZ]

Originally posted by xiskool
I have an IBM Thinkpad 570E running W2K Pro and I had the same problem running the game. I would double click civilization3.exe, the cd would spin up, a brief flash of music would play and the introduction/title screen would flash for about a second. Then suddenly I was back to the Windows desktop.

In the readme it mentions something on improving the bink video playback performance by replacing the bink dll file on your hard drive with the one on the CD. I think this fixed someones problem once.

The other thing is the monitor profiles...some people think Civ3 trys a video mode that your monitor can't handle if you don't have the correct monitor inf file installed. (I think this applies to the grabbled text thou).

See if any of these are the problem...

LZ