Screen Flickering -- Can't See a Thing

[Zig]

Ahhh! Someone help me quick! I installed the game but I can't see anything -- the whole screen flickers like my monitor can't do the screen resolution. My desktop is running at 1024x768x32 so I know my video card and monitor are fine. I'm running XP and I have a voodoo 3 3500.

[Bereta_Eder]

Try increasing the hz of your resolution. I have the windows 98 in greek so I can't really direct you on how to do it since the names are different.

but right click somewhere on the desktop, go to «properties» then go to «adjustmenets» (last tab) then click on «for advanced» then click on «regulator» then select a higher hz number for your screen

(the names may differ I tried to translate them from greek)

[GodSpawn]

It also might be because the refresh rate has gone too high.

Sometimes switching to a directX graphics mode can cause the drivers to change the refresh rate, even though it's at the same resolution as your desktop.

I know this happens on my system (under both W2K and XP) on a RADEON 64DDR using ATI's drivers. My desktop runs 1280x1024x32@75Hz. When I run a directx game at 1280x1024x32, the refresh drops to 60Hz. Ok, that's the refresh rate dropping rather than going up - but if it can be wrong one way...

Anyhow, nothing I tried can fix my refresh problem, but perhaps you could try a different monitor driver?

[donarumo]

Samething happened to me under XP. I think it has to do with not having an exact monitor driver installed.

Anyway, if you right click on the Civ3 executable and go to properties, you can set the compatibility. I set this to Windows 98/ME and the program then ran fine. Give it a try and see if it works.

[Zig]

I fixed it last night. Sorry for not posting the answer sooner. It WAS the refresh rate. My monitor can go up to 85Hz at 1024x768 but since I don't have the EXACT monitor driver installed, the computer THINKS I can go up to 150Hz.

When I run the game it sets the refresh rate higher than 85Hz and I can't see anything. My work-arround is to switch to the desktop and manually reset my refresh rate once the game is running. Since I can't see anything, I can't use the mouse and have to use keyboard commands.

For any users of XP with this problem do the following:

1. Start Civ 3
2. Wait for the movie to finish (you're now at the menu whether you know it or not)
3. Hit [Windows Key]+D (to go to desktop), click the left mouse button to make sure the desktop is selected (hopefully you won't click on an icon), then hit [context-menu key], [up], [enter] (now you will be at the desktop properties), [shift]+[tab], [right] x 4, [tab] x 4, [enter], [shift]+[tab], [right] x 2, [tab] x 2 (now you will be at the refresh rate), Hit [up] two or three times to go lower in refresh rate. Then hit [enter], [tab], [enter].

***the "[tab] x 2" might be "[tab] x 3" now that I think of it.***

You can now see again! I'm at work right now and I'm not using XP here, but I think those are the correct commands. If you want to check for yourself (or if you have 95/98/Me/NT/2000) just figure out the keyboard commands before starting the game (while you can still see) and write down all the keys you used.

With any luck, future game patches will allow you to use a command-line option to cap the refresh rate at a certain setting.