Windows XP?

[Uncle Thade]

I am running Win XP (fresh install) and Civ III won't play at all the system just hangs??? Plays the intro the !!BAMM!! (sorry for the Emerilism, but it just blanks out, screen goes into standby and the game won't start. Help???

THX 1138+Planet of the Apes = Uncle Thade

[teplitsa]

I have the same thing. It used to work out of the box, but not after installing 1.16f. Could be the patch. I have a Geforce2 in my PC.

[steelehc]

Did you install WinXP after Civ3? That will, for some reason or other, cause the game to not work. Re-install the game, and then try it. If you want, back up your .sav files to another folder first.

Steele

[teplitsa]

I read this somewhere and it worked. In device manager check to see if your monitor says default monitor. If it does, install the correct driver. Worked for me.

[Deathwalker]

Windows XP sucks I bought a new computer and everthing I loaded on it Civ 3 included did not work. So I gave up and went back to Windows 2000.

[teplitsa]

I run XP at home and it's great. Even Wing Commander games work on it. I used to run XP at work, but I had problems with the Windows 2000 Admin tools and went back to win2000 at work. Except for the games, there really isn't any difference. XP just has a few more features.

[godinex]

XP Sucks! I hate IT. I cant uninstall it!

[RickBlaine]

I installed XP a few months after installing Civ3 and had no problems after I installed the latest XP drivers for my video and sound card.

[reds4ever]

XP is the Mutts Nuts!!

the only problem i found was that the registry needed updating to get some software to work (Civ was one of these)

[Zardos]

Video Drivers

I recently overcame a difficult problem on my machine that may or may not have anything to do with WinXP (but I am running WinXP).

I had installed the game and it was working fine, but WinXP kept telling me that I had something wrong with my video card/drivers. I have an ATI Radeon and have upgraded to the latest drivers (to my and Gateway's knowledge). So on advice of a web site somewhere (which I forget), turned off Hardware Acceleration on my machine. Civ III stopped working. As soon as I turned Hardware Acceleration back to Full, Civ III worked again.

Here's how you get to Hardware Acceleration:

1. Right click on your desktop and choose properties
2. Go to the Settings tab
3. Click on the Advanced button
4. Go to the Troubleshoot tab
5. Change the Slider under Hardware Acceleration to Full.

I discovered that I don't need to check the box that says Enable Write Combining...

Good luck and I hope this helps

[Uncle Thade]

XP

The fresh install I put on was from a formatted drive and CIV III was a clean install after the fact. Both patches do varying wierd things. Most common are crashes. The game will play now but it is a waste of time when I play to a certain point and it crashes, not allowing me to play past that last save, because it crashes the same at the same spot, etc.

Updated with a latest drivers and what have you but still crashes. Now, something wierd happened when I uninstalled and reinstalled CIV, it plays perfectly (with latest 1.17f patch.) I haven't changed a single setting. Any crashed games though I can not revive.

I have games that are far more intense in the use of the CPU, RAM, and Vid Card and it just flys Athlon XP, etc... But with CIV III it still seems to crawl along even at mid game. Maybe more RAM but I think there is a break even point with RAM where too much is useless or just goes unused. Anybody know?

Thanks for all the help. I will share more if I can figure this out.

[Purest Warrior]

Re: Windows XP?

Originally posted by Uncle Thade
I am running Win XP (fresh install) and Civ III won't play at all the system just hangs??? Plays the intro the !!BAMM!! (sorry for the Emerilism, but it just blanks out, screen goes into standby and the game won't start. Help???

I have exactly the same problem. Well, not exactly, maybe, because the game still runs, but the screen has gone on standby and, hence, I would have to play the game by memory.
I am running Winxp on a GeForce2 Ti, and I installed Civ3 after xp.
I have been doing a bit of research and I think that the intro can be hardware-rendered, but the rest of the game needs OpenGL to run, ie. software-rendering.
OpenGL does not come with xp and I have since downloaded and installed it, but the screen still standbys.

I will try and re-install and get back to you.

Re-installing worked for you, right, Thade?

[Uncle Thade]

REINSTALL

Purest Warrior, LOL at " the play by memory"...

Yeah, I uninstalled it then simply reinstalled it, applied the patch again and it now runs and has had random crashes. Sometimes the patch doesn't always take the first time you install it, so check the version number. And then reinstall the patch. Shrug???

Other than that it seems to have random hardware problems. I guess just ensure to roll back your drivers or simply run CIV III in Win98 mode... Anyone know if this will help. I installed this on my PII 400 and it ran without a hitch in Win98 SE, so maybe there is something in XP that CIV III just doesn't like, maybe that is an issue the Firaxians are looking at.

[thunderchicken]

Why your screen was doing that? I had the same problem with XP Pro. I found out that if you switch the application to Windows 98/ME, the screen is fine. I'm running Voodoo 5.

Hope that helps.

[gallivant]

I formatted my hard drive and installed win xp. I installed Civ 3 and then the patch and it hung after loading the intro sequence.

To overcome this problem, I did:

In device manager it said default monitor for the monitor tab, so I downloaded the drivers for my Sony Trinitron 17sf, installed these drivers manually and restarted and now the game works.

I have a GeForce 256.

Now I am going to start my epic battle for world superiority.