Monitor problems

[zulu9812]

I was wondering if anyone could help me out. I'm running Windows 2000, and the game plays fine. However, when I start the game the screen goes black and goes into some sort of power saving mode - the light besides the monitor power button goes orange. The 6 lights on the front of the monitor at the left hand side also start flashing. The only way to get out of this is to shut down using the power button! Then , when I restart and play the game it works fine - but the same problem will happen the next time I try to play. Any ideas?

[LarryLard]

Curious that alternate attempts should work while the other half the time it fails. What you describe sounds typical of a video card with not enough power; this problem happens a lot with GeForce cards which are very hungry. What's your video card, and do you know the power output of your power supply?

[zulu9812]

Well, my graphics card is a Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB ( a Kyro II). Dunno what the power output/supply is. One thing I will say is that happens when I've just switched the PC on - If I've had it on for a while and have been doing other stuff (like downloading) the monitor works fine when starting Civ3.

[SpencerH]

Could it be a problem with the fact that CIV3 is not a windows-based game?

[zulu9812]

OK, I read this over at CivFanatics. The same monitor problem occurs with some windows XP users, and the recommended solution is to add the following lines to the bottom of the Civilization3.ini file:

Keepres=1
Video Mode=1024
Refresh=60

Hope that this is of some help to other Win2k users out there.

[Solver]

For Windows XP, there is a different and better solution. Keepres = 1 AND Video Mode=1024 together are gateway to using my 800x600 hack.

[Willem]

Or simply update your video drivers. That solved the problem for me, after I installed XP.

[zulu9812]

Well, since i was using windows 2000, adding those lines to the .ini file worked for me

[Beowolf]

Ahhh, just what I was looking for - thanks