Patching bug, and others..

[boyd]

I've combed through these forums and can't find anything that specifically mentions the problems I've had.. I'd appreciate any help people can offer.

My system:
P2-450
512MB SDRAM
TNT2 (32MB)
Windows XP Pro

1) When I first purchased the game (when it was originally released), I had the refresh rate bug which I fixed by running Civ 3 in compatibility mode.. so that's ok now..

2) There have been a few mentions on other sites about the 'ghost process' that remains after shutting down Civ 3, but I haven't found any on this site. Basically, after shutting down Civ 3, this process keeps running (it's called something like ~ef**.tmp) and this process seems to hinder system performance.. IE won't load pages, media files won't play, the system is sluggish.. Canning the process restores the system to normal.

Now both of these are fairly silly bugs.. and the obvious thing to do would be to patch right? Well, this is why I'm posting here.

Patching doesn't work.

I've tried putting every patch on that's been released (on both clean and used installs), and each time, after applying the patch, the game simply won't start.

The process executes, and sits in the task manager, but no visuals appear. No game, no intro movie, not even a fade-to-black before the intro, no splash screen, no anything.

It's as if I'm double clicking thin air when I try to start Civ 3 after applying ANY patch.

Note: The game runs again after uninstalling the patch in Add / Remove Programs.

Now, I'm not saying that 1.07f is bad, but there are problems with it, and I would like to update to 1.21f.

I have to say I'm unimpressed with the number of bugs that have cropped up.. Surely a little bit of testing under Windows XP would've shown up the refresh rate bug prior to release, it WAS listed as a supported OS after all.

I have also seen a few posts regarding SafeDisc, which seems to have caused quite a few problems for a good deal of people who, like me, paid fair money for this game. I don't know if SafeDisc is behind any of my problems, but if it is, what can I do?

I do love the damn game though, so if there's anyone out there who could help me find out why patching just seems to do nothing, I'd be grateful

[Ethelred]

Re: Patching bug, and others..

Originally posted by boyd
I've combed through these forums and can't find anything that specifically mentions the problems I've had.. I'd appreciate any help people can offer.

My system:
P2-450
512MB SDRAM
TNT2 (32MB)
Windows XP Pro

1) When I first purchased the game (when it was originally released), I had the refresh rate bug which I fixed by running Civ 3 in compatibility mode.. so that's ok now..

This is likely your problem. Turn OFF compatibility mode and patch the game. The game runs fine as a pure XP game if you have up to date drivers and any patch at all. There was a problem with the Detonators both with the game and with the Detonators that were out at the time the game came out.


2) There have been a few mentions on other sites about the 'ghost process' that remains after shutting down Civ 3, but I haven't found any on this site. Basically, after shutting down Civ 3, this process keeps running (it's called something like ~ef**.tmp) and this process seems to hinder system performance.. IE won't load pages, media files won't play, the system is sluggish.. Canning the process restores the system to normal.[/QUOTE]

Maybe this due to the combatibilty mode. I haven't noticed this problem. I never ran the game in compatibility mode.

Now both of these are fairly silly bugs.. and the obvious thing to do would be to patch right? Well, this is why I'm posting here.

Patching doesn't work.

The patch works just fine. ALL of them work in XP without compatibilty mode. Well there is still the Kill Workers bug and some think there are bugs that are actual intentional design dedisions but no actual serious game crashing bugs.

[QUOTE]
Now, I'm not saying that 1.07f is bad, but there are problems with it, and I would like to update to 1.21f.[QUOTE]

Unistall the whole thing just in case something is buggered up in your present setup. Reinstall. Run the 1.21f patch before playing the game. If it says unistalling stuff then run it again. Some people have needed to run the patch twice.

I have also seen a few posts regarding SafeDisc, which seems to have caused quite a few problems for a good deal of people who, like me, paid fair money for this game. I don't know if SafeDisc is behind any of my problems, but if it is, what can I do?

You can contact Infogrammes for a different version of the game OR you can deep six the old CD drive that is causing the problem IF you actually do have a problem.

At least one person here had a CD burner and a DVD player and the game wouldn't run on the CD burner but would on the DVD. Install and run from the same drive (this shouldn't be needed but for some reason it is).

[boyd]

Ethelred: Thanks, I'll give that a try.

(edit) Yeah, it worked. Thanks, I can enjoy the game hassle-free finally!