doesn't run with FX-51?

[mushpuppy]

So I upgraded my motherboard and CPU (yay me!) and overall the AMD64 FX-51 is a great processor. However, as part of the installation process, I had to reinstall XP.

So, when I then tried to reinstall SMAC, including with the Alien Crossfire expansion, the game no longer runs!

I get a message: Your cpu is not supported, but you may attempt to play the game anyway. When I click okay, the game crashes.

This is the only game that has caused this problem. Heck, Civ3, an older game, didn't!

I'd appreciate if anyone had any suggestions or workarounds. The Fx-51 is supposed to be mostly transparent, and I can't imagine that SMAC does anything so sophisticated that wouldn't be able to work on this cpu.

Is there a way maybe to disable the cpu check?

I figure I'm only the first of what ultimately may be a lot of gamers who would like to play SMAC/AC with the new cpu.

Thanks in advance for any useful suggestions.

[Skanky Burns]

Disabling the CPU check most likely wouldn't do anything, as the "attempting to play the game anyway" option crashed the game.

Your best bet would probably be to try the XP compatability patches.

[Kaboth]

When launching Alpha Centauri. I receive the error message "CPU not supported". My computer has a Pentium 4 or newer CPU.

Answer
You will need to modify a line in the Alpha Centauri.ini that is located in the game folder. To do this:

Double click on My Computer
Double click on the C: Local Drive (your Hard Drive or the drive that the game is installed to)
Double click on the Program Files Folder
Double click on the Firaxis Games Folder
Double click on the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Folder]
Double click on the Alpha Centauri.ini File (The file looks like a read me text file with a little gold symbol on it).

Once the file is open in Notepad, change:

ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0

to

ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1

Be sure to save your changes, then run the game. You may still receive the error message. If it occurs, click OK and the game will load fine.

If you are Installed Sid Meier's Planetary pack then their will be no Alpha Centauri.ini File initially. Upon attemping to play the game and
clicking ok despite CPU being unsupported the ini file will be produced. Then simply change the ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm to 1. Or if necessary copy ini file from original SMAC.

ALSO download the patch that helps XP:

Alpha Centauri (PC) PATCH - Update for XP.

Question
What does this update do?

Answer
This patch will attempt to locate your installation of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and defaults to that location, if found. If the patch cannot locate Alpha Centauri, it will default to C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

In this situation, you should ensure the patch installs to the directory that you have installed Alpha Centauri into.

This patch is a Windows 2000/XP compatibility update, to allow users of Windows 2000 or XP to run Alpha Centauri. It is not required for users of Windows 95, 98, or ME. However, users with these operating systems may will need to install this patch if they wish to play multiplayer games with other players who have installed this patch.

There is a known issue with sounds skipping on Windows ME machines. This should not affect the game stability.

So problem your main line of solving this is to try changing forceoldvoxelalgorithm if this still doesn't help then consider installing the xp compatability patch from firaxis.com. I myself had to do the same with my P4 processor.

[mushpuppy]

Thanks Kaboth! The voxel toggle worked!

DUH and then of course I saw the answer right on Firaxis' SMAC front page.