XP and SMAC/X ? HELP ME !

[Jamski]

I bet someones asked this before, but I havn't the patience (sorry)

I'm about to get a new comuper and I need to know :
Will my favorite game (SMAC of course) still work under XP, or not ? If not is there a patch/fix, or will I have to keep my old 233GHz maschine to play SMAC ?

Merry SMAXmas all !

-Jam

[Googlie]

I have no problems running smac or smax under XP (well, except for the odd interceptor crash which is the only thing that troubles XP, it seems)

I run them with the no-cd crack as well - just bypass the message that your CPU isn't supported and that there is no disk in the drive (a P4 at 1.8, with 512MB)

G.

[Jamski]

Thanks my good man!
Should I really use the cracked version? Or does this work also with the original CD ? (I don't use no-CD-crack, as I have the CD, never saw the point of getting the crack, but if I need it...)

Thanks again, new compy now on its way ! Yippee !

-Jam

[Googlie]

The no-cd crack isn't essential - I just do it 'cos my disk resides in my laptop's drive (I did get the crack to work there pre my infamous harddrive crash - now it won't)

Note that some other players have experienced XP problems, although they might be processor or motherboard related, from reading their posts. As I say, I have had no problems in running the games

G.

[Jamski]

Thanks again, I suppose I'll have to force the old voxel Alg. for the new processor as well ? And set the screen res.

(Imagine trying to play SNES games on a gamecube )

-Jam

[Verrucosus]

Changing the "ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm" line was all I had to do to get SMAC working on Windows XP. In case you don't know (I didn't), the Alpha Cenauri.ini file will only be created after you have started the game once (and seen it crash after the initial "CPU not supported" warning).

By the way, has anyone of you experienced a crash during tech trading? I have not played that many games since switching to Windows XP, but in three of them the game crashed when I asked Deidre for a different technology than the one she had offered. It didn't happen always and, surprisingly, never with another faction, but when it did, I was always able to reproduce the crash from the autosave file.

Verrucosus

[Raion]

They have a compability patch at Firaxis one can download, but using Windows 2000 Professional as yet, either I can use it or not, once I got pass the CPU not supported thing.
That was the ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1 line so the Alpha Centauri.Ini file looks like (so far) this:

[Alpha Centauri]
ds3d=1
eax=1
FastUnitAnim=0
SmoothUnitAnim=0
MainFontSize=16
InterludeFontSize=16
DisableOpeningMovie=0
Prefs Format=12
Difficulty=2
Map Type=1
Top Menu=3
Faction=1
Preferences=10111011111001011001111110000101
More Preferences=101011101111010100111000
Semaphore=1100000000000000000000000
Announce=111111111011111111
Rules=1100100011111
Customize=2
Custom World=4, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 0,
Time Controls=1
Faction 1=CYBORG
Faction 2=PIRATES
Faction 3=DRONE
Faction 4=ANGELS
Faction 5=FUNGBOY
Faction 6=HIVE
Faction 7=SPARTANS
Latest Save=J:\Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri\saves\Al of the Consciousness, 2175
Latest Scenario=
Main Volume=85
Voice Volume=60
Music Volume=23
SFX Volume=52
WindowsFileBox=0
Gamma Correction=100

[PREFERENCES]
ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1
Video Mode=1024


Most of that was just added after starting a new Alien Crossfire game.

I did add that line in Preferences before starting the game. It finally started and works fine. Use the patch at Firaxis only if it does not work.

Somewhere there is this patch:

SMAC_Win2000&XP_Compatibility_Update_v1[2].03f.exe

But so far I do not need it! So far!

Works either way, and the patch can be installed or un-installed all by its self!!

Just look in the Download Section of www.firaxis.com
for it!

[Iron Chancellor]

The patch isn't working for me. I'm still getting a "CPU not supported" message, and then the game immediately crashes. Any idea what's wrong?

[Iron Chancellor]

Never mind, got it working, thanks Raion