Broken secret project files

[Patashu]

Hi,
Some of my secret project movies are slightly choppy/incredibly choppy or don't run at all. is there anyway to replace these files?

[spartak]

Are yuou sure its the files? You could reinstall, that would restore all the files to original...

[Patashu]

Does reinstalling remove saved games/custom factions?

[Mr. President]

I don't think it actually deletes those files.

[Maniac]

Do you have a bad video card? On my previous computer (2 Mb video memory) the movies were also very choppy and the game crashed often because of them if I wasn't careful.

[Patashu]

I'm pretty sure my video card is good enough.

[gwillybj]

just some ideas

Try a reinstall first. Reinstalling is not supposed to touch anything except the files that are written by the installer, so your saved games and custom faction files should be safe. That said, it's still a good idea to copy those files into another folder for insurance. The one time I had to reinstall (because I screwed up a bunch of files without making a backup copy first) I made a new folder (~ACTEMP) and copied the saves and customs to it. I didn't need them after all, but I would have been mad at me if I had needed them but didn't have them.

The Secret Project movies are resource-intensive.
If your PC itself is low-RAM (less than 128MB), disable or exit as many other programs or utilities running in the background as possible, and let Windows manage the swapfile size (maximum and minimum).
If your video card is low-RAM (less than 32MB), you might need to push the hardware acceleration up. (In Win98, hold the Windows key and press Pause/Break (above PageUp). This opens the System Properties settings dialog. Click the Performance tab, then Graphics... (under Advanced). Push the slider all the way up to Full. Usually it is already there.) Click Apply and OK until the dialog closes.
Be careful with everything in there! If you're not absolutely certain you want to change anything, don't.

Look in Alpha Centauri.ini for these two entries:
ds3d=1
eax=1
They can be zero or one. Change one or the other or both and see if it helps.

readme.txt has this information:

MOVIE PERFORMANCE
If your computer has problems playing some of the in-game movies, verify that you are not using any 16-bit real mode drivers for the CD-ROM drive. You can check this by opening the Control Panel and choosing the System settings. Under the Performance tab, there is a line for File System. This should read 32-bit. If it has anything else in that line, contact the manufacturer of your CD-ROM drive for updated Windows 95/98 drivers. If you still experience problems playing movies, try adding 'DirectDraw=0' to the Alpha Centauri.ini file in the install directory.

If you did a full install and don't need the CD in the drive, you don't need to deal with the File System part of that (although it is something to be aware of if you have other CD-ROM problems) but you can still try adding DirectDraw=0 to Alpha Centauri.ini.

Of course, almost all of this is useless chatter if your PC is very new and has a good-to-excellent video card and plenty of RAM .

My PC is four years old, AMD k6-266, 32MB RAM, 2MB video card. I enabled all the SMAC in-game animations, movies, etc. and have no problems.

• In my Alpha Centauri.ini, ds3d=1, eax=1.
• Inside the game, in Preferences, [Move Enemy/Neutral Pieces Quickly] and [Move Allied Pieces Quickly] are both Off, allowing animated movement.
• In Advanced Preferences, [Move Units With Orders Quickly] and [Move All Units Quickly] are both Off, allowing animated movement.