Civ2 command line arguments

[Paradox]

Hi fellow civers,

Im wondering whether CIV2 does indeed have any command line arguments i could use...reason being im trying to get it to load on a homebuilt PC which has had a lot of problems loading games like AOE and CTP. My pursuits have taken me far and wide to drivers and forums all over the net, even a reinstall of windows because 98 didnt have correct graphic drivers for my card but thus far to no avail ) tho ive finally managed to get my AOE (with some command line arguments ) working but still no joy with CTP or CIV2.

The PC has a S3 Trio 3d/2x graphics card, directx 6, anda sound balster card but NO speakers hence my desire to attempt to set graphics/sound options via command line arguments when loading game in an seeming vain attempt attempt to get going.... Im getting tired of that frozen startup screen.....

Any suggestions i havent tried yet.....excluding purchasing a latest+greatest P4!!! lol

Thanks folks

[Mercator]

I don't think there are any command-line arguments for civ2...

I'm pretty sure it should be able to run fine on your computer, considering the game is years old itself. It doesn't use any 3D graphics nor DirectX... WinXP would probably give just as much trouble.

WinG and an Indeo video driver should be automatically installed along with civ2. Sometimes this can go wrong. Try manually installing them. They're located on your civ2 CD (in folders called WinG and Indeo if I'm not mistaken).

And don't forget to install the latest patch (if you don't have it already). You can probably find the patches in the apolyton directory (or any decent civ2 site, like my homepage ). Make sure you download the right one, depending on which civ2 version you have... What version DO you have?

[Paradox]

Thanks Mercator,

Indeed i have tried both those installs though to no avail...sigh...

But altho i have installed latest patch civ278.zip on my pc i dare say ill give your suggestion a bash on the kiddies PC...one never know with computers does one. hehe

Thanks anyway for the reply

[DrSpike]

Re: Civ2 command line arguments

Originally posted by Paradox

The PC has a S3 Trio 3d/2x graphics card, directx 6, anda sound balster card but NO speakers hence my desire to attempt to set graphics/sound options via command line arguments when loading game in an seeming vain attempt attempt to get going.... Im getting tired of that frozen startup screen.....

I don't see why it would crash if sound was enabled and you had the card but no speakers.........are you sure that's it?

Post the rest of your specs and OS.

[Paradox]

Spike guess it was only a hunch...i know certain games are very finicky....yes in theory the s/w wouldnt know their were'nt physically any speakers attached but.....ive been in IT for so long im never surprised these days at strange anomalies

Anyway specs are P3 400MHZ, 64MB RAM, 1.2GB h/drive, WIN98 , graphics card as above.

Like i said really strange cause CTP or CIV II dont load..in fact they freeze the screen but later games like AOK and Tib Sun do....

Hmmmmm....??

[DrSpike]

Weird.

It never ceases to amaze me the cr@p that can happen. Recently for example, after a reinstall and minor (more recent as well) changes to the set of drivers I use I found that Warcraft3 would crash every 20 minutes or so. In the end I had to reinstall win2k *again* and go back to exactly the old config.

Usual advice though is to get most recent drivers for your hardware (including mobo), and most recent version of direct x compatible with the card. I don't recognise the card........you can pick up a reasonably decent budget card for £75 easy if that is the problem.

Since it is win98 make sure there are no IRQ conflicts, or any other conflicts.

You probably have already tried most of the above.......but if you haven't they are worth checking.

Good luck in the fight against the stubborn machine.

[Cedric Greene]

It isn't coming up with any errors it just freezes? First reboot and make sure you have a little running in the background as possible to avoid conflicts. You can also try downloading the latest Indeo video codecs and drivers from www.ligos.com

[Gramphos]

Make sure you have WinG and Video for Windows installed (located on the Civ2 disc)

[Paradox]

Thanks for all the replies folks....yip i tried all the above, latest drivers from driverguide.com, s3graphics.com....indeo and wing....reinstall of 98 (puh!! like i said im no windows lover being a Unix fan but id rather use win2k anyday than 98 or ME....don't you just hate having to reboot after a GPF :mad : ....but, as i said, this is my g/f's kids PC and i doubt his memory config would handle )

Anyway lemme try this last attempt...latest civ patch 278....i have my doubts but ill refrain from downright pessimism untill ive tried it...

Until then.....happy civ'ing while i try some bargains on Ebay hehehe

[Gramphos]

Thinking of it I might have run into the same problem with 98 on the fact the WinG didn't install when I tried to install it. I'll check it out at home.

[Maquiladora]

Make sure you have enough spare hard drive space (although if AOE runs then civ2 should) you could also try turning down the hardware acceleration on your graphics and/or sound card. Turn it down one notch then try the game and keep doing it until you reach the lowest acceleration.

[Paradox]

Only one click!

****UPDATE*****

Okay i've done it!!!!!!! HOORAH!YAY!

Hmmm.....and u never gonna guess what it was? One simple click! yes....just that.
Lemme explain:
The reason the games froze on startup was simple...the CD rom is an old CREATIVE model. Yesterday i noticed the comp froze when putting a music CD in the CD...just like the game did . Now that got me thinking ....all this must have something to do with music...cdplayer.exe froze too when trying to lauch it...okay so i had already had a hunch for some time that the sound was the problem....

This evening i opened up the properties in control panel-system-device manager for the CDrom...and noticed that DMA was set. Perhaps this CD rom wasnt able to do DMA access i.e increase access speed for example when playing sound!!!

I disabled DMA...and hey presto! CIV2 started up and i heard the tribal music playing oh such sweet music to my ears (PS we installed a pr of speakers over the weekend )

There you go.....explained. The only thing that kills me the days ive spent over last couple of months trying to get the blasted games to work...

And all it ever took was ONE CLICK! ....disable DMA.

G'night and g-d bless

[DrSpike]

I feel like an idiot, because I have always had a problem with the cd in win2k. Since I usually play with the crack (shhhh) I didn't notice it till quite recently. Since the problem only occured in win2k, not win98, I didn't mention it earlier.

Oops.