insane freezing

[Grump]

okay, once again I am having a heck of a time trying to get SMACX working.

The game locks up my win 2k box so that I can't close it (virtually every single other application that I have ever run on Win2k I can close them and return to the desktop if they act funky) and have to restart the computer and waste a load of time with the consistancy check.

pulling my internet connection seems to help but only a little adding a few minutes to the 8-10 minutes/3 turns it usually goes before it crashes (don't know if it would crash if I just didn't make any moves at all.

I have all the patches and win 2000 compatibility file installed and I also fiddled around with the ini
file per many suggestions on this group to no avail.

Before the first time it started crashing it would do so even when looking through data files and at more variable lengths of time. I had tried things like playing from win98 boot and turning off the sound which helped but didn't completely eliminate the problem. I was able to keep the number of crashes down but I had stopped playing and now I don't remember exactly what I did.

I used to be able to play for hours without any crashing but now it can't go 10 mins without locking up my entire system!

[#endgame]

Start->Run
Enter 'eventvwr'.

See if there's anything unusual in the event log.

[Grump]

way ahead of you...nothing was in the app log except some routine housekeeping. Don't know what to look for in the system log except nothing seems to be unusual there either. I think its locking up before some error message can be put in.

[Petek]

"Hard" lockups are often caused by video problems. Try setting your system video to fewer colors or a lower resolution and see if that helps.

If you haven't already done so, set ds3d=0 and/or eax=0 in your Alpha Centauri.ini file.

Use msconfig to selectively startup your system and see if the problem is caused by a specific driver or process.

Please post again if no luck.

[#endgame]

@Petek: You mean

d3d=0

?

[Grump]

I turned down the res and color depth...no luck. I also had turned those two values to zero. Back before I had gone on hiatus from playing disabling the sound seemed to help although it didn't completely eliminate the problem. I'm now playing it under win98 and have yet to encounter a crash. Its still annoying though since I have to boot to do most of my work on Win2k.

Oh yeah and this weird %A symbol keeps garbling up the power ticker at the bottem center display. The one that tells me that I'm noble and my might is unsurpassed. Doesn't seem to show up when playing under Win98 boot. Related?

[#endgame]

No. I get those As but I never had stability problems:

Alpha Centauri.ini
[Alpha Centauri]
ds3d=1
eax=1
DirectDraw=0
FastUnitAnim=0
SmoothUnitAnim=0
MainFontSize=16
InterludeFontSize=16
DisableOpeningMovie=1
Prefs Format=12
Difficulty=5
Map Type=4
Top Menu=0
Faction=7
Preferences=10111001111000011001111110001111
More Preferences=101110101111011111011100
Semaphore=00000000
Announce=111111111011111111
Rules=1100000001110
Customize=2
Custom World=2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
Time Controls=1
Faction 1=GAIANS
Faction 2=HIVE
Faction 3=UNIV
Faction 4=MORGAN
Faction 5=SPARTANS
Faction 6=BELIEVE
Faction 7=PEACE
Latest Save=
Latest Scenario=
Main Volume=127
Voice Volume=85
Music Volume=63
SFX Volume=95
WindowsFileBox=0
Latest Map=D:\SMAC\maps\hmopdd2
Vehicle Groups=2047

[PREFERENCES]
ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1
Video Mode=1024

That's mine. See if there's anything interesting in there.

[Petek]

Originally posted by #endgame
@Petek: You mean

d3d=0

?

#endgame,

Nope, meant ds3d=0. (BTW, have you noticed that your avatar looks like an EGA version of mine!)

Grump,

The oddball characters might be caused by using a non-English version of SMAC/X, or by having activated non-English characters somewhere in Windows.

Have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling the game (which includes manually deleting any files that are left after the automated uninstall)? If not, try that.

You also might want to look at the troubleshooting tips in this link:

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5217

HTH

[#endgame]

Petek: Right you are, both that the option is ds3d=0 and that our avatars are strikingly similar.

[Grump]

I've tried deletion and reinstallation...in fact I just got rid of two other installations which were on different locations on my harddrive. I'll try some other stuff

In the meantime...

Do you guys know of a patch or mod which will stop what I consider to be one of the most annoying behavior in the computer? Is there anything which would prevent them from starving my best bases by running deep into my territory and founding cities all around my own? Maybe a simple AI check to make sure a new base's squares does't overlap a preexisting base.

[Urban Ranger]

Just kill their colony pods?

[Grump]

Update on insane freezing

Well I've been playing a bit more now and I've started getting freezing on Win 98 boot as well. A new type of crash is now occurring something involving Ddhelp doing an illegal operation. This crash boots me back to the desktop where the screen will get all fuzzy if I try to start up SMAC again. It happens on both Win98 and 2000 but the fuzzy screen is only on win98. Thankfully the appearance of this crash seems to have slightly lessened the hard lockup. Or maybe it just doesn't have a chance to occur as often. I installed the newest DirectX and drivers for my Radeon 7000. Seems to have eliminated the fuzzy screen problem but didn't do anything about the actual crash though.

[Grump]

Okay, now I've run into the dreaded interceptor bug for the first time. Terran.exe crashes when I move my interceptor to attack an enemy needlejet. I've tried updating my intellimouse drivers and deleting alpha centauri.ini to no avail. I guess the game just doesn't like me today. I'm going to watch a movie

[Chaos Theory]

Try killing your intellimouse driver (with ctrl-alt-del) before starting Alpha Centauri. That fixed the interceptor bug for me, though my wheel didn't work.

[Grump]

Okay how would I do that?

opening up driver details shows

i8042prt.sys
mouclass.sys
point32.sys
ipcoin4.dll

out of these only point32 seems to be on the process list and ending it doesn't affect the mousewheel or the crashing...