SMAC will not run on XP

[afferrin]

Hi I recently purchased SMAC.
It installs fine, I have tried all the possible fixes, patches you can find. nothing works. for the life of me I can't understand why it will not work.
THe moment I run the program the screen

Here is my system:
Toshiba Satellite A200 (res 1280 x 800 tried at 800x600)
ATI Catalyst runing with TV extended Desktop (tried disabled)
Win XP SP2
DirextX9.0c

I have installed Smac
Smac 4 and XP patch.
I have administrator privileges.


My alpha centaury.ini file is:
ds3d=1
eax=1
8BitMovieSound=1
FastUnitAnim=0
SmoothUnitAnim=0
MainFontSize=12
InterludeFontSize=12
DisableOpeningMovie=1
Prefs Format=12
Difficulty=2
Map Type=3
Top Menu=0
Faction=1
Preferences=11011011111010111001111110001110
More Preferences=101110101111110101101001
Semaphore=00000000
Announce=111100001010101000
Rules=101101000011110
Customize=2
Custom World=2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
Time Controls=1
Faction 1=UNIV
Faction 2=JENN282
Faction 3=JENN282
Faction 4=JENN282
Faction 5=JENN282
Faction 6=JENN282
Faction 7=JENN282
Latest Save=
Latest Scenario=
Main Volume=127
Voice Volume=85
Music Volume=63
SFX Volume=95
WindowsFileBox=1
[PREFERENCES]
ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1
DirectDraw=0
Video Mode=800


I am about to have an aneurysm. This is so frustrating. Can anyone suggest something? Any advice?
Thanks

[BlackCat]

Somehow your description of what happens has dissapeared, so it's a bit difficult to help.

Have you looked here for help ? http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184375

EDIT: I'm runnig XP too and have no problems, so there is hope

[vyeh]

See the thread SMAC crashes in XP pro sp3. Let me know if that helps.

I would suggest the unofficial patch. It has helped other people avoid aneurysm. The trouble is the official patches are old and were not tested on modern systems.

[Petek]

Hi afferrin,

Your Alpha Centauri.ini file has some problems. The directdraw=0 and video mode=800 lines are in the wrong place. Also, you should have only at most one of those lines, not both, in the file. Edit the beginning of your ini file to look like this:

[Alpha Centauri]
directdraw=0

and then the rest the same, except delete the last two lines (the ones shown above). The directdraw=0 command should force the game to run at your native Windows resolution. However, SMAC has trouble running at the resolution of some modern laptops. So if directdraw=0 doesn't work, replace it by video mode=1024 (or video mode=800 if that's what you prefer).

If none of the suggestions made here help, please post again.

Petek

[afferrin]

No joy

Hi guys, Thanks for the suggestions.
Alas, no joy. still will not start. I always get:
"terran.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."
I see the Firaxis logo for a sec and then it crashes.
I have corrected the INI file but still nothing. I have checked the posted threads BlackCat and vyeh posted too.
SMAC installs fine. There are no issues from the CD. I have even copied it on to the HD and tried the install. No difference. Always the same crash.
I have tried all the relevant suggestions in the threads posted here.
I have installed and tried ATI tools and Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 None of these help.

I once tried to install it on my x64 Dual AMD Computer but I got the CPU compatibility issue. So I tried on this machine (The Toshiba). But as I said installing on the Toshiba works fine.
I also run Avira (tried disabled) and TuneUp utilities (Turbo on and off)
No difference.
I have changed the resolution. No difference. Nada.


Could it be the video card on my Toshiba?

[BlackCat]

Just noticed, you are running XP SP2 - could you try upgrading to SP3 ?

Don't know if it will help, but it at least won't do any damage.

[scient]

First, I'd delete your ini file and let SMAC recreate it from scratch. Keep a backup if there are certain preferences you'd like to re-add. Then copy over unofficial patch exe. I clean up a lot of older CPU related code which causes a lot of issues for folks. If it still crashes, try adding (or changing values) in ini file to following.

[PREFERENCES]
ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1
[Alpha Centauri]
DirectDraw=0
ds3d=0
eax=0

Voxel you really shouldn't have to change based on my changes to exe but worth a shot. DirectDraw might give insight if it's problem with graphics card and game resolution. The ds3d/eax entries have to do with sound. I have older system that will crash on startup unless eax is disabled (crappy on board audio).

When the game crashes, I take it shows up a Microsoft crash window? If so, if you click details and take screenshot that shows more detailed information I could probably narrow down what is causing the crash.

@BlackCat: Heh I was about to suggestion the same thing.

[BlackCat]

And I was about to post this :

http://www.civforum.de/showpost.php?p=671082&postcount=10

but then saw your suggestion.