Mysterious crash on running C3C or PTW
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Mysterious crash on running C3C or PTW Expand / Collapse
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4/2/2004 1:41 AM


Piscata Rosea 4 4 5

Piscata Rosea 4 4 5

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Hey Everyone,

Sorry if I sound like a right duffer, but here's my problem.

I recently bought Civ 3 gold edition and C3C in the same package. After eagerly installing onto my computer I've found that neither PTW or C3C wants to run.

When I run either program, I get the small graphic that appears, the screen res changes and the screen goes black - as if something's about to happen. but then I just get chucked back to windows with not even an error message to let me know what's happened.

I'm running windows XP, have the latests graphics and sound drivers, and have directX 9.0b. As far as I know my computer fills all required specs.

I also have Civ3 original from when it first came out, and the funny thing is the game will load with this disc and I can play it. But running PTW or C3C with the required disc in the drive won't work.

I've tried with and without patches, so I'm really at a loose end. Has anyone else had a similar problem? Hope someone can help. :confused:

Dave


--
C3C Emperor
C4BTS Prince

<<--- view my flickr photos!
4/2/2004 1:48 AM


die with honor

die with honor

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First Welcome to the Boards.

There have been problems with both resolution being differant than your desktop and fonts.

You can prolly find the threads on both by doing a search ... or someone will be by shortly that had/solved a similar problem.


--
******************************
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one:
Take honor from me, and my life is done:
Da Bard ... But something tosk would say.

We don't have to live in the kind of America the two Major parties have in store for us.
Together, let us lay the foundations for an America worthy of our Founding Fathers.
~Ron Paul~

A society of sheep eventually begets a government of wolves.
~Edward R Murrow~

:MOOD TODAY:
4/2/2004 2:23 AM


Prince of The JODASA

Prince of The JODASA

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Welcome to the boards, Comedy Dave! To me it sounds like a resolution problem. This happened to me when I first installed Civ3, back in the day.


--
Sent by Him,
Prince TORARADICAL of The JODASA


cIV Modder in self-training.

Are you ready for Civ V?
4/2/2004 9:21 AM


General

General

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Might also be this problem


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Any word you had to look up in a thesaurus is the wrong one.
4/2/2004 10:39 AM


Junkyard Dawg - Any questions?!

Junkyard Dawg - Any questions?!Junkyard Dawg - Any questions?!Junkyard Dawg - Any questions?!Junkyard Dawg - Any questions?!Junkyard Dawg - Any questions?!Junkyard Dawg - Any questions?!Junkyard Dawg - Any questions?!Junkyard Dawg - Any questions?!

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How old/new is your monitor? Check your civ3.ini file (in the folder where vanilla civ3 is) and see if you have:

Refresh = (some value)

or

KeepRes = 1

or

VideoMode = (some value)

If so, go to the corresponding PTW and Conquests folders (in your vanilla civ3 folder), edit the corresponding .ini file (conquests.ini for Conquests) and insert those same values. Save the file and try firing up Conquests or PTW.

If you don't find those, you might want to try placing "KeepRes = 1" in the ini file. This forces the screen resolution to remain the same when it enters the game.

You can also try setting "Refresh = 60" in the ini file. This forces the monitor to stay at 60 Hz. Some monitors (mostly older ones) only support 60 Hz, but the game tries to make it switch to another setting causing the screen to go black.

Welcome to the boards.


--
I have dug on farms and in gardens and in road work and on the railroad, but it takes big shells dropping close to make you really dig. - A C (Sgt.) York

My latest "life quote" -
It is what it is ...

"Censorship does not interfere with the constitutional rights of every American to sit alone in a dark room in the nude and cuss. There are realistic taboos, especially regarding political comments. Our leaders were not elected to be tittered at. For example, we're allowed to say Ronald Reagan is a lousy actor, but we're not allowed to say he's a lousy governor-which is ridiculous. We know he's a good actor. And we're not allowed to make fun of President 'Johnston'. But if we praise him, who would believe it?" - Pat Paulsen
4/2/2004 11:39 PM


Piscata Rosea 4 4 5

Piscata Rosea 4 4 5

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Hey Everyone,

Thanks for the advice! I've got about 5 or 6 different things to try now, so I hope I can get my copy of CIV3 working (fingers crossed).

Terminal_Civ-er - my monitor is only about a month old, haven't had any problems with it thus far, but will try out tweaking the ini files when I get the chance.

Also today, Windows being as helpful as always, I have been told there is a new driver for my sound card (Realtek AC 97 Audio), so hopefully that solves the problem. Although it'll take me over half an hour to download (don't you just love dial-up modems? )

If I have any joy i'll let you all know what the problem was.

Cheers!


--
C3C Emperor
C4BTS Prince

<<--- view my flickr photos!
4/3/2004 4:27 AM


Piscata Rosea 4 4 5

Piscata Rosea 4 4 5

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After much experimentation here are my results... - in fact I've spent all of Saturday arvo doing this!

1.) I tried to get brand new or alternative drivers for both my sound and graphics cards. Even with these installed there was no change.

2.) Renamed movie files to avoid them being loaded on startup - no effect.

3.) Played around with various ini files and their settings. The 'KeepRes=1' and 'Refresh=60' ideas didn't make a difference, other than maybe occasionally one long period of black, instead of two short periods of black.

4.) Tried to use 'compatibility mode' to run the programs. In all available modes there is no change, or the program won't even run.

5.) Reinstalled CIV from scratch - no change (typical).

6.) Funny thing is I can play CIV3 original but not PTW or C3C.

7.) Finally I found a partial solution. Using MSCONFIG (start->run - then type "MSCONFIG" I ran XP in diagnostic startup mode. And Eureka! C3C will run! (only took me 4 hours to get this far... ). However, because I'm in diagnostic mode, I have no sound .

So I can now play C3C as far as I can tell without any sound, which is a pain. So my next plan is to find out what device or driver is causing the problem. The logical choice would be the sound card, but I tried that and, of course, it wasn't the problem.

Anyway, I hope this info will be of help to anyone with similar problems. If I can find exactly what device is causing the problem I'll let everyone know.

Dave


--
C3C Emperor
C4BTS Prince

<<--- view my flickr photos!
4/3/2004 9:07 AM


die with honor

die with honor

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If you have checked all that I would suppose that you hace checked for a irq conflict?


--
******************************
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one:
Take honor from me, and my life is done:
Da Bard ... But something tosk would say.

We don't have to live in the kind of America the two Major parties have in store for us.
Together, let us lay the foundations for an America worthy of our Founding Fathers.
~Ron Paul~

A society of sheep eventually begets a government of wolves.
~Edward R Murrow~

:MOOD TODAY:
4/3/2004 5:45 PM
Regent

RegentRegentRegentRegentRegentRegentRegentRegent

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This is the patch I talked about in the thread Leo posted:

Windows XP Patch: Game Stops Responding or Quits Unexpectedly When Introductory Video Clip Is Played

Applies if you are using WinXP.

- felix_the_cat
--
4/4/2004 7:54 AM


Piscata Rosea 4 4 5

Piscata Rosea 4 4 5

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Yay I got it working!

As far as I could tell it wasn't an IRQ conflict, and since I already had that Win XP patch I decided to play around a bit with msconfig and device manager.

After a bit more experimentation I found that the Plug and Play service was causing the problem. With that disabled I could play the game, but without sound.

But since I wanted sound, I decided to experiment further and try disabling different things from device manager.

The problem fell in the "Human Interface Devices" list. On my comp I have 5 items:

1.) HID-compliant consumer control device
2.) HID-compliant device
3.) HID-compliant device
4.) USB Human Interface Device
5.) USB Human Interface Device

By disabling number 2 from this list, C3C would work fine with sound.

I have no idea what this device is, and since disabling it I have had no problem at all with my computer.

Anyway, it works, and that's the main thing. Hopefully this will help out anyone else with this strange problem.

Now I'm off to play C3C!

Thanks again for the help

Dave


--
C3C Emperor
C4BTS Prince

<<--- view my flickr photos!
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