Odd Lockup (crash?).. Requesting Help...

from Stardock Forums
I just bought this game today, after reading about it as a "best of 2003" game on a few strategy sites... but I cant seem to be able to play it.

I'm on a P3 600mhz with a 32mb graphics card - not the best system, I know, but I can play games that are more graphically intense than this one so I should be able to run GalCiv I'd wager.

Anyway, here is the problem ... when I run the game I reach the screen that allows me to select to "play game," and then an into movie plays discussing the backstory of the GalCiv universe. At the end of this intro video my screen stays black with nothing but my white cursor left on it. It stays like this with no crash to desktop or anything.. the CPU light doesn't flash at all either like it is accessing anything.

I've been able to play the game by removing the movie folder..but thats pretty drastic. Anyone out there no any less drastic workarounds?

It doesnt seem to be aproblem with playing Bink video I'd guess...I can play that first intro fine, after all.

This lockup puzzles me.
Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
279 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Just found an earlier post which suggested removing 2 intro Bink movies as a workaround. Did this and made it further into the game ..up to the point where the galaxy is generated. The game then starts with a movie playing of a robot welding ... however after hitting leftclick on my mouse I wound up back to the blackscreen lockup again ..this time with music playing
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Consikwens,

Sounds like you're definitely having problems with the cutscene movie files - the robot welder (on a colony ship hull) is, I believe, the last movie that plays before the game itself kicks in. This seems doubly the case because your game is apparently working fine when you skip the cutscenes entirely.

Short of the usual suspects - video and sound card drivers being up to date, current Direct X drivers, etc. - I don't know of anything that would affect the movie files. If you're SURE that you have all of the current drivers, I'd suggest a tech support email directly to Stardock: [email protected] It may take a day or so for them to get back to you, but most people around these parts consider Stardock pretty good at tech support responses, as game manufacturers go.

Good luck...
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
P3 600 32m ample.....must be drivers, apparently the game is very sensitive to 'dodgy codecs'. i az no idea what this means, but i iz passin' it on...ya gotta get playin'...then the sleepless nights await....

:) ;)
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Are you the guy I'm helping via e-mail now? :) Install these tools and see if the problem goes away:

 http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

If that doesn't work, see if you can find newer drivers for your sound and video cards. 

If you're still having problems, it's probably a bad sound codec.  WinDVD and Winamp3 are both known to have buggy codecs.  If you tell me what media players you have installed on your system other than Windows Media Player, I can help you track down what might be causing the problem.