arkibet Posted April 15, 2007 CID Share Posted April 15, 2007 My goodness. I am having a really tough time trying to play a game I really liked. Here's the story: My friend asked me if I wanted to play a multiplayer game of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. My old copy was long gone. So I purchased one from Amazon.com for ~$7. It arrived. I put it in my laptop, autorun took over, and when I clicked on "Install Game" the CD whirred and then the all screens went away. No error message. Nothing. I did some looking around and found Firaxis's website that said with Windows XP, there's a patch and you have to update the .ini file. Well, I couldn't do that if the program didn't install! I tried clicking on the files on the CD directly, and clicked setup.exe, but it does absolutely nothing. DirectX 6 is on the CD, I tried installing that, but that doesn't work. I think the game is meant to work with DirectX 6. Specs, if anyone is interested... Dell, MXC051, Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A02 Intel® Pentium® M Processor 1.73GHz, 1016 RAM Page File: 433 MB used, 2008 MB available DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.9094) My first thought is that the CD was bad. So I took it over to my old computer, and put the disk in there. The program installed without a hitch. I tried playing the game. The game crashed in the old school way... frozen. Only way to reset the computer is to kill the power and restart it. No CTRL ALT DEL. I then went and did what the Firaxis website said to do. Installed the Patch, ran the program, it still froze. Changed the .ini file, and ran the program and it still froze. The game plays for a short while (about 3-5 minutes), and then it completely freezes up. Oddly enough, though something I got a question to ask if I wanted to install Direct X 7, so I did. Still freezes. I tried the installation of DirectX6, but that just doesn't seem to work. Still freezes. Specs: Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (5.1 Build 2600) Processor: Intel Pentium III, ~996 MHz Memory: 254MB RAM Page file: 156MB used, 468 MB Available DirectX Version: DirectX 8.1 (4.08.01.0801) --- I've read something about "pirated software" but this is all legit stuff. My old computer was originally loaded with Windows Milennium and then upgraded to Windows XP. (I had upgraded, but I think I lost the upgrade disk, and then went out and bought Windows XP Home Edition... but that was a while ago.) The laptop came with Windows XP preinstalled. The game was purchased from Amazon. It wasn't the retail packaging, I just received the disk shrinkwrapped in a jewel case. There are no scratches on the CD and it has a serial number. Anybody have any ideas on how to get this game to run? I used to love playing it and found others that do - but they all have their old computers that they use to play it. Any help is greatly appreciated! So what on earth do I do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkibet Posted April 15, 2007 Author CID Share Posted April 15, 2007 My latest attempt was a right click and properties, then select the compatibility with Windows 95. Helped my old computer out, it seems, until it froze up, but over the 5 minute mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nos7667 Posted April 15, 2007 CID Share Posted April 15, 2007 Whens the last time youve upgraded video drivers on that old system, It could either be that your drivers are too OLD or too NEW, Some older games do not like the new drivers at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkibet Posted April 15, 2007 Author CID Share Posted April 15, 2007 Hm... I don't think I've ever updated video drivers. I did try running the program at a different resolution - I played around with the compatability tab a bit. Should I change the drivers? I'm not even sure I know how. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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