posted 03-07-99 09:05 PM ET        

Tinkering around I found that if I started the program then somehow brought up the task bar and clicked on the SMAC button, it would go ahead and start with sound! I do not know why this works but I've verified it is repeatable on my PC. Perhaps some of you who also can not get past the spash screen with sound enabled can give this a try? See if you can get to your task bar (Alt-Tab perhaps) and click on the program's entry in the task bar.

I would like to know before I buy the game if sound is fixed in it, and if not, if this trick will work? Any thoughts?

My system configuration:
Windows 98. AMD K6-2 350MHz, 128MB RAM, All SCSI, STB Velocity 4400 video card with 16MB RAM, and an Ensoniq Soundscape sound card. And no, I'm not going to buy a new sound card just for one game. The sound card works fine in all other games including those using DirectX.

I have the latest version (6.1) of DirectX installed. I also have the latest drivers made for my sound card installed. DXDIAG.EXE says the sound card driver is uncertified, but I ran through all of DXDIAG's sound tests and they all worked. Again, other DirectX games work fine.

I am disappointed to see so many problems reported on this BB. One reason Civ and Civ2 were such great games was that they were reasonably reliable. I could play for hours without a crash which was something back in the days of Civ. It is good to see a Firaxis rep. trying to help some people out here. But problems that people seem to be having just trying to start the game are unacceptable and much too frequent judging by the postings. I'm sure it's a nightmare trying to program around a flakey Microsoft operating system and sound API, not to mention the possibilities of corrupt sound drivers etc. But all I can say is you must find some tricks or whatever to resolve this. Bring up a dialog box saying sound is not available and why. Write a log file somewhere for analysis. Provide a .ini or command line switch for bypassing problem areas. But do not leave people who paid (I'm guessing $40-$50) for a game sitting there looking at the spash screen with no recourse. Other DirectX games work with sound. Make yours work too.

Here is the sound related output of DXDIAG.EXE:

The file SNDSCAPE.VXD is uncertified, which means that it has not been tested by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs. You may be able to get a certified driver from the manufacturer of the hardware device.

Your sound card does not support hardware buffering. Sounds will only play back from software buffers.