posted 02-24-99 01:29 PM ET     

In searching through the various posts on this subject, none seem to quite match my situtation, which is as follows:

I have two distinct problems, namely stuttering and the movie clips.

1) Stuttering. I am about ready to pull out my hair if I hear "Terra-Terra-Terraform complete". This sort of problem does seem to be most likely to occur when there is noticable amount of disk activity.

2) Movie Clips. I have absolutely no idea what is going on here. Last night, I built three secret projects. First, the Citizens Defence Force ran with only a slight pause after the first few seconds ( loading the rest of the project perhaps, but nothing enough to complain about ). Next was the Weather Paradigm - what a disaster! Half second of garbled sound and image movement, pause for half second, repeat until ESC key hit in disgust. Then to round everything off, I build the Command Nexus, and that played just fine! What is going on here?

Summary of my system:

P200 w/32MB of RAM
AD sound card
Custom install ( chose sound files, but not movies )
Direct X 6.0 ( have not downloaded anything )

As there appears to be no Analog Devices web page, I don't have the luxury of getting new drivers per se. I did get some from a third party site that worked just fine for Baldur's Gate. I've also examined the situation with DxDialog, and while the drivers are not certified ( no big shock there ), what I do have passes the DirectSound test.

I would very much appreciate any help on this matter, as well as any opinion on whether I have a strong enough machine to see through a full game without becoming a lethargic exercise in slow moving tedium. While I very much like this game and it's potential, if I cannot get SMAC to work properly on my machine, I will ( with regret ) have to return it, and I only have a couple more days to do so.