posted 03-24-99 01:04 AM ET        

It starts out great, about 4 hours into the game it begins to get noticebably slower, then from there on out it is a just a matter of time before it goes into a loop., or just FREEZES.

I had thought it was my machine (400,1meg, 10GIG), but the same happened on a 350, and a 450 with similar memory. All three ran on win98.

So, instead of just enjoying the game I suppose I would have to tweak hardware and software settings every time I sat down. Forget that!., The days of people doing that are as long gone as the days of fixing your own car before you took it on the road.

Do not waste your money. Any one who wants my copy can have it for free!

posted 03-24-99 01:13 AM ET            

Did you install patch 3.0 yet? It seems to really help some people out with the kind of problems you mention.

(Better hurry, though. GameSpot is allowing Firaxis to post the patch here only on a fee-per-download basis.)

Your machine is more than capable of running this game, and I won't give you the same crap "Oh, it's your computer's fault" that people handed me for days on end at this board.

posted 03-24-99 01:19 AM ET         

-Xenofungal Bloom-
A Great Boil of mindworms emerges and feeds on the juices of Jonothon's mind, giving him a painful death.

Now, for anyone who wants to post something like this, here's how this post should have looked.

Dear FIRAXIS,

I have been having a problem with my copy of SMAC. It is on such-and-such a computer. At such-and-such a time, it crashes. Like everybody else, I probably have not downloaded the patch. Can you help me? Also, I do not recommend anyone else buying this game.

posted 03-24-99 01:41 AM ET            

Ok, I'm wondering how many people use Windows 95 when this game freezes? Windows 98, in my opinion, is a piece of trash that shames microsot and the good name of it's windows franchise (Be, anyone?).

posted 03-24-99 01:48 AM ET            

I was making fun of Firaxis for prostituting its patch to GameSpot before posting it on their own site. That was a particularly strange thing to do in the midst of everybody's (almost everybody's) wondering why or how GameSpot gave SMAC such a high rating.

Programmers they is. Business people they aint.

As for Windows 98, I like it a lot more than 95. I have fewer crashes (sad that I call "fewer" crashes an improvement, true), the interface feels smoother, on and on...

What's your criticism of it? Of course, and let me just be the first to say, I hate Windows of all flavors--but 98 does seem better than 95 (again, that's not saying much).

posted 03-24-99 02:57 AM ET            

windows - fewer crashes ? and then blaming
firaxis for smac ? you are not able to run
your os solid and blame other companies doing a bad job ? that post explains a lot, i guess

posted 03-24-99 03:12 AM ET            

I've been playing this little game for years. Since the first Windows.

Hmmmm. Is it the program or the OS?

Through all that time, I've developed enough sense to see (most of the time) when it's a Windows problem or a problem with the program I'm trying to use.

So tell me, why does SMAC run better on my machine AFTER 3.0?

posted 03-24-99 09:43 AM ET            

After 3.0, I have a large map, 3/4 into the game with ALL the sound effects on, and it's as fast as it just began.

I think in some other thread they said it was a memory resource deallocation problem in SMAC and not Window's fault (weren't you in that thread, yin?). That would explain it clogging mid-game but being ok if you save and restart after Windows clears the resources.

posted 03-24-99 09:50 AM ET            

Since many others play the game through to completion, it must be something that is limited to a small number of systems. But what is the problem? I don't have a clue, and, short of running my system up to the local University and letting the gurus up there fiddle with it, I have no way of finding out.

All I know for sure is that I play other games to completion with no problems while I see people who can't on boards dedicated to those games, and I can't play SMAC into Transcendence but I see people here who can. All rather confusing for someone who is not a computer professional.

Instead of whining about it, trashing the game, or discouraging others, I have simply made it my personal goal to win every game before the year 2400, and hope one of their 'enhancements' fixes the problem for me.

posted 03-24-99 10:53 AM ET         

I think the biggest problem today, is that too many of the "common" people that run computers, think they know more than they actually do(like the dolts that work at CompUSA or Best Buy). Then when they start messing with their systems and f something up they lay the blame on MS or some program they are using because lord knows their all-knowingness couldn't have messed something up. Personally, I have yet to have a single problem with SMAC, nor have I ever had much of a problem on a Win95/98/NT machine. I guess I'm either lucky, or I know how to make my machine run properly.

posted 03-24-99 11:54 AM ET            

While I agreed with the majority of your post, I have to take issue with the last part.

I strongly disagree with you that it is not whining for someone to voice valid criticism of a tangible problem. I have the same problems as you do with the exception that mine start at approx 2300. I cannot play ironman games because I have to repeatedly save the game in the middle of long turns as I like to control 100% of my units. As a result, my turns sometimes take 10-20 minutes later in the game and it is best that I save during those turns.

Now, I have accepted doing this in order to continue playing the game. However, it is also fair to say that accepting something is far different from liking something. I do not like these lock ups and I especially do not like it when others condescendingly look down on me because I have them or can't correct them. Note. I am not saying that you are doing this in this particular case! However, this attitude is what usually next comes out in these threads and then the name calling and flaming is sure to follow as well.

There is one thing that I would hope you could help me out with. I repeatedly see that people blame windows and the OS as the source of various problems. I for one have never had any measurable problems with windows, the OS or any other SW packages. And I literally "use" a computer 6-8 hours a day and I have at least a 100 different programs that I use on a regular basis. Given this and the improvement in performance after installing patch 3.0, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that a number of the problems lie within the SMAC SW or it's ability to interact with the OS? If not, please educate me as to where the solution may be found. If so, isn't it reasonable to assume that Firaxis should be able to correct them once they identify them?

Jonothan,

I suggest you try installing patch 3.0 to see if it improves your enjoyment. I also suggest contacting Jeff Morris or Chris Pine at Firaxis as they have been able to help many of us find and eliminate problems. They're not always successful, but they will help you as best they can. If these solutions don't help, only you can decide whether the game is worth playing given your problems. I would encourage you to keep trying as I have personally found that this is a very good game in the long run and BR is very receptive to constructive suggestions to make the game better. For example, I harped on the inadequate airpower employed by the a/i and I just finished my first 3.0 game and the hive beat me to needlejets by 12 years. This has never happened before and I was thrilled to see it.

posted 03-24-99 12:53 PM ET            

Instead, and since I really do enjoy this game quite a bit, I try to play it to the best of my ability given the time limit restrictions that either my system or the game impose on my through unexplained crashes.

I would certainly never look down on anyone for not being able to rectify these problems, as I cannot fix them myself, and I have no idea whether to blame Windows or SMAC for them. All I know for certain, as I stated in my post above, is that the game freezes up frequently in the latter stages of play, and this causes my whole system to slow down even after SMAC has been closed.

I have no problem running other TBS games, but I'm not sure if this is significant because the ones I still have on my system are now rather outdated (read, more than one year old...sigh).

I also use Excel and Word 97 constantly and many other programs throughout the day with no problems under Win98, but by the same token, others on this board use SMAC for hours on end with no crashes. Once again, all very confusing for us common, non-computer folks to sort through.

Most of all, I would LOVE to see the Transcendance victory, but my system is apparently incapable of running a SMAC session long enough for me to pull one off, so I have to make do with repeated attempts to conquer the other factions or bully them into a diplomatic win before meltdown occurs.

Still fun, but not as fun as the game could be if I could get it run more reliably on my system. Unfortunately, like you I have no idea how to bring this about myself, and must hope for a fix from Firaxis, enjoying the game as best I can in the meantime.

posted 03-24-99 01:09 PM ET            

I kind of thought that you and I were pretty much of the same mind and I thank you for clarifying things for me. I am as well quite puzzled as to where the incompatibilities lie and I hope that patch 4.0? will help you to play the end game. I for one am very happy that conquest is not the only victory option. I just finished a game in 2340 where the only thing that I had to kill were worms. Literally, I never fought a battle against another faction even though Yang and Miriam both declared vendetta for most of the game. I was tickled to win a game like this and I expect that Transcendence will be as satisfying for you.

posted 03-24-99 11:38 PM ET            

Thanks, your post is informative, rational, and I actually almost understand it

As for drive space, my C drive has like 800mb free, SMAC is on my F drive (another 2gig partition on a second HDD) with about 400mb free on it. Surely this is enough free hard drive space?!?

If you have any ideas how to stop/prevent the memory leak I'd be happy to try them, maybe uncleroggy as well.