SMAC classic hanging under Windows 2000?

Lee Johnson · June 11, 2001, 11:36

Has anybody else seen this happen? My solo and MP games of SMAC 4.0 are prone to hanging in the middle of a turn--but not every turn. When this occurs, my whole system locks up. I have disabled sound; it didn't make any difference.

I'm open to suggestions for further things I might try. Thanks!

Fitz · June 11, 2001, 11:50

Windows 2000 doesn't support many video games, especially ones that require DirectX. You have a few limited choices:

1) Wait for Windows XP and install that instead. It will intergrate the final components needed to support graphically intense games.

2) install windows ME.

3) install windows 98.

That's about it. AFAIK there is no way to get Windows 2000 to do DirectX support. So you know, I got this info last saturday at my Windows 2000 MCSE class, so it should be correct.

karlmarx9001 · June 11, 2001, 12:16

I've ran both the original and expansion pack games for a few weeks under windows 2000 professional with nary a problem. It's probably a driver or windows update patch level thing.

2000 does "support" directx, there's just a few games that are written to a 98-specific API. SMAC isn't one of them, though.

So far, for reference, I've played all these games under 2000 professional with nary a hitch:

Railroad Tycoon II
Unreal Tournament
Quake III
Anarchy Online
Europa Universalis
Everquest
Asheron's Call
Freespace II
X-Wing Alliance
Planescape: Torment
.....

You get the picture.

Lee Johnson · June 11, 2001, 15:11

Quote:

AFAIK there is no way to get Windows 2000 to do DirectX support. So you know, I got this info last saturday at my Windows 2000 MCSE class, so it should be correct.

That's nuts. I hope you're not footing the bill for your course, because your instructor appears to have a less-than-complete command of the facts. I have DirectX 8.0a installed on my Windows 2000 system, and it runs everything I throw at it... Except SMAC, which falls down a lot.

I'd have to agree with Karl that it smells like a device driver problem. I'll play with various video drivers (GeForce2 GTS) and see whether SMAC's behaviour improves.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, though.

Lee Johnson · June 11, 2001, 15:13

Karl, are you running SP2?

Lefty Scaevola · June 11, 2001, 16:31

There is a collection of game compatibility updates at the win2K site, IIRC including s specific one for smac. I think the URL below gets there, although it does not include smac in the list. it is possible there is another set of compability updates there. I remeber encountering a link to smac compatibility update to that site last year.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...at/default.asp

karlmarx9001 · June 12, 2001, 00:13

Yeah, I'm using SP2, but I didn't have any problems under SP1, either.

johndmuller · June 12, 2001, 15:13

I have also seen the reference to SMAC in the "compatibility upgrades" stuff. It is my understanding that they are cumulative; that is, if you get the latest one, it will have the previous versions adjustments in it as well. It is a fairly modest size, about 330K, tiny compared to the SP's.

I have the beta of W2K, but the video driver for my system is unstable so I'd have to use *cringe* 640x480 (the basic VGA driver) *end cringe* and I don't know if it would accept the compatiobililty upgrades, being just the beta. So I don't believe I'll be tempted to try it

I was thinking of loading SMAC/X on a machine running NT4, with all the SPs (I think up to SP6a, which I believe is the latest (or last)). Does anyone remember what the institutional memory on SMAC/X-NT4 is? The archives are in some kind of limbo at the moment and all I could find with a search was an implication that SMAC at least was do-able (I presume with funkey sound and possibly other limitations). In particular, I wondered if I needed to go looking for the NT4 version of something resembling those compatibility upgrades or if there were any other considerations that would keep me from wasting too much (more) time or pulling out too much (more) hair.

Thanks

Lee Johnson · July 11, 2001, 10:10

I have concluded that the problems I am having with SMAC and Alien Crossfire are the result of some kind of hardware conflict in my system. Not only does the game periodically hang in Windows 2000, it hangs in Windows XP RC1, hangs in Windows ME, and hangs in Windows 98. I thought at first that it might be a driver problem, but given that 98 uses a different driver model than ME/2000/XP, I began to think that the problems went all the way down to the hardware.

I have also observed that the problem occurs much more frequently when playing multiplayer games of SMAC over the 'net. Under those circumstances, the game will usually lock up my system within five or ten turns. Needless to say, this is not a way to make oneself popular with one's friends. Fortunately, my SMAC buddy is a patient fellow.

My rig is an Athlon 900 running on an Abit KT7 motherboard. Thanks to the excellent KT7 FAQ, I became suspicious of my network interface (Ethernet) card, and the fact that it has been forced to share an IRQ with another card on the PCI bus. Normally, this should not be a problem with PCI cards, but some NICs are apparently troublemakers in this regard. So I rearranged the cards in the system so that the NIC has an IRQ all to itself.

After making this change, I was able to play SMAC for a whole hour under Windows 2000 last night without experiencing a crash. While this is hardly conclusive evidence, I am looking forward to testing the setup in a multiplayer game. The fact that the hangs have been much more frequent in MP play does suggest the involvement of the NIC, which is quite busy during an MP SMAC game.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Lee Johnson · July 12, 2001, 10:40

Argh. It looked good for awhile. My buddy and I got through 25 turns, when we usually don't manage more than five or ten. I was about to declare the exercise a success when--you guessed it--my system locked up, same as ever.

Oh, well. I'm going to start pulling cards tonight and see whether that helps.