Questions about Windows ME and Civ games

solo · March 12, 2001, 11:51

Can someone help me solve two problems regarding the Civ games and the Windows ME interface:

1) I can not get the music to play with Civ 2.42, but keep getting the message "insert CD in CR ROM drive" when trying to pick music. The CD is in the drive, so I try my other drive. Same message. I retry the original drive with the same result. Other things work, like animated heralds. CIV.INI looks okay, as far as I can tell. This was not a problem with Windows 98, where any drive worked with MGE or ToT (before I had 2.42), whereas with Windows ME, those two are only happy on my read/write drive.
My system only has DVD and read/write CD drives. There were not any error messages while installing 2.42.

2) I've noticed many players are able to save and display screen shots from their games. How is this done? Is special software needed beyond what's provided with Windows?

SchmearWhiz · March 12, 2001, 15:28

Unforunately, I can't help you with the first problem, but to take screenshots you can press the PrintScreen key to the left of the Num/Caps lock lights and then open up Paint or some other image editing tool and press Ctrl^V to paste the screenshot in.

rah · March 12, 2001, 15:30

Just a couple of weeks ago, I converted to ME.

I also experienced the music problem

I have a dvd drive and a writeable cd drive.

I originally put the disc in the cd drive and the game fired up but no music. So I put the disc in the dvd drive and that fixed the music problem. I had no other problems. (but don't use many of the other graphics)

I know this doesn't solve your problem, but just wanted you to know that you're not the only one out there on ME.

Check to see which drive is listed first when you explore. I believe that's the one that will be checked. Our dvd drive was listed first.

RAH

Lefty Scaevola · March 12, 2001, 22:10

I have a new dell with winME preinstalled and a DVD drive & a CD-RW drive.
Civ MGE music plays fine and I can pick music and it plays fine.

Distinction A: my winME was an original factory installation.

Distiction B: most likely cause: I have on this machine a relatively recent prodution of civ2MGE, purchased in January, when I installed it, it promted me to install Indeo drivers which were included on the cd.
In december I had a civ2MGE which I had purchased last summer on the machine and it was having video & I believe audio problems. Thus I suspect the Indeo drivers are the difference.

------------------
Gaius Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pendanticus
older richer & wiser than you
Did I mention that I like spellcheckers?
[This message has been edited by Lefty Scaevola (edited March 13, 2001).]

rah · March 12, 2001, 23:41

Hey lefty, no distinction. Mine is a dell also, and it was factory installed.

Lefty Scaevola · March 13, 2001, 10:17

That leave the need for Indeo drivers (available from Intel, I believe) as the suspect.
R A H, "converted" led me to believe you have installed over an earlier O.S., which I had read on these boards can cause stability problems with windows and games.
[This message has been edited by Lefty Scaevola (edited March 14, 2001).]

rah · March 13, 2001, 10:38

Yeah, when i went back to read it, I thought the same thing

RAH

Lefty Scaevola · March 13, 2001, 14:24

Perhaps you were using "converted" in a religious sense, and you are now a disciple of Bill Millenium Gates.
My new machine with winME only pretends to be off. When supposedly shut down it still show up on the network router to be on. Is this an insidious plot to betray me when I am not watching it, or is there some other reason for the Ethernet card in the puter to remain powered up?

Lefty Scaevola · March 14, 2001, 12:32

Solo? Have your tried getting the Indeo drivers yet?

solo · March 15, 2001, 14:45

Thanks for all the replies!

SchmearWhiz - Alas, my print screen key does not seem to work either! I hope HP can solve this problem for me, then I can try what you suggest. I would not have thought of trying it as you say, so thanks for the tip!

rah - My experience with MGE was similar to what happened to you. Maybe my problem is because I installed 2.42 AFTER installing MGE and ToT, since I loaded everything that was suggested, when installing 2.42.

LeftyScaevola & Blaupanzer - Indeo drivers may be the culprit, if there are different versions supplied with 2.42 and MGE. My system is an HP with WIN ME installed, but I have an older machine I updated from Win 98 to ME, and had the exact same thing happen with 2.42 on it, too.

I really have to wonder how Mr. Gates amassed all those billions with such a flaky operating system, as I have had numerous problems with Microsoft software. Having previously managed a DEC (now COMPACT, I guess) computer system with VAX/VMS, maybe I was spoiled by its stability and reliability. I am not so knowledgeable about PC's and especially Windows, so thanks to all of you for sharing your insights.

Lefty Scaevola · March 15, 2001, 15:19

I believe I have a URL to the Indeo drivers download from Intel at another location, I will try and post it later.

Blaupanzer · March 16, 2001, 01:07

Wife recently purchased an HP with ME as the OS. Although I use a different PC as "my" machine, I loaded 2.42 on her machine to play while I'm compiling and such. The complete set of videos and the music associated with 2.42 works with the CIV CD in either drive (CD - 48 spd and CD/R). No Indeo drivers to be found. (Maybe it's peculiar to Dell.) If its a CD read problem (due to the DVD drive), you can switch which devices are master and slave, or are primary and secondary on your SCSI by going into setup. (Don't try this if the above sentence looks like gibberish. Making the DVD drive secondary can cause all kinds of negative consequences if you are not used to playing in the BIOS.)

solo · March 16, 2001, 14:41

SchmearWhiz - Print Screen works for me now thanks to your tip and some more experimentation. My mistake was expecting something to happen right away with my printer when I pressed the prt scr key, which is what used to happen to me when first using DOS on IBM PC's before windows was around. I did not know the contents of the screen were being magically inserted into a temporary bitmap file that could be pasted into paint later. It would have been nicer (I think they call it "user friendly") if Windows had let me know what it actually did when I pressed the key. So often windows does something silently on its own that is not the obvious or logically expected result. To me it seems that "prt scr" should mean "print what is on the screen when I press this key", but who am I to know what is best?

Lefty Scaevola · March 17, 2001, 00:29

Indeo drivers at
http://www.ligos.com/indeo/
This is in the read me for the 1.3 patch for MGE

[This message has been edited by Lefty Scaevola (edited March 16, 2001).]

solo · March 17, 2001, 21:59

Lefty - I've been experimenting with my game CD's for 2.42 and MGE. If I start either game without a CD in the drive, one is requested. Either game will accept either CD and then fire up.

With MGE, I could pick music with the MGE CD, but with the 2.42 CD it says "insert CIV II CDROM or CIV Multiplayer CDROM, etc." into the drive, even though the CIV II CDROM is there! MGE is advertised to work with either CD.

With 2.42, when you go to pick music, it says "insert CIV II CDROM to pick music". Neither CD works, when inserted.

Hmm. Maybe there's something wrong with my CIV II CD or with my version of Windows ME. I kind of doubt it's an INDEO thing since MGE works and it uses INDEO, too.

I think what I will do is get my tape recorder out, record some of my favorite music off MGE, and just listen to this when using 2.42!

Many thanks for your input and assistance, though.