Firaxis promise SMAC update!

Clear Skies · June 21, 2002, 10:31

An update for SMAC to allow it to run under Win2000/XP has been announced by Firaxis.

Of course, what WE all loyal SMAC gamers want to know is, why then can they not spend some time bringing out another patch and fixing some of those irritating bugs?

Comstr · June 21, 2002, 10:38

That seems a strange idea. Go to the time to work with a new OS, but leave some of the bugs in? Where was this announced, and can Apolyton get enough preassure to get them to fix them?

Hmm, only reason they would be doing it is if Smac was STILL selling in some number after all these years? Why else would they do it?

MarkG · June 21, 2002, 12:00

Quote:

Why else would they do it?

cause they are really nice people?

Mongoose · June 21, 2002, 12:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Comstr
Hmm, only reason they would be doing it is if Smac was STILL selling in some number after all these years? Why else would they do it?

Or maybe they intend to use the engine again and would have to adapt it to XP anyway. A little goodwill now, a new game...whenever? Possible?

RedFred · June 21, 2002, 13:51

Is this from the Firaxis website or a news item somewhere else? Anybody have the link?

Clear Skies · June 21, 2002, 13:58

It's right up there on the articles list...

Direct link is simply http://apolyton.net/misc/

Jamski · June 21, 2002, 14:41

It is still selling, believe me. I bought a copy last week.

Adalbertus · June 22, 2002, 01:40

I cannot really buy into this stuff. Why should they want to make a compatibility update of SMAC when they apparently don't want to sell SMAX any more (which apparently contains the last fixes also for SMAC)?

Comstr · June 22, 2002, 04:27

After checking out the site, I've never read that there was a problem with XP/2000 with Smac in the 1st place?

And they seemed not have patched SMG any furhter, so it looks like ther're being cheap about it.

Ogie Oglethorpe · June 22, 2002, 18:02

Adalbertus,

Firaxis I beleive would like nothing more than to continue selling SMAX. The decision to not do another print and release lies solely with the publisher. For whatever reason EA (I believe) chose not to continue distributing the game.

Shame if you ask me.

Og

Cesa · June 22, 2002, 18:19

I haven't had any problems under neither 2k nor XP. Does anyone know of any reported problems?

Sikander · June 24, 2002, 21:10

Check back a little while, there are several threads where people have been having a tough time getting SMAC to run with these operating systems. As I am still running 95 and 98 respectively, I haven't paid much attention.

Googlie · June 26, 2002, 09:50

There is apparently a compatibility problem with XP and AXstart.

I never had that, but then I use the no-cd crack for both smac and smax, which shortcuts right to the .exe program. That's apparently worked for some others with XP problems.

Major problem I have with XP is the edge-of-map freeze. Manually move a unit to any of the top (or bottom) row of tiles and the game freezes if you try to have that unit interact with anything else (another unit, Unity Seedpod, etc). Only solution we've found is to put it on automatic for that move and the AI takes it and moves it, then one can resume control and play again.

None of the other usual suspect crashes, though. No interceptor bug (may be more of a memory size isseu, though).

G.

fluffy · June 26, 2002, 11:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Googlie
None of the other usual suspect crashes, though. No interceptor bug (may be more of a memory size isseu, though).

Are you saying interceptors do not crash the program when intercepting in your XP setup?

I don't think it is a memory issue - more to do with win98 wheel mouse driver?

DilithiumDad · June 26, 2002, 14:44

I have not had any problems with SMAC in XP. Have not tried SMAX, though.

Claw919 · June 26, 2002, 15:07

No crashes for me (well, no more than there were under 9x anyway) under Windows 2000 either.

Nubclear · June 29, 2002, 18:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Claw919
No crashes for me (well, no more than there were under 9x anyway) under Windows 2000 either.

Crahses for me on XP, always. This happend with nearly every TBS game....Civ2, 3, AC, AX....Another reason why I switched back to 98.

Maniac · June 29, 2002, 18:09

Tassadar, have you already tried opening the Alpha Centauri.ini file and switching ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0 to 1?

Nubclear · June 29, 2002, 18:12

Quote:

Originally posted by M@ni@c
Tassadar, have you already tried opening the Alpha Centauri.ini file and switching ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0 to 1?

Yes.

I think its a problem with XP. Almost every TBS game crashes no matter what, usually by the computer reading the CD-ROM drive, autoplay coming up, and then kernel32.dll crashing.

But this could partly be caused by the fact that I upgraded instead of doing a clean install. That could have some potienally serious problems, but I'm not going to clean install. I have a compaq (That could also be a problem too....) and formatting all of the paritions would keep me from getting 98 back in the case that I need it.

Googlie · June 30, 2002, 07:58

Quote:

Originally posted by fluffy

Are you saying interceptors do not crash the program when intercepting in your XP setup?

Right - I never disabled the wheelmouse from any of my rigs - just too convenient to give up, especially in smac/x for scrolling down base lists, workshop, etc.

My previous desktop (a P3 running win98, 256 memory) and my current laptop (P3 winME, 128 memory) both suffer from the occasional interceptor bug. never had it (since last November) in my current rig (P4, winXP, 512 memory)

Hence my comment that I thought it might be a memory issue.

G.

johndmuller · July 1, 2002, 02:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Tassadar5000
I think its a problem with XP. Almost every TBS game crashes no matter what, usually by the computer reading the CD-ROM drive, autoplay coming up, and then kernel32.dll crashing.

If the autorun is really the problem, I think that can be disabled in the operating system somehow. I did a quick search on the MS knowledge base (key of "disable cd autorun") and got this reference: http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q155217 ; it is supposedly good for NT4 and Win2K, but may reasonably be expected to also work for XP - or you could look through the knowledge base a little more closely.

Personally, I'd be more suspicious of the classic culprits, directX or sound and video drivers. I know from personal experience that newer is not always better in this area, so don't rule out trying older drivers or ones for NT4 or Win2K.

fluffy · July 1, 2002, 09:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Googlie
Right - I never disabled the wheelmouse from any of my rigs - just too convenient to give up, especially in smac/x for scrolling down base lists, workshop, etc.

My previous desktop (a P3 running win98, 256 memory) and my current laptop (P3 winME, 128 memory) both suffer from the occasional interceptor bug. never had it (since last November) in my current rig (P4, winXP, 512 memory)

Hence my comment that I thought it might be a memory issue.

I have W98 with 512M, but get the crashes - the conclusion may be that XP has solved whatever was crashing SMAC, which would be great news if it is true!

dunk · July 3, 2002, 09:38

SMAC runs fine on my machine. I have Windows 2000. I like Windows 2000. No more blue screens.

Proserpine · July 6, 2002, 18:31

This is good news - if true - b'cos I have been unable to get SMAC to run at all under XP (Wind2000 no problem).

I'm going to try a couple of ideas I have seen here. I miss that game!

There is a message somewhere (can't remember now whether Firaxis or EA) which states specifically that SMAC was not designed to run under XP and there are no plans to support it.

I have seen the post in poly/misc, but have not been able to find any confirmation. Any more info. on this?

Ned · July 8, 2002, 23:20

I get the edge unit crash and the interceptor scramble crash. I was just now checking back in to see if these problems have been solved, but I guess they have not.

In recent weeks, I have also been getting a very large echo - about a second delay - on voice overs.

Is there a way of disabling the wheelmouse in XP? This might affect the interceptor scramble problem.

Jeremy Buloch · July 11, 2002, 13:52

Does anyone know when the firaxis patch will come out?

-J.B.-

Jeremy Buloch · July 13, 2002, 18:01

Never mind I found out.

-J.B.-

Simple Girl · July 16, 2002, 14:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeremy Buloch
Never mind I found out.

-J.B.-

Care to share?

Jeremy Buloch · July 16, 2002, 16:47

The Firaxis team is developing a patch and it's currently a beta version so hopefully it'll be out soon. They said whenever they feel it's time they will release it.
You can read this thread and here the discussion yourself.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=55209
-J.B.-

Geez · September 13, 2002, 14:06

"opening the Alpha Centauri.ini file and switching ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0 to 1?"

This worked for me under Win2000 Pro after downloading Service Pack 3 and installing all updates.

Thanks!