Disable Full-Screen Movies?

from Stardock Forums
My GC crashes whenever it tries to play a full-screen movie.

I've followed the directions for getting new codecs and installing the Bink / Smacker player, and the files are associated correctly so that if I open the file from Windows the Bink player plays it.

The problem seems to be the full-screen mode. The first frame of the movie is displayed, the system locks up for a while, then some time later GalCiv resumes its screen mode and continues running as if it had played the movie.

Is there a way to tell GalCiv not to play the "big" movies in full-screen mode?
3,592 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I get this exact problem myself, and I have an even more bizzare solution: I run Civilization III before GC. Nothing major, just enough to enter then exit CivIII, but that solves the full screen movie lockup problem. It doesn't actually fix them, it just goes completely black and lets you skip the movie by clicking. Smaller, non-fullscreen movies play normally.

It smells like some sort of ommitted initialization of the movie player, something that CivIII does but GC doesn't.

Then again, my system is quirky anyway- I can run one DirectX app just fine, but after that, all bets are off. Some programs come up minus graphics. Others are horribly garbled, display multiple offset images of the same screen, or just all black. It can occasionally lock up the app, forcing me to ctrl-alt-del to kill it. Sometimes they just plain crash with a complaint about dxhelp.dll, or something along those lines...



~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I have the same sorts of problems, particularly any program that uses my 3D card will cause the next program that uses 3D to crash unless I reboot.

You wouldn't happen to be using an Nvidia 3D card, would you?
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Funny, I have that exact problem, and that exact brand of card (Nvidia GeForce2 MX400 to be percise). Latest drivers and DirectX 9.0 on the software side. The card may simply be too old for the leanest and meanest, but DirectX can't be downgraded short of an OS reinstall...

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, I just upgraded to a GeForce FX 5500, and I still have the same problem. Oddly, once (I haven't been able to repeat it) I started GC after some time spent doing other things, and the intro animations actually played! However, it then promptly blackscreened on the start menu, and I was only able to reset my comp. It went right back to the Bounce CivIII -> Play GC minus fullscreen movies behavior.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Whoot! Finally got it working, along with a ton of other programs that use DirectX- My system is now working almost normally. I simply zipped over to good old Nvidia's website and got their latest driver files (ver 77.72, had been using ver 66.94). The upgrade has greatly improved compatibility.

I can now start GC normally, without using the Civ III "bounce", and the full screen movies play properly. I can also run a great many other DirectX apps that use frequent screen resizing. If you've still got that problem, a driver upgrade would appear to be the solution. Oh, and don't worry about not finding your exact card's drivers- they now make one multicard driver, just check the release notes to be sure your card is in the list, though anything newer than a GeForce2 MX should be fine.