Game will not load past the splash screen any ideas? (see ..

I'm hoping that someone has encountered this before or might know what is
causing this...

I bought Civilization III and installed it on a 64mb machine and it worked
fine. Recently I install another 256mb of RAM to a total of 320mb. At the
same time, I also installed a new 52x CD-RW drive. Since these changes, I can
attempt to start Civ3 and the initial "splash" screen will appear and then
immediately disappear but at no point in time does the game attempt to start
past this splash screen.

The scenario editor works fine. My new CD-RW drive works fine & my other
games work fine as well.

System Specs:
Compaq Presario
Windows Millenium Edition
40gb HDD
320mb DDR RAM (originally 64mb)
8mb NVIDIA TNT2 Video Card
52x32x52 Pacific Digital CD-RW (originally the factory Compaq CD-ROM)



I have...

Made sure the CD is in the drive.

I have physically checked the game disk and it doesn't have a scratch or mark
on it.

Tried to start the game from the desktop shortcut and the CD itself.

Uninstalled the game (and completely removed the game's registry entries) and
then reinstalled.

Tried with both the original, unpatched version of the game & then with the
latest patch.

I have also ripped the game using Alcohol 120% and attempted to play via the
virtual drive but still have the same results.

Updated the display driver.

Updated the audio driver.

Updated the ASPI layer

Checked the CD-RW's DMA (and other) settings

Run diagnostics on DirectX 9.0c

and uninstalled both the new RAM & new CD-RW drive (reverting the hardware
back to where it was when the game had worked)

I have tried all of the steps above in a number of different combinations but
nothing has worked. I am open to suggestions and am hoping for any ideas. I
love this game and it's very aggrevating not being able to play it.

Aside from the CivFanatics forum, does anyone know where else I might be able
to find info on this problem?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

~ Theta Sigma

"Theta Sigma" <thetasigma RemoveThis @home.com> wrote in message
news:hk5Zd.44707$%Y4.6639@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
> I'm hoping that someone has encountered this before or might know what is
> causing this...
>
> I bought Civilization III and installed it on a 64mb machine and it worked
> fine. Recently I install another 256mb of RAM to a total of 320mb. At the
> same time, I also installed a new 52x CD-RW drive. Since these changes, I
can
> attempt to start Civ3 and the initial "splash" screen will appear and then
> immediately disappear but at no point in time does the game attempt to
start
> past this splash screen.
>
> The scenario editor works fine. My new CD-RW drive works fine & my other
> games work fine as well.
>
> System Specs:
> Compaq Presario
> Windows Millenium Edition
> 40gb HDD
> 320mb DDR RAM (originally 64mb)
> 8mb NVIDIA TNT2 Video Card
> 52x32x52 Pacific Digital CD-RW (originally the factory Compaq CD-ROM)
>
>
>
> I have...
>
> Made sure the CD is in the drive.
>
> I have physically checked the game disk and it doesn't have a scratch or
mark
> on it.
>
> Tried to start the game from the desktop shortcut and the CD itself.
>
> Uninstalled the game (and completely removed the game's registry entries)
and
> then reinstalled.
>
> Tried with both the original, unpatched version of the game & then with
the
> latest patch.
>
> I have also ripped the game using Alcohol 120% and attempted to play via
the
> virtual drive but still have the same results.
>
> Updated the display driver.
>
> Updated the audio driver.
>
> Updated the ASPI layer
>
> Checked the CD-RW's DMA (and other) settings
>
> Run diagnostics on DirectX 9.0c
>
> and uninstalled both the new RAM & new CD-RW drive (reverting the hardware
> back to where it was when the game had worked)
>
> I have tried all of the steps above in a number of different combinations
but
> nothing has worked. I am open to suggestions and am hoping for any ideas.
I
> love this game and it's very aggrevating not being able to play it.
>
> Aside from the CivFanatics forum, does anyone know where else I might be
able
> to find info on this problem?
>
> Any help will be greatly appreciated.
>
> ~ Theta Sigma

Well, you tried my suggestion of reverting back to the original config.
But with all those changes, have you ran scandisk, defrag, did virus check,
and a spyware check?
Can you do anything else when this happens? Is the computer totally locked
up?
My computer did things like that on occasion before I upgraded from 256mb to
512mb ram. I always ran my checks and started the game with a fresh reboot.
Usually worked fine after that. Sometimes I had to disable a bunch of
non-essential stuff from the startup routine.