We have not changed the sound or music code for several versions of Gal Civ.  I don't know why, but people sometimes suddenly start having problems with the sound after they upgrade to a new version. 

The latest update to Gal Civ multimedia contains resampled mp3s to the format that our mp3 player likes the best, so this should cut down a lot of problems that people have with the sound.

About 90% of problems with frequent crashes are due to problems with your sound codecs or drivers and our mp3 player not playing nice.

Here are some things that you can try to get your sound working again:

1) Update your sound drivers if there is a newer version.  Re-install if you don't have a newer version.

2) If you don't have the latest version of DirectX installed, update it.  Also run dxdiag and do all the sound tests to make sure that there are no problems.

3) http://www.stardock.com/files/ms_mp3codec.exe - this link will re-install Microsoft's default system codecs.  Sometimes other programs install their own buggy versions of these codecs and overwrite them.

4) Run Windows update.  I'm pretty sure that there's an update that addresses static in games.

5) http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm - this is a link to the download page for the bink tools.  If another program like QuickTime has taken over your bink associations, that could cause problems with the sound. Installing the bink tools should reclaim the associations.

6) As I mentioned in #3, some programs install buggy mp3 codecs.  These can also cause crashes.  Windows Media Player is always safe.  WinDVD and Winamp3 are known to have buggy codecs.  Updating to newer versions of these programs may help if they've fixed their codecs.  You probably don't need to try un-installing these programs unless you are getting frequent crashes as well as the static. 

We have a program called SmartException under the Free Stuff tab in Stardock Central that will often catch the file that is causing the crash and report it in a file named GalCiv.exe.cra

7) Make sure that the mp3s play in another media player without the static.  If you're still getting static, you may need to re-install the multimedia.

8) Try starting Gal Civ with a shortcut that points directly at Gal Civ, not through the GCMenu that is installed by the CD.  The flash autoplay program opens up a sound channel that it doesn't close before Gal Civ opens.

9) Intel Application Accelerator has been known to cause crashes with certain chipsets.  Updating to a newer version may solve the problem, but in some cases it must be un-installed.

carielf@stardock.com

Crashes can also be caused by bink files missing a few bytes off the end of the file, usually caused by some kind of problem while the files are being installed.  These are the filesizes for the Gal Civ bink files associated with the aliens, the most likely to cause what seem to be random crashes when the game tries to bring up the UP or an alien asking for a trade.

3,444,880 1_trade00.bik
3,667,600 1_trade01.bik
3,442,796 1_trade02.bik
2,968,160 2_trade00.bik
1,613,752 2_trade01.bik
1,495,952 2_trade02.bik
3,340,512 3_trade00.bik
3,345,224 3_trade01.bik
3,335,052 3_trade02.bik
2,979,484 4_trade00.bik
2,760,968 4_trade01.bik
3,003,348 4_trade02.bik
2,466,732 5_trade00.bik
3,577,556 5_trade01.bik
3,536,040 5_trade02.bik

galciv\gfx

3,720,016 UPRace01_00.bik
6,911,340 UPRace02_00.bik
3,915,776 UPRace03_00.bik
3,104,800 UPRace04_00.bik
6,815,640 UPRace05_00.bik

AltarianProphecy\movies

1,090,440 6_trade00.bik
1,090,284 6_trade01.bik
1,090,088 6_trade02.bik
1,090,280 7_trade00.bik
1,090,700 7_trade01.bik
1,090,380 7_trade02.bik

What version are you playing?

There may be some lingering problems caused by Terror Stars destroying stars that are part of a trade route, but the most recent version is the best. 

Sarcerok and Lord KiRon, not sure how I missed replying to your posts.  If either of you read this, please send me your debug.err file and a dxdiag report.

8146, you have mail from me requesting a debug.err file and other information.

My e-mail is carielf@stardock.com

moss icon:

1) Did you install Altarian Prophecy to its own directory? If you overwrote the GalCiv directory, you'll definitely get crashes.

2) Have you updated Gal Civ to 1.21?

If the answer to both of these is yes, e-mail me your debug.err file and a dxdiag report. Also please make sure that you either reference this link or sufficiently identify yourself and your problem so that I know what I'm talking about. That way, I won't have to e-mail you and ask you who you are and what you need.

1) Please don't spam this thread or any others.

2) I'm going to need more info than that.  Have you followed all the directions in this thread? What Version of Gal Civ are you using? If you haven't upgraded, you should try that.

You can get the latest version here:

  http://storage.stardock.com/files/stardockcentral20.exe

If you are using a translated version of Gal Civ, there are often errors made in the data files during translation which can have bad effects.  You can use your serial number to get the full English version from Stardock Central.

Also, please run dxdiag and send the report to me along with your debug.err file.

carielf@stardock.com

If the last line in your debug.err file is Debug Message:  AIAltarian: Set Colony Social,

then I already fixed it and it'll be in the next update (and I don't know what that's going up yet.)