Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

What works

Entering in the registration key.

What does not

The rest of it.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Pretty much everything.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

I tested on Wine 1.2.2, 1.3.9, and 1.3.11, and got the same results. Running any of the following results in a series of prompts (minor, before upgrading my machine GC2 worked just fine with these errors as well), and then "x.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to close": DALaunch.exe GalCiv2.exe GC2DarkAvatar.exe GC2Launch.exe GC2TwilightOfTheArnor.exe TALaunch.exe

1.) When does this happen:

This error is thrown when the game used up all the allocated memory (RAM) and there is no more left to complete the game saving process, and results in a crash and possibly corrupted save games.

2.) Why does this happen:

It usually happens on immense galaxies with abundant planets and many races and units on the map at the same time.

Those conditions result in a huge amount of RAM being used. This game is a 32bit game, which means that it can only access a maximum of 2Gb RAM. (So no, this error is not caused by WINE)

3.) How can this be fixed / worked around:

Luckily, there are tools out there to trick 32bit applications into using 4Gb RAM (which is the maximum amount of RAM that a 32bit system can use as a whole). Even more fortunate is the fact that this game works perfectly with this "patch".

The tool can be downloaded here

Just run "wine 4gb_patch.exe {path_to_game_exe}" and that's it. The tool will automatically back up the original executable so there's no need to do that manually.

After that's done (it should be done in an instant) you can run the game just like you normally would.

4.) Possible issues:

If your system has less or exactly 4Gb RAM and your game will somehow use all of them, this might cause problems for your other applications and possibly even for your operating system, because there may not be any more RAM free for anything on your machine.

I'm not sure how Linux (or Mac) reacts when all RAM is used up, but I'd recommend closing all non-essential applications while playing this game with this path, because this game eats through your RAM like there's no tomorrow when you play on big maps.

If your system has more than 4Gb RAM then there shouldn't be any issue at all.