I was a bit scared this would be the case and indeed here is the dreaded bug I'm trying to fix since years(happens on xp too(atleast on my machine)

Animations of gods when they are spawning/attacking/blessing is super slow mode, and it affects the game in a negative way.It was a bug of the original game too on newer machines and it's present even in this gog version, I had hoped it wasn't present but it is...

It's king of a bummer since it changes a lot the interaction with the gods since they take forever(means you can easily defend against an attack, they also curse the buildings so slowly it's almost sad) and also it makes the game harder when you are supposed to have any help of a god since they are basically so slow they become useless most of the times...

would appreciate a fix <.<

edit: woops forgot my pc specs if it helps, already tried the basic troubleshooting if anyone was wondering, still happening <.<

intel i7-2700k overclocked around 4ghz
ati 5800HD latest drivers
8gb ram ddr3
windows 7 professional 64 bit

I want to add my support for a fix for this bug ( or at least a workaround). I already have this game on CDs and this bug is frustrating. I was planning to buy from GOG on hope that they found a fix for this bug.

If it could be of any help, I remember that on some website I had read that most of old sierra games had this type of bug that if you were running the game on a newer cpy something bugged out either in the ram handling of the game or generally it was a known bug and most of the games had it fan-fixed, I'll be honest, I have not been able to find any way to fix it in...I think 9 years, because I think everyone in the end agreed that it was a code bug or something and they decided to not work on it.

I really hope it gets fixed by gog because this is pretty major gameplay bug <.< I'll try to record a video to show how much it impacts the game but not being an expert I'll have to learn first how to make that video in a lookable way that isn't going to be 15gb of upload =P

I agree I remember last time I tried to play it, I went searching for a workaround and I tried all of them with no success.

I too was hoping that gog found a fix when I saw the release but after a bit of thinking if its a code bug, I dont believe gog has access to the game code or anyone from (whoever owns impression games now) will sit down and fix a code bug.

Only remaining hope is gog somehow find a workaround that the gaming community has not found for all these years.

Ughh, was about to buy this one but I'm glad that I have checked out the forums before.

Ok I think I found a solution. After posting here, I got excited to play Zeus again and decided to do more research. most solutions posted had to do with reverting to older drivers until problem goes away. Since I dont have the time to do that, here is what I did.

1)I downloaded the widescreen patch, check [url=]http://www.gog.com/en/forum/zeus_poseidon_acropolis/hireswidescreen_fix[/url]

2) I disabled all my VGA features (antialising off, max pre-rendered frames=0, triple buffering off and forced Vsync)

Now what happens is although animation of blessing or spawning is still slower than usual, it gets cut in the middle. So for example instead of Athena taking 10sec to spawn to kill an enemy, after 1 sec, the spawn animation is cut and switches to striking animation.

It will be great if you can give it a try and tell me if that works. Now back to playing Zeus

This slowdown bug, how new is considered a new computer? I run 32 bit windows 7 and have just 4MB ram, certainly not a power rig like many would have on here.

I'm not an official source, and I still couldn't try the workaround posted, I'm really trying to fish for a gog answer since if thy have any access to the code they will probably be able to fix it easily, since I believe many people in the years managed to understand what's the issue but couldn't find a way to fix it, while gog surely has some power in that regard.

I'd say, any pc that is not a pentium 2 is probably too new for the bug to not happen, but I have no confirmation for obvious reasons.

I'm talking about the info on this site, it's not updated about zeus or any of the newer games but if you google "sierra zeus bug" and dig a bit you'll find what I'm talking about

http://www.sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/NewTimerBugUpdates.html

By the way, has anyone tried with an xp machine(no virtual)? I found some guy that has been doing an lp that has a slowdown ONLY on when the gods appear and not in the other cases, I didn't bother him too much because mostly it's a thing either of directx(and asking people to revert to dx7 is a bit too much IMHO), drivers that is again, a huge problem since changing drivers requires cleaning + old drivers have bug with newer games, or either something which is physically tied to hardware.

I might give a try to make a partition and install a win95 which was the original system for zeus and see if the bug is present but I indeed think it's a cpu or gpu code bug, since also some of the animations of the buildings of atlantis like the commerce wharf thingie is super sped up.

I know I'm a bit being a bother here, but the game needs that fix hardcore because it really affects the game.Yeah we can run it, but it's not just the right experience for a lot of reasons <.<

Sorry guys, GOG almost never gets source code access, nor would they really have the time or hands available to go through it and fix bugs within. They make sure the games work on new machines, but if the bugs were in the original release (not game-breaking, but still there) and not patched, they may still be in the release here.

It might not change anything, but has anybody tried fiddling with Win7's compatibility options yet ?

I tried that, It didn't seem to improve anything for me. Mainly the widescreen fix, makes the game runs for normal speed with me (with all VGA card features turned off) causing that god's animation issue doesn't exist anymore for me. I have a GTX285 if that is helpful

widescreen patch didn't change animations at all to me for better or worse, everything including the buggy ones played at exactly the same working/broken speed with or without the patched app. and those gpu settings are really for d3d and above, so they should have no bearing on how this 2d game runs.

any detail on how you accomplished this, like downclocking profile or some kind of script or what? it's unplayable for me at this point.

not sure if this is a hardware or os problem. strange thing for me is that it still works fine on my 32bit xp netbook install, and while it also did at first on my main 64bit win7 rig, at some point all sprite animations other than walkers (gods/heros/buildings) just stopped playing for no apparent reason about 3 episodes in, many maps after applying the widescreen fix when I first installed it. no change to the system at all, even tried loading up previous maps that played fine before, where all animations are now frozen. this screws up all sorts of other things, from god spawning to certain building output that seems to rely on animations to produce goods.

so gods trying to spawn in just stop at the first frame and stay frozen where they are, buildings with idle animations to show they are staffed are now empty, so you can't tell if they have workers without clicking to see. urchin quay does not produce urchins at all, the worker swims to the spot and just stands there. during the hercules episode you must rely on this for your sole source of food so it's basically impossible to continue, it's game breaking.

I'm also trying to track down a fix, but I would not post all sorts of rain dances and witchcraft until I know it's working. removing drivers is not a viable solution, as it would prevent everything else from running properly.

Thanks for trying my suggestion and sorry it didn't work for you. But you are actually describing another problem, the problem I am trying to solve which OP also have is that gods do spawn slowly not freeze (and its just gods, workers, heroes are all fine). So for example by time Athena spawns and starts waving her sword, the attacking army has moved to different spot so she just kills 1 or 2 instead if normal speed she can wipe around 10 soldiers easily.

I would suggest checking zeus.heavengames.com forums as some ppl described ways to fix your problem which although sounds similar, its a totally different problem as mine is not game breaking, just makes gods less useful and also when attacking less threatening

have you tried making it run with one or two processing cores only, if you think the god clock is running too fast? this causes a crash in heroes of might and magic (you can also find instructions on how to do so in their support page).

also, you've probably already tried this, but, have you turned off visual themes, via compatability settings.