I just updated to ATi/AMD driver 13.9 and so far no problems. I noticed there is a notice on the game page that it requires driver 13.4 or OLDER for ATI gpu.. Will most people have to roll back drivers to play Alpha Centauri? What kind of problems if any should I expect? Will there be a fix so that roll backs are not needed?
Thanks in advance
Has anyone finished a game on drivers newer than 13.4
Perhaps GoG can comment on what changed?

guess not.

I'm also interested in what's wrong, and may be able to help write a hack to get around the problem..

I would like to know too.

I am wondering whether the menu being like a redacted top secret file has anything to do with this or if that is just a different problem altogether.

still no word..but some interest at least!

Here's something that may be related: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=377796

Maybe there's some problems with the video playback or something? It would be nice if the friendly folk at GOG would tell us..

Since you don't do this for all driver versions of all graphics cards, there must be some issue - what kind of problems are you seeing? Or are just random people reporting "it doesn't work"?

So, apparently it's a case of "rainbow colors". Apparently amd changed something in their drivers that broke 8 bit palette mode somehow.

If I remember correctly, SMAC is a weird GDI/ddraw hybrid thingy, so my ddhack approach won't work (at least directly).. I haven't tested it myself (yet), I guess I could dig up my SMAC cd's and install it on my wife's PC to see what the problem looks like first-hand..

Just downloaded the latest from AMD (graphic drivers) for my HD5850. Took it for a very quick spin (10 mins) and it seems to be OK so far...from what I can tell. I am color blind....but there are no splotchy graphics thus far.
If you find anything new out or develop a needed hack keep us posted! I will check back from time to time.

I was using 13.9 since release until I just picked this game up and tried to play it. The graphics were all psychedelic rainbow colors for both the menu and everything in-game. No combination of settings on the shortcut helped.

Figued I would try 13.12 before doing the suggested rollback to 13.4. As such, 13.12 is working 100% for me at the moment without fiddling with any shortcut settings. I did notice the compatibility tab had "Disable display scaling..." checked by default and I did not change that.

Upgrading to 13.12 from 13.9 worked for me as well on my HD 7790. Display scaling is also disabled.

Alpha Centauri works fine on my HD 7850. I updated the drivers 6-7 months ago. I had the rainbow colors issue first, but I fixed it by editing something in the ddraw-file.