Does anyone have a laptop that DOESN'T have the cheshire cat/dark terrain problem?

I was thinking of getting a new computer anyways, but I really want a laptop...

I've got a dell inspirom and a dell latitude. same problem on both

I've got a dell inspirom and a dell latitude. same problem on both

I have the same problem....

My hardware:
HP Pavilion ze4600 Series Laptop
Mobile AMD Athlon XP-M Processor 2500+
768MB RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon 4X AGP and 3D Architecture
64MB DDR Video Memory

I have looked at the Firaxis and 2K websites, but no information yet. But it seems that there are enough problems that they are going to have to release a patch pretty soon...

With the T&L Video requirement, there is no simple "go buy a new video card" solution, so I would expect we are doomed :(

The ATI problem is common, not just to laptops. There is a thread posted somewhere in eather Civ4 Tech help or Civ4 General Discussion.

The ATI problem is common, not just to laptops. There is a thread posted somewhere in eather Civ4 Tech help or Civ4 General Discussion.

The ATI problem is not the problem minger is describing here. The ATI problem (which does not allow gameplay at all, even with video cards that meet the minimum specs) seems to be being addressed by Firaxis. The Cheshire Cat/Dark Terrain problem (where it's possible to enter the game, and play, but you can't SEE much of anything) seems to be more likely to happen on video cards that don't support T&L, but is not limited to video cards that don't support T&L.

some expensive laptops have nice gfx such as radeon 9600/9700; x600/x700/x800
nv geforce 5600/6600/6800

however most of us have either intel integrated, gf4mx, gf5 5200fx, radeon 200m, radeon 300m, all of those are low end.

Dell Inspiron 700m, about four months old - Cheshire Cat
HP/Compaq nc8000 - seems to work so far (ATI Mobility Radeon 9600), but I needed the newest drivers. Haven't gotten very far, so don't know if it'll bomb out on me later yet.

I've got 2 dell laptops that won't run it with intel integrated video 8xx series. Maybe the 9xx series would, but I can't afford a new machine right now.

Can't play it on my Inspiron 1150.

This guy was able to get it to work on his laptop but NOT his desktop:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133179

The problem is not necessarily with all laptops. I have a Dell Inspiron 600m with a Radeon Mobility 9000 that works OK most of the time. What I mean by that is this: the game loads and plays fine. Nothing seems to be missing or dark (other than the unexplored territory).

Every once in a while the system slows to a crawl. If I save the game and reload it, everything returns to normal. Not sure if that's a video issue or some service on my computer eating up CPU cycles.

Shepherdboy

yeah, I saw that, but I have not seen a post from anyone who could run the thing without T&L. I'm a computer guy, and had never seen that requirement before now, but apparenty it is commom???

yeah, I saw that, but I have not seen a post from anyone who could run the thing without T&L. I'm a computer guy, and had never seen that requirement before now, but apparenty it is commom???

This is the first modern game that I've run into that is unplayable on my laptop (wetrix is unplayable, but it's because it causes my computer to crazy overheat). I don't do the FPS type games, though.

I believe I've seen a few posts around from people who don't have T&L who have had no problems. Most people that aren't having problems, though, aren't going to be sitting here on the forums, though - they're going to be off playing their game.

Hmmm...I'm tempted to see what I can scrounge up as a video card that meets the requirements except for the T&L and swap my husband's video card out, since his system is running flawlessly. I'm not sure what we might have that falls into that grey area, though - everything we have is extremely old or fairly new.

If you stumble on any of the posts from people with no T&L, let me know! I've missed those. I have a laptop, so there won't be any swapping....

I completely lucked out for once and the game plays on my Dell Latitude 510 w/ 1.8 pentium 4 and 512 megs of memory. The T and L crap was making me nervous, but i got the game installed and played it for about 10 hours straight...the game does get a bit slow in the modern era, but i suppose i could turn the resolution down some.

I believe that one comes with ATI on board. You totally lucked out!

No problems with a Toshiba Qosmio laptop here...

GFX card is a Geforce 6600 GO.

No problems with my Gateway laptop, unsure of model.

HP zv6000 series. Runs the game fine. It has an ATI video card and I haven't had any problems. It's only two weeks old, so that probably helps.

I had the problem with my Compaq Presario R3000. However, I went to compaq.com and updated my driver, it still "does not meet Recommended," but it works. :)

Quanta KN1 with GeForce 6600 Go working fine here. Did have an other graphics bug (corrupt textures in planetary view), but the 82.10 drivers fixed that.

The problem is not necessarily with all laptops. I have a Dell Inspiron 600m with a Radeon Mobility 9000 that works OK most of the time.

I have the same computer but my game is "in the mail"

Did you have to do anything to make it work?

I have the same computer but my game is "in the mail"

Did you have to do anything to make it work?

No, I already had the latest drivers from Dell and I just installed and started playing.

I did remove the drivers and install the Omega drivers to see it that would get rid of the game slowdown problem, but it did not. I did not notice any difference between the Dell drivers and the Omega drivers. I have read of other users having the slowdown problem, but on other hardware. Most people with the Radeon Mobility 9000 seem to be having trouble running the game at all.

Other than the slowdown problem, it's running fine on my Dell. I'm wondering if the game slowdown is a game problem, or if there's some service on my machine (defrag, AV, etc.) that's kicking in and dragging the system down.

Shepherdboy

I have only the choppy music-wonder movie problem with my HP zd7000 with some geforce card or another (sorry I can't be more specific, I'm at work w/o the laptop) but the game ran fine otherwise.

What is T&L? Just checking to see if I should start worrying.

Dell Inspiron 8500 with GeForce4 Go ... no problems other than wonder movie sounds being choppy.

T&L stands for texture and lighting ... if your graphics card has the capability built in, then you're probably fine.

I have a GeForce4 440 GO 64m, and after installing the video driver from omegadrivers.net, Civ4 is now running (though it is still a bit choppy at times). It is important to note that the omegadrivers are modified versions of the ones released from the actual companies and are therefore NOT official versions of the video driver. But hey at least Civ4 is playable now.

No such problem on my laptop. Although I did have another one (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133047) which took some time

eMachines M6805 laptop (http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=eMachines_M6805)
ATI® Mobility RADEON™ 9600 with 64 MB Video RAM @ 1280x800
DNA-ATi 4.4.5.10 drivers (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1222)
Mobile AMD Athlon™ 64 3000+ (1.8Ghz) Processor
2GB RAM (upgraded)
60GB 7200RPM Hitachi Travelstar (upgraded)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX USB
Windows XP Professional SP2

My laptop works, just not spectacularly. My specs and problems are listed here: (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133629). This is a thread containing working and non-working configs.

Game runs (a bit slowly but still very playable) in my Compaq v2000z.
1.8 GHz Turion 64
1024 MB PC2700 RAM
ATi xPress 200m 128mb