This is for the users out there that wish to Run Civ4 in Windowed mode. Of the users that I have had contact with that have run Civ4 in windowed mode, there was no noticable performance hit.

One note: in windowed mode you cannot 'bump' the screen edge to scroll the map. Use your keyboard's arrow keys instead.

How to set up windowed mode:

1) Browse to C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 -- or your Civ4 root directory.
2) Double-click "_Civ4Config" -- this will load CivilizationIV.ini, which is actually stored somewhere in your MyDocuments... _Civ4Config is a shortcut to it.
3) Find the line that reads "FullScreen = 1"
4) Change the 1 to either 0, or ask (ask will make a pop-up when loading the game that lets you choose each time)
5) Save and Exit
6) Reload Civ4.

Note: Two additional changes might be necessary to ensure the full window is visible. Either change the resolution in-game, or manually change it by the following:

(This example sets the game's window size to 1024x768, useful for players with desktop res at 1280x960)

7) load the same Config file as before
8) Find and change ScreenHeight from 0 to 768
9) Find and change ScreenWidth from 0 to 1024
10) Save and Exit.
11) Reload Civ4.

Enjoy Windowed mode =)

thank you so much! i'm addicted to windowed mode now in all the games i play, and civ4 was driving me nuts when people sent IMs. you are my hero!!

:worship:
My computer would almost freeze if I hit alt-tab, and would take about 3-4 minutes to switch between programs. Now it only takes a few seconds! :D

One more tweak.

To use mouse scrolling to move around the map in Windowed mode change this ini file entry to from 0 (default) to 1. (ie 0=no scrolling 1 =scrolling)


; Allow Mouse Scrolling in Windowed mode
MouseScrolling = 1

It's also handy to tweak the quick start stuff :) And stop my default name from reverting to JEFFSPC.

I tried this, and now the in-game music stutters when only the wonder movie music stuttered before.

this works great for me with a normal game.

but i made a mod to change a civ, which took me several tries but now it works. however, when the game does the restart it goes into fullscreen and i can't figure out how to change that. the mod .ini file doesn't have a fullscreen line, but i tried adding one, that didn't help. any ideas?

I'm definitely noticing a slight performance hit playing in windowed mode, but it's not bad. I'll probably keep it on ask, and play windowed when I need to alt-tab a lot, and otherwise play full. Thanks for the info!

It's also handy to tweak the quick start stuff :) And stop my default name from reverting to JEFFSPC.
I knew I would someday be glad for naming my computer WILDWEAZEL :D

It's also handy to tweak the quick start stuff :) And stop my default name from reverting to JEFFSPC.

look in the config file for

nickname =

or

Alias =

change one (or both, i dunno which one of the two is it) and you should start the another name than your computername

Hehehe, thanks for the tips, will surely use them!

Thanks, I love playing in windowed mode, since I like to alt-tab a lot.

If you want to have your cake and eat it too try out this program:

http://grismar.net/shiftwindow/

As long as civ is at the same resolution as your desktop it will resize the window so that it looks fullscreen, but still acts like a window when you want to minimize it.

How does one progress from this to the advertised 'dual monitor' configuration?

that shiftwindow program is great. Gonna be using that for quite a few games now.

Uhm, is there a way to keep the music playing when Civ is mimimized?

It does for me.

There is no MouseScrolling line in mine civ4 ini file....

-mellian

I think that it gets added after you run civ 4 in a window for the first time, but i am not sure.

Its in the upper third of my config file in this context:

; Move along
CheatCode = 0

[CONFIG]

; Allow Mouse Scrolling in Windowed mode
MouseScrolling = 1

; Screenshot format (TGA,JPG,BMP)
ScreenShot Format = JPG

; Enable Trilinear Filtering for the Minimap
MinimapTrilinearFilter = 1

; Enable Tree Region Cutting
CutTrees = 1

I think that it gets added after you run civ 4 in a window for the first time, but i am not sure.


I had to add it by myself.
But I can't scroll down.

Hello everybody!
Can someone help me?
I Have a compaq presario 2520EU notebook with an ATI IGP Radeon 350 M video card, which I do not if it is OK for CIV4. Actually the game can be launched but it is impossible to see the terrains, i.e. I see the Units moving but I see only black tiles. I have tried with the new patch but it did not work.

First of all, welcome to CFC!!! [party]

That is a graphics problem, it's nothing to do with windowed mode. It's been a common problem with ATI graphics cards. Firaxis released a utility that lets you unpack the file art0.fpk in the Assets folder. That should fix the problem. You can find the utility and more info in Civ4 General Discussion. There is a stickied thread about ATI graphics cards and the utility.

edit: have you patched the game? I think that was also supposed to fix it.

Hi,
I just got my hands on this fantastic game and was really looking forward to start playing it on my new LCD HDTV but unfortunately the game doesn't support 1280x720 (my LCDs native resolution) and I hate playing games with the graphics scaled up or down.

I thought I could use the custom resolution tags in the .ini file but nothing happens.

Then I read this thread and figured that maybe they only worked when used with the game running in windowed mode. But NOTHING happens.

The game always start in 1024x768 no matter what i set the parameters in the .ini file to.

The in-game resolution options work like they are supposed to but I really would like to play this game with proper pixel proportions and not 1280x768 scaled to 720.

Please can somebody tell me what I'm doing wrong here?

Nevermind, I think I've figured it out now. The game just doesn't support resolutions below 1024 on the X-axis and 768 on the Y-axis.

Guess I'll just have to live with a slight scaling of the image.

Hey, good stuff, windowed mode, love it.

It appears to take less memory, and if you hit the dreaded windows key, you won't spend the next 10 mins. regretting it.

If you have Warlords it already runs windowed mode. It is selectable in the options; both maximized and windowed with no minimizing to the taskbar. Still must move screen by arrow keys or left click on the screen. I haven't run vanilla Civ4 lately but it is probably the same.

thank you very much for this hint! thats what i was looking for a LONG time... Civ4 in winMode!

Wow, quite an old thread. I'm glad someone brought it from the dead though, 'cuz I never knew about that shiftwindow utility!

Nevermind, I think I've figured it out now. The game just doesn't support resolutions below 1024 on the X-axis and 768 on the Y-axis.

Guess I'll just have to live with a slight scaling of the image.

Actualy the game does support higher resolutions, I am running it at 1900x1200, however I have an NVIDIA card, which ***Might make a difference, although I suspect that it has more to do with your monitor. What I suggest doing is finding the configuration tool for your video card and checkign if it allows for the creation of a custom resoultion. I know that the NVIDIA control panel allows you to do this, because I have had to do it in the past to get windows to work with 1400x900. Once you set windows to work with that resolution you should then add the resolution to the config file.

I can't guarantee this will work, but I feel that it will.