Civ IV freezes on launch for me. It opens the first loading screen (where it says loading in multiple languages) and never progresses. In fact, if I open the task manager, it is listed as a process but not an application. If I cancel the process, the window disappears, but the process never goes away and the machine becomes impossible to reboot without forcing it to reboot with the reset or power buttons.

Brand new machine, 4 GB RAM, XP Home, fresh install. I have tried deleting and reinstalling. I have tried upgrading to 1.61 and I have tried leaving it at the original version. I have tried installing Warlords and it has the same problem. NVIDIA 8800GTS, onboard sound, Intel Core 2 duo... Hrm, not sure where to go next. Any ideas?

:hmm:

please enable logging in for the game (open civilizationIV.ini -> set all items with log in their name from 0 to 1) - then start a game, after it freezes kill it and post all contents of my games\sid meier's civilization 4\logs as a zip file here :)

you can post attachments by clicking on go advanced and then on manage attachments.
also please post your dxdiag results :)

Curiouser and more curious yet. There is no My Games folder created on my system at all, and thus no .ini file. I copied in an old My Games folder from my old machine, turned on the logging, and started up, but no logs were created. As near as I can tell, it just displays the screen then fails to proceed.

I have attached my dxdiag file.

I also disabled all antivirus, tried a fresh install, reinstalled the patch, tried both with and without the copied My Games folder, and am shopping for sacrificial goats online.

:hmm:

does the windows event log contain anything? the dxdiag just shows a comp that should run it fine.

Interestingly enough, nothing gets logged while this is happening, and I can't launch other applications (such as the event viewer) while it is happening.

I have now tried having Windows Firewall on and off, as well, no difference. Also, I had the system ask me to terminate "CivilizationIV.e" (as opposed to .exe) once when I chose to reboot.

So, the Macrovision copy protection is launched during this phase (I can see their ~e5.0001 file in the processes). Is something failing there? This is obviously some very deep failure since it prevents all other processes from launching, but the Civilization4.exe and the ~e5.0001 are both getting 0% of system resources.

Note the only reason I suspect Macrovision is that Macrovision's website did somehow launch on its own once when this happened. Original discs and all, purchased by me, no cracks etc. (I'm in the video games biz, I don't mess around). There are a couple of very minor scuffs on the disc, but this happens with Warlords also, and that disc is pristine.

well civ4 uses safedisc as its copy protection - but if that fails I only know of people either having the game abort - i.e. bring them back to desktop or give them an insert correct disc error.

Now I would not put it past safedisc to screw up even more thoroughly though. Do you have any virtual drive software running?

No, it's all really vanilla. I built the machine from scratch on Friday. OEM drives with no CDs full of bloatware I don't need, so no tomfoolery in the software. All drivers up-to-the-minute, all Windows Updates applied, etc.

Seemingly relevant links:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-141414.html
http://www.eclectic-mayhem.com/blog/2005/12/fighting-with-civilization-ivs-copy.html

:hmm:

did you ever try running the civ4 demo? apart from that the links you found do point into the right direction if safedisc is the culprit...

Downloading the demo now.

Okay, demo not finished downloading, but I did some research and saw that Battlefield 2 uses Safedisc also, so I installed it and it has the same problem.

Sigh.

Okay, at least I now have a clue, now what? Thanks for the help.

you might want to check firmware/driver updates for your dvd drive. maybe that helps (yours are recent though).

Aaaand... It seems it may be Pioneer DVD drives and Safedisc:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?page=3&t=18779

I had this impression as well from my googleing - but I did not find specifics about your drive - hence my recommendation for new drivers - but if they simply don't make their stuff safedisc compatible there is not much to do :( safedisc is not the most customer friendly copy protection :sad: and unfortunately civ4's digital distros have there own problems...

It seems to use no specific drivers, and I updated the firmware.

I installed a Samsung drive and it fixed the problem. Pioneer DVR-215D was the problem drive, FYI.

And thank you very much for helping!