I just bought & installed Civ IV Gold + BtS. I'm running Vista (much against my will I'd like to add ) & my computer is well above the recommended system requirements

Every time I start any version of the game, the graphics with blink very fast & the music skips slightly. I've tried uninstalling & re-installing several, so far it hasn't worked. I think I remember this happening with the demo version a while back too. Any suggestions?

Post a dxdiag result - this will show all your graphics settings. (Go to your Start Menu, select "Run..." Then type in dxdiag and click OK. Click on save all information, and then upload the file that is created to this forum.

This is almost surely due to your graphics card or directX. Once you post the dxdiag, someone can see whether something may need to be updated.

From there, you can look into tweaking some of the config file settings to optimize the display properties to best suit your PC.

oh, alright. Thanks C:

here it is

Your laptop doesn't seem like it would do well with high-end games. Do you have issues playing other graphics-intense games? Or is it just Civ?

First steps:

I would download a newer driver from SiS (your GPU manufacturer). Go to SiS website (http://www.sis.com) and click on the download menu. Select Windows Vista, then IGP Graphics drivers, then SiS672 series. On the download page, select the driver that shows it is compatible with the SiS672.

Your current driver is from June 07, and the most up-to-date driver is from May 08. This may help.

Next: You are running vista with DirectX 10. Civ IV BTS only needs directX 9.0c, but apparently there is a file or two from version 9, that is not in version 10. You should go to the Microsoft website, and download DirectX 9.0c. Look for the download of the "DirectX End-User Runtime" for 9.0c. This will not delete your DirectX 10, it will simply update it with some files from 9.0c that you MAY be missing.

See if either or both of these updates helps. Then post back.

It's my desktop, actually. I shudder to think at how my old laptop would run this

updated drivers, now I get this error:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a242/Alain05701/errrrror.png

& I've already downloaded dx 9.0c, so I don't think that's it


The only other game I've had trouble with it Silent Hill 2, but that just won't install period. These are also the only two computer games I own other than my old copies of Civ II & Civ III

In every other instance that I have seen someone have the dreaded "initialize render failed" error it was resolved by upgrading the graphics driver or DirectX, not caused by it! Weird.

I did some searching on the forum and found someone who fixed it by doing this: If you right click on the desktop and click "personalize" then select "Display Settings" Click on "advanced settings" and select the troubleshooting tab. See if your display driver allows you to change the hardware acceleration. If so, set it to "high."

If this doesn't work/isn't an option, then you may need to try to find a different display driver, or rolling back to the old one - you installed the one for the Sis672 right? Maybe there is another version of the driver somewhere, but to be honest I am not sure.

I did some more research on your SiS Mirage 3 Integrated Graphics, and it seems that although it does support Hardware TnL, which Civ requires, it does not have a vertex shader - which is a major drawback for 3D games. Even if you do get it working, you may not have a super positive experience.

I hate to be saying this, because I don't want to come off as one of those people who tries to fix everyone's problems with money - but you may want to consider getting a discrete graphics card. I looked up your system, and it seems like you have an available PCI-Express x16 slot - which is what you need for a nice Nvidia, or ATI card. But, on the other hand it kind of sucks to buy a new graphics card if you only play 2 games. I would also make sure you can at least get the game somewhat playable first, to eliminate the possibility that the problem is caused by something else.

Ugh, really?

I can't afford a new graphics card, so I guess I'll just return this. Thank you for the help though

Try the other fix first. Don't give up yet.

Also - try opening up the BTS config file (this can be found in Documents/My Games/beyond the sword/Civilization IV.ini) and find the line below. Change the "1" to "0" and see if you still get the render error.

; Specify whether to play in fullscreen mode 0/1/ask
FullScreen = 1

(Also, there are graphics cards on Newegg.com selling for <$50 that would be just fine - such as the Nvidia 8500GT - but as I said try to get the game working first.)

I rolled back to the old drivers & re-installed the new ones, still the same error. I can't find any other version that I feel comfortable dling. & the fullscreen fix was one of the first ones I tried :c