Toni Metsänkylä
Chieftain
I would like to give some information to those who are pondering how Civ IV will work on Windows 98 (First edition) machines.
Here are my machine specs:
AthlonXP 2600+
Radeon 9800 (alternatively GeForce 4 Ti4200)
512MB DDR400
Maxtor 80GB S-ATA
MSI K7N2 Delta ILSR
As I live in Europe, I have the dvd-version of the game.
The game installed with no problems, but when I tried to launch the game, it would freeze while 'initializing engine'.
At the time, I was using my Radeon 9800 and had Catalyst 5.10 installed. I decided to download the Omega drivers, which were said to help, but the version for Win98 was pretty old. I installed them, but again when trying to launh the game, it hanged. This time I got the 'Failed to initialize renderer' message, which many ATI users seem to have. I knew there was a fix to this, involving unpacking of the art file, but the unpacker only worked in XP or 2000.
Luckily I had my old graphics card, the Ti4200 lying around, so I decided to try using it instead of the Radeon. After installing it, I launched the game and it booted normally!
Even the intro movie was played correctly, no sound stuttering or anything. I started a game with low graphics setting and a small map and it works ok, even though I'm sure that it would play smoother with my 9800 if it worked. I played about half an hour before I got my first crash to full tilt when looking at the city management screen. I don't know what acused this, but it seems everyone is also having random crashes, so nothing to worry about.
If anyone has knowledge of how to get the game working with the Radeon under Win98 would be appreciated. Also, does anyone know, if the upcoming patch will work for Win98?
Here are my machine specs:
AthlonXP 2600+
Radeon 9800 (alternatively GeForce 4 Ti4200)
512MB DDR400
Maxtor 80GB S-ATA
MSI K7N2 Delta ILSR
As I live in Europe, I have the dvd-version of the game.
The game installed with no problems, but when I tried to launch the game, it would freeze while 'initializing engine'.
At the time, I was using my Radeon 9800 and had Catalyst 5.10 installed. I decided to download the Omega drivers, which were said to help, but the version for Win98 was pretty old. I installed them, but again when trying to launh the game, it hanged. This time I got the 'Failed to initialize renderer' message, which many ATI users seem to have. I knew there was a fix to this, involving unpacking of the art file, but the unpacker only worked in XP or 2000. Luckily I had my old graphics card, the Ti4200 lying around, so I decided to try using it instead of the Radeon. After installing it, I launched the game and it booted normally!
Even the intro movie was played correctly, no sound stuttering or anything. I started a game with low graphics setting and a small map and it works ok, even though I'm sure that it would play smoother with my 9800 if it worked. I played about half an hour before I got my first crash to full tilt when looking at the city management screen. I don't know what acused this, but it seems everyone is also having random crashes, so nothing to worry about.If anyone has knowledge of how to get the game working with the Radeon under Win98 would be appreciated. Also, does anyone know, if the upcoming patch will work for Win98?
