Game plays fine - but graphics problems

I can install and play the game perfectly fine, but the graphics of the advisors (and Sid in the tutorial!) are headless teeth and eyes floating by themselves in the air. Besides being a bit disconserting, I could tolerate it except for the fact that I can't see the terrain, either. I can see hints of a coastline, trees, and terrain bonuses, but otherwise it looks like fog of war. The annoying thing is that I CAN see the terrain if I zoom out enough (global view) OR if I go into the map edit mode. I've already tried minimizing the graphics detail as much as possible with no effect. Otherwise the game plays normal as far as I can tell. Does anyone else have a similar problem?
I had initially loaded the game onto my laptop, which was newer and supposedly was optimized for video/DVD, etc. But then I tried loading it onto my desktop, and besides not playing the opening intro as well, I got similar results.
From the other threads I'm reading, I guess I can allow that I may not have the optimal graphics card, but I just purchased my Alienware laptop last year so I'm hoping its not that. (I will check with that system requirements site once I get my router running again.) You can't put a new graphics card in a laptop because its hard-wired?

I am having the same exact problem. You described my dilemma word for word! I used that link on one of the other threads and it showed that I should be able to play it. I meet the recommended standards. Please help! I am going CRAZY!

I'm having the same problem too!!! Everything seems to work fine except for this blackness problem. I've tried all three graphics levels with no luck. My computer is: AMD 3200+, 512 MB of RAM, GE Force4 MX. Screen shots are attached. Zoomed in shows the blackness problem, zoomed out everything looks fine. Please help!!!

It seems that you all miss the graphic ram requirements
They changed it last week you now need 64 MB graphic cards

I have only 32 MB too and looking for someone who plays with it well

I'm having the same problem with my Dell Inspiron 1150 (purchased last Christmas). It meets all specs and then some - the only possibly questionable hardware is the video, which I believe might be integrated into the motherboard.

This is gonna make me - I am going on bedrest soon, and the only thing that was going to make the next four months bearable was having a new Civ to play with...I can't use a desktop while on bedrest, and we only have one that meets the system reqs anyway, and it belongs to my husband - and he's been looking forward to this as much as I have, to the point where we preordered TWO copies.

BTW, having played around with it a little, it's also really freaking slow.

Update: I checked my system requirements at srtest.com - the only thing I am failing on is T&L, I have 64 meg video - but enough other people are saying that they are having this problem and they have T&L that I don't think that's the problem.

Apparently Pirates required T&L to run and I was able to run that on my system.

When use that system requirement check, it shows me this:

You Have: NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X (Dell) (GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X)
video Card Features - Minimum attributes of your Video Card

Video RAM: Required - 64 MB , You have - 64.0 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes , You have - Yes

I have 64mb but it still won't show the land?

I am starting to wonder if they did any beta testing on this game... everyone seems to be having this problem

Im having similiar issues...assuming I get that far. If I try to start a game on a huge world, it just locks up or reboots. On a standard world, after a few turns graphics start disappearing. If i go to see some of the advisors it reboots.

I have a GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card. A much nicer card than should be needed.

Ive tried turning all the graphics down to the lowest level and that doesnt help at all.

as posted before, I have the same problem.

I have a 64 radeon 7500 (Which it specifically lists as a driver that will work in the manual), with drivers I updated today, and everything works fine except for the terrain. (Well, the oppening movie has consisistant drops in sount every 3 seconds, but thats a minor issue), and the people (except their eyes or teeth)

i thought you need 128 mb graphi card now.

AlCosta15 said:

i thought you need 128 mb graphi card now.

Click to expand...

128 is recommended, 64 is minimum.

If this were simply a T&L problem, I'd think that someone from Firaxis would have popped their head in one of the many threads discussing this and either said, "Yep, it's T&L, and we'll have a patch out that doesn't require T&L," or "Yep, it's T&L, and FU, we're not patching it, go out and get some real hardware, you wankers."

I have the exact same problem, word for word. tooth and eye adviser + black screen w/ resources. Besides that the game plays fine (played through an entire game on duel map, putting up with the problem due to sheer adreniline for new civ) but this is driving me insane, and really makes it unplayable (how are you supposed to pick a city local without seeing the terrain?). please someone, give a solution.

Its not the graphic ram thats the problem its the freakin game.

I own a Geforce 6600 256mb PCI-E!!!

At first it ran fine other than some choppiness and a couple crashes but now I get that black terrain crap.

Well I'm glad that others are having the same problem as me at least. From poking around the other threads I am starting to understand that inexplicably, it might actually be our graphics cards. Is it true that we can't put new cards in our laptops, like somebody said?
Also, I saw one guy had said to try loading a new driver from the Compaq web site (my desktop is Compaq, so I will give this a try, but my desktop wouldn't run Rome: Total War whereas my newer laptop would, so I'm not going to hold my breath). I expected this with my desktop, but not my laptop. I'm all for moving onto bigger and better hardware, but it seems to me like Firaxis is alienating alot of their fan base by making the requirements so stringent. I may have to just upgrade my desktop (or buy a new one) to play. The sad part is I probably will do it, but it ends up being quite an expensive game, now.

As far as I know upgrading the graphic card in a laptop is impossible!
There are some guys already playing with 32 MB graphic cards (Ati Mobility Radeon 9000, Geforce2 MX400 32MB, geforce 2 mx 200 32 MB)!

Wait for the next update/bugfix from firaxis

Same problem occurs on one of the 4 machines I tested this crapware on (I don't even dare call it software)... Firaxis better be working overtime to fix this...

It may be a driver issue. I took some suggestions and have changed drivers to the omega drivers at a website posted on ATI cards in discussion. This took away the black, sped up the game and added faces. however instead of black ground I have gotten radioactive dirt. all the ground is a bright yellow/white except when zoomed out to pre-global.I suppose you could manage to play a game... I did cause I was pissed I payed 55 bucks for the game 3 days ago and havent been able to play it.
But after a while I grew mad that the water is now pitch black, and the game just looks like crap. If you wanted to try this out it may fix it, or may not.

My specs
2.7GHz P4
760 RAM

ATI ALL-IN-WONDER Radeon 7500 PCI
128M Card

I had the same exact problem as the original poster with my laptop before I updated drivers. I still only see the food on tiles though.

GeForce 420 Go, 32M

To chime in...I'm using a 32mb ATi Radeon Mobility 9000....and the graphics are fine....it's a bit slow, but fine. Also, I used the omega drivers and that seemed to help.

Had no problem with the game on normal pc NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (128 mb)

Though installed the game on Maxdata laptop wit Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME (64 mb) and got the exact same problems as all the others here.

I took following steps to fix it.
1. Put the grafics at 'low'
2. Download and installed new drivers from Intel's website.
3. Installed the patch v.109

When I started the game after those steps it said several times that my configuration isn't sufficient for playing (that's nice to hear ). Strange thing is that it workes fine .