Rise of Mankind 2.62 - Crazy dark terrain

Hi all,
I downloaded the Mega Pack today (I love some of those Civs!) and loaded it up, and as I expected, couldn't play without the /3GB switch. I've got that as a separate boot, so I reloaded my computer to load that, and the Mega Pack runs like a dream. However, I went back to the original 2.62 (switching the names around so whichever I am playing is called 'Rise of Mankind') as I have yet to finish a good game with the French. But about 90% of the time, when I conduct diplomacy the map when it reappears is very dark - not black (as is a common problem with Intel chipsets) but much darker - grassland is dark brown etc, while the cities and forests etc appear unchanged. The other 10% the landscape is unchanged but there is no leaderhead at all - just a black space.

So my question is - do any of you have this apparent instability with the 3GB switch? Is there any way round it? I'm using the /Userva 3008 toggle (recently put it to /2954 which appears to work as well)

Thanks! Sorry this is confusing!

EDIT: I'll try to get a screenshot up ASAP.

This is a picture of the terrain...

This only occurs AFTER loading any diplomacy leaderhead dialogue.

It looks like some problem with graphical drivers, I remember seeing that somewhere. If I find the source I will answer.

I think it must be (I'm on a rubbish Intel 915 chipset....aaaargh I hate it) - I'm just curious as to why this only occurs when running the 3GB switch. Thanks for helping - I hope you can find the info...

One thing to consider too though - you say you are switching back and forth between versions of the mod - are you clearing your cache each time? There could be some confusion if the game is reading cache files from the wrong version at some point. Just a thought.

Hi Carwyn - I cleared my cache each time to no avail. Also for some reason adding the 'static leaderheads' module did not make them static! Bizarrely however, it seems to work fine (on medium graphics, higher than previously!) if I use a different user account! Would love to know why this is, but I'm just happy I can play

edders05 said:

Hi Carwyn - I cleared my cache each time to no avail. Also for some reason adding the 'static leaderheads' module did not make them static! Bizarrely however, it seems to work fine (on medium graphics, higher than previously!) if I use a different user account! Would love to know why this is, but I'm just happy I can play

Click to expand...

What exactly did you do to clear the cache? There are a couple places where the game stores information, perhaps something got messed up on one of them. I say that because you said it's ok on another user account and the game info is stored in user accounts.

"C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games"

"C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\My Games"

Where USERNAME is your user account name.

You might want to try completely deleting any files in each of those two folders under "Beyond the Sword", rebooting (just because..), and then starting a new game. Be sure the version of the mod you want to use is in the folder:

"C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Rise of Mankind"

(Which I gather you know from your post, just put that in for general information.)

You will generate all new ini files, etc., when you delete those.

Hi - I deleted both those, yeah (I have had trouble with some mods before), but to no avail on this user account - even tried reinstalling everything yesterday (mad I know, if I've got it working elsewhere!), with no luck - I think it must just be that the account is more screwed up than I thought - all sorts of odd thing are known to happen yet it's my school account so I can't get rid of it.

Thanks for all the help!

Try a registry cleaner. I've used CCleaner to good affect, though one time I found out my Windows was so messed up that I ended up reformatting my hard drive and starting over. It did fix all my Civ problems though!