Fix-It List

Ok... I'm having the same problem as some of you out there as well... I load the game and the cursor starts to fade in and out.... had the same problem with the newest Age of Empires Demo if anybody cares.... This is really annoying... here is my system:

Pentium IV 3.0Ghz
512 MB RAM
100 GB free on HD
GeForce 5300 PCX (I'm assuming this is the cause of the problems)

I have already tried playing with the pixel shading and other options through RivaTuner, but nothing seems to work. I think this may be a problem with the graphics card because no new 3D strategy games (Empire Earth II, AoE III, Civ IV) work properly with this card. I have tried installing those games on my laptop (which is a much weaker system) and it seems to work fine.

any help would be great!

Mistoffeles said:

This is called subpar programming, and is a big problem in the gaming industry in general, but Sid and his associates have always been one of the biggest offenders. If I produced this degree of bugginess in my software, I'd be fired. In fact I was, once. That's when I learned that testing and bug-stomping are at least as important as design and coding, something the makers of CivIV still need to learn.

Click to expand...

It is a problem, but are you a game programmer? If you had ever touched hardware graphics in any serious way you would know how bad the nvidia and ati drivers are recently, the older functionality is all solid, but use something new (fbo and depth textures on GFFX generation, for instance, are particularly buggy and crap) and are likely to stop working with the next driver release because you either worked around a bug, or because they broke it in the new driver.

I do agree with you in some respects though, there are some really shoddy things in a lot of games. With Civ4 my personal pet peeve is that the windows key works. When using direct input all you need to do is add a single constant to a single function call like this:

MyDirectInputDevice->SetCooperativeLevel(MyWindowHandle, DISCL_FOREGROUND);

becomes:

MyDirectInputDevice->SetCooperativeLevel(MyWindowHandle, DISCL_FOREGROUND | DISCL_NOWINKEY);

I've seen this advice in noob targetted tutorials, on msdn and in the direct X documentation. Its also something I've heard people complaining about for years about a lot of games. Even using OpenGL is not an excuse as you can write a hook procedure to steal the windows key presses from the window (i wont paste that here, its long and scattered and makes little sense out of the context of a farily complete program).

Its more likely bad driver programmers than game programmers for the most part tho, driver programmers dont make games, they have no idea how a lot of the stuff they write is going to be used, which is why they are in constant contact with the bigger game developers... although there are a still a lot of problems, i think it comes down to graphics programmers making use of the graphics functionality in 'exotic' ways, which sometimes breaks on different cards/newer drivers etc.. where the driver functions have been implemented naively.

EDIT: other than the windows key issue, Civ 4 worked perfectly for me, unpatched (just a bit slow... it doesnt exactly use millions of tris or high quality effects), the patch didnt break anything either... although I have a very clean system, which isn't exactly good for testing. Latest drivers, using windows 2003 and a GFFX 5700 card.

My equipment:
Athlon 3700+
1 Gb PC 3200 ram
Ge Force 6600

Game works fine until the end game.... around 1900-1950 it starts crashing out to the desktop every 2-3 turns. No error message is given. Is this an out of memory issue? I have absolutely no problems during the first few hours of the game, so I dont see how this could be a video card or driver issue. Any suggestions?

I cant seem to get my map to appear. All I get is the units and cities, and Black backround. I sometimes get ocean. Does anyone know what is wrong with my game. I have more the system requirements. Am running a 2.4 ghz 512 ram and have ample hard drive room.


Chemchops

maginnovision said:

My equipment:
Athlon 3700+
1 Gb PC 3200 ram
Ge Force 6600

Game works fine until the end game.... around 1900-1950 it starts crashing out to the desktop every 2-3 turns. No error message is given. Is this an out of memory issue? I have absolutely no problems during the first few hours of the game, so I dont see how this could be a video card or driver issue. Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

I think thats a virtual memory problem, i suggest u tune it up to either reduce or eliminate that crashing problem, it totally depends on your pc performances...

chemchops said:

I cant seem to get my map to appear. All I get is the units and cities, and Black backround. I sometimes get ocean. Does anyone know what is wrong with my game. I have more the system requirements. Am running a 2.4 ghz 512 ram and have ample hard drive room.


Chemchops

Click to expand...

That means you are probably running an ATI card. If you download the Omega version of the drivers, it should clear up that problem. http://www.omegadrivers.net

Or if that still doesn't work you can edit the XML file in the game directory with Note/Word Pad and change all the bMapVisible values from 0 to 1.

Um guys .. Ive installed my copy and whatnot, but it crashes when i try to run it. So i thought id go check out my civilization4.ini file ... only its not there! none of the files that are supposed to be in the "\My Documents\My Games\Civilization 4" are there as the directory doesn't exist!

Any help? .... please??

slimer251 said:

Um guys .. Ive installed my copy and whatnot, but it crashes when i try to run it. So i thought id go check out my civilization4.ini file ... only its not there! none of the files that are supposed to be in the "\My Documents\My Games\Civilization 4" are there as the directory doesn't exist!

Any help? .... please??

Click to expand...

Right ok ive been looking further into this and the my games thing isnt a problem i dont think. Heres the deal.

I installed in and i go to run it, that loading thing pops up onscreen with loading wrote on in different languages (im assuming they say loading anyway). Then what happens is, the whole computer freezes and everything locks up. The only thing that resolves this problem is hitting the reset button.

Any suggestions?

Specs
AMD Athlon XP 2,000+ CPU
Asus A7N8X-X motherboard
512mb RAM
Nvidia GeForce FX 5700LE 128mb
DirectX 9.0c
Windows XP Professional with SP2

data3.cab 655.306 Cabinet File

If that message comes up after putting in Disc 2 during installation, is there a problem with the disc or with my system?

AndrewDJ said:

This happened to me once after I installed the patch. Clicking the desktop shortcut instead of using the autorun worked for me, but YMMV. I am wondering if my DVD drive is flaking out on me, though. I tried installing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow last night, and installation failed due to a failed cyclic redundancy check when Setup tried to install the manual. When I try to install Heroes of Might & Magic IV, I encounter a similar problem.

Then again, it could just be Windows XP . . . .

Click to expand...

After getting a flakey DVD version and getting "CRC error" which wouldn't even install it was replaced by the shop with another DVD. It finally installed OK then when I try to play it says "Install correct CD"??? (have a Pioneer dual layer DVD) It Installs and plays fine on my mates PC. Anyone else get this crap?

A lot of memory and CTD issues were resolved by this fix:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146309&goto=newpost

When I start the game, it's as if a projector is eating film. Parts of the screen are viewable, but other parts (like the menu) are blocked out.

jonesjrisdaman
If that's about my fix, try reducing 'vid_mem_usage'.

Hi-

I have an Athlon AMD 1.8 GB processor and just upgraded my RAM to 736 MB, and yet, I still can't run the game. Whenever I try to play, and click on "New Game", it will load and then just completely freeze when done loading. I will still see the load screen in the foreground (indicating it's "Done"), and a black screen behind, with the cursor. Please give me some pointers, because it's driving me NUTS!!!!!

Thanks,

Mark

Ok..I am on here for help..I am about as technological as a blonde cow. So when I read these posts about go download this and change this setting..I stare at them in the same way a monkey who is learning physics from a fruit bat would. I am downloading the new patch to the game and downloaded the program yall listed to adjust the setting for my video card. So that I don't ruin my card end up on the news for falling out of a very tall building while trying to german suplex my tower..PLEASE..in very simple and noobish terms tell me what to change with this program and how to change it. I will list my comp specs on here to help yall.

I am running Windows xp
I have a pentium 4 2.80Ghz
I have 1 gig of ram
I have a 64meg gforce 2 mx/mx 400
It has the newest drivers(though I think the last driver update in the Nixon term)
I have all the ingame setting to the lowest they go
I have the music, ambiant sound, and speech turned off in game
and I am zoomed in pretty close when I play to reduce whats on the screen

All of this and my game is about as choppy as one of those asian chefs who cuts his food up with a Katana while jugging small red drawfs...PLEASE help me make this game work right...it looks to be so amazing from what I have played..its just so choppy and slow to scroll and all the typical stuff. I hope you can help. Thank you.

I dont know if this is mentioned earlier or not (this thread is massive), but when i load the game the demo screen doesnt show and when the world comes up it just sits there spinning but the options for starting the game never show up.

Any clue how to fix this one.

P.s. Ive done the driver fixes for my BFG 6800gt and ive done the dx Diag.

Still Happens.

Soulisick

There has been a User fix which has been v successfull. The symptoms you have given do tend to point towards a memory related problem, which is what this patch is aimed at. The Patch Author is aware that many are not used to manual loading, and so he is working on a self loader right now, and has other improvements in the works.

Keep expectation on the level, the outline you gave is a bit thin to go on, but I think you would benefit from this thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146309

From your perspective it will seem a technical thread, dont be put off, the guys there are emmensly helpful, and would take you much further than I can. Scan through the thread, "readover" terminology you dont understand, and I think you will be ok.

Regards
Zy

All drivers current, BIOS updated and flashed, tried the DirectX hack and adjusted it to 1.1, used Harkonnen's memory patch (which dramatically increased performance) and I'm still getting crashes, most of the time it's my computer just locking up requiring a reboot. Haven't yet tried the uninstall/reinstall or artfx unpack, was wondering if anyone else had tried this and had it work for them.

Sys Specs:

AMD Sempron 3300+ 64bit
1Gig PC 3200 RAM
Palit Nvidia GeForce 6200v+
XP SP2 (fully updated)
Civ 1.09 patch installed

Thanks in advance,

-IceLion

IceLion
Unpacking ART files might help, but there is an quicker way to try that in CivilizationIV.ini

DisablePAKMemoryMapping = 1

I didn't try that but it may help

Has anyone else noticed this must-fix problem?

Start building a wonder in city A. Start building the same wonder in city B. Look at City A. What is it building? Nothing. Next turn, what is it building? Nothing.

Yes, don't do it and it won't hurt.