Civilization 4 v1.74 Windows Vista Graphical Problem

Hey.

I bought a new Dell Dimension 9200 and I installed Civilization 4. I found out from this forum that I needed to install the DirectX redistributable files even though I had DirectX10, so as to make it backwardly compatible.

So I did this and installed Civilization 4 and then updated it in the game to v1.74. So I was happy I could run it with everything on full at a decent enough frame rate. But I happen to undergo some stuttering at random times as my camera pans through the world. None of it seems warranted as nothing particularly interesting is happening at the time, in-game or on the desktop. The stutter lasts for a millisecond but it's annoying. It could be a result of maxing out all the settings and my hardware can't take it or it could be another incompatibility with Windows Vista.

I will attach my DxDiag to let you decide which of them it is.

But before you say I should run Civilization 4 in Windows XP SP2 Compatibility mode with Administrator rights I have to tell you I already tried. I can get it to run with Administrator rights but I get an error when I try to run it in Compatibility mode.
The error is the following:

"Cannot locate DVD-ROM

Please insert the correct DVD-ROM, select OK and restart the application."

If I try to launch it from the autoplay I get the same result. So I have to run it without any compatibility mode on. Does anyone know a fix for this problem? I want to check out the compatibility mode to see if it helps the stuttering.

Although I have doubts it will. I have had problems with another game, Call of Duty, (it stutters similarly http://www.codboards.com/showthread.php?t=18536) and running as an Administrator in compatibility mode only helped with some graphical glitches like brightness and not with the stuttering. Setting the executables to have affinity for a single core was a suggestion people made but I had limited success with it with COD so I doubt it would help with Civ4, as Civ4 probably has Dual Core Processor support anyway.

I confess I have similar issues. Or alternatively my system is just...junk.

Specs
Sempron 3000 (1.8Mghz)
1G RAM
128Meg AGP GeForce 6600 NVIDIA GT

Anywho since I decided late one night to just randomly install Vista its been nothing but pain. I installed the Nvidia drivers for 32bit Vista and since that time every single time

A) I right click on the desktop to access the usual dropbox menu my screen flicks off and then on (like what happens when u change reso's)...except i'm not.

B) I open BTS and for some bizzare reason the screen flicks off then on again and reverts to 60mhz refresh so the screen shakes like a maniac.
Every single time i open BTS it forgets its normal reso settings and I have to flick the reso's around in BTS twice to get it back to normal.

ALso yes I've uninstalled and reinstalled 2 different types of drivers. The nvidia ones and then i tried the microsoft wmmd ones but that didn't work so back to nvidia.
But whats with the screen thing? THats just weird its like it thinks its 2 monitors and yes I have only single monitored enabled..as it comes by default unless changed.

But as for BTS, it loads pretty damn quick, I'm into a game in less than 2 minutes easy. But once in the game....man unplayable the chug is just unbelievable.

ANybody have thoughts on why this is? Or is my system just not up to handling both.
Also I should point out BTS appears to use between 400-500Meg of my RAM when running and physical memory use spikes to around 83%.

Any help appreciated else I'm going to format this thing back to XP SP2 tomorrow, which BTS has run fine on. But i like vista....catch 22

OpticalOrange99 (cool name by the way): Is stuttering the only problem? If it's not severe, it's probably just because Civ4 is such a demanding application. I used to have horrible stuttering all the time with Windows XP when I had only 256 MB of RAM in addtion to what the OS needed. If you have 1 GB of RAM and Vista Non-Basic, that's probably your problem - add more RAM.

I installed Civ4 on Vista yesterday and it warned me the Civ4 has known compatibility problems, but it's ran well so far (v 1.00). I haven't added the 1.74 patch to my XP computer. To get compatibility mode to work, you might have to set some files on the disk to XP compatibility mode. I once had to set a Setup.exe on a CD to Windows 98 mode just to install a program.

And Civ4 doesn't have dual-processor support, not even with Beyond the Sword. I think Vista might be able to make partial use of dual-cores anyway - at least that's what it looked like when I was running CivIII - but we'll have to wait for Civ5 to get that.

angelus512, have you double-checked that everything is connected well? Also make sure there's no interference - my cell phone can cause my CRT to do stuff like that. Other than that I don't know why the monitor would be doing that.

For BTS being slow, I'm guessing that you're using Vista Non-Basic? If so, you don't have enough RAM to run CivIV full-tilt. If you can get another 512 MB (make sure the motherboard supports it first), it should help a lot. The processor also might be a bit low for CivIV, but if that worked with XP it should also work with Vista.

angelus512: My god you're having far worse problems than me. I really feel feel sorry for you man. Civilization 4 used to run a like 20fps on Standard on my old pc. So I guess I should be happy that I can get it running at all, let alone this good on my new pc.

If I were in your position I would definitely uninstall Vista. I too love Vista's look and feel and although gamers may diss it outright, I've heard that it's better than XP resource management wise.

But speaking of resources it takes up 0.9Gbs of RAM out of my 3GBs on a good day. So since you only have 1GB and to tell the truth your processor isn't too hot, I'd ditch Vista and wait until you're upgrading or getting a new pc with better hardware before you take the plunge and install Vista again.

But about Beyond the Sword. Do you have it yet? I didn't think it was out yet. It was only available on Steam (a download program thing) for pre-load last week. I wish I had downloaded it instead of Hitman: Blood Money.

Anyways, I guess I should be glad that I have it running this well with Vista. Vista seems to cause alot of worse problems for other people that just this stuttering as your situation indicates.

Quintillus (Your name's not too bad either ): I have 3GBs of RAM and a pretty decent processor as well as a great gfx card so it should run smoothly hardware wise. I will try and change Civ4.exe's affinity to Single Core and see if it works better. Thanks for informing me. I had no idea it didn't have Dual support. I might try changing the compatibility mode of the files on the disk as well. Thanks for the suggestions.

As for it being hardware intensive I was wondering if anyone with a similar setup to me (check the dxdiag I have attached) could tell me if they can run it on full and at what framerate. I'm wondering what fps is to be expected with my setup with Civilization 4 settings at Max (Everything on and full, 1600x1200, etc.).

Many thanks in advance, guys.