Fix-It List

HP Pavillion Pentium 4
2.8 ghz 1 gb RAM
NVIDIA G-Force 6800 GT


After spending several hundred dollars upgrading my computer (video card, RAM), and spending several hours on the phone speaking to tech support (generally polite; but they had not too much of a clue what to tell someone if it didn't involve upgrading their computer or graphic cards. Plus, the language barrier made it a difficult experience, trying to speak to someone from England over the phone, when I live smack dab in the middle of the USA is not recommended when this highly anticipated game is getting on your nerves) I am still getting crashes.

I have tried installing different driver versions, cannot see a noticable difference. I empty the cache everytime I exit the game, or after it crashes. I am not sure if the crash I have is the same as the "black screen" I have read in this forum. Unless black screen means rainbow colored pixels in a tight pattern that fills the entire screen. 95% of the time this happens to me when I am entering city production screen. Sometimes I can play for hours without a crash, but tonight it has gotten really bad. I am trying to change which production squares my cities' "farmers" are using (running out of money, so trying to maximize coins vs hammers). This is causing me to crash every couple minutes. I only have about a dozen cities at this point in the game, and I have not made it through them all without crashing. I think I crashed 4 times within one game turn, attempting to complete this task, saving the game after each city out of frustration. Also, one of the symptoms of my crashes, the sounds carry on in the background, the mouse cursor can be moved, although it resemebles a 1" square mega-pixel rainbow, I cannot exit the game, not even by Ctrl-Alt-Del. I have to turn off computer to get out of this screen.

Any ideas? Using a description of another gamer, I am almost in the blonde cow category as being computer tech savvy. So please try to be gentle in the solutions. Thanks
 
Harkonnen said:
Dakota Strider
Most probably you have to underclock your video.

Thank you. However, I have no idea what that means, or how to resolve that issue. Consider me to be technologically challenged, as my generation and I did not have the benefit of growing up with computers available to us from the time we could talk. :lol:
 
:mischief:
Dakota Strider said:
Thank you. However, I have no idea what that means, or how to resolve that issue. Consider me to be technologically challenged, as my generation and I did not have the benefit of growing up with computers available to us from the time we could talk. :lol:
Your gear appears very adequate for the game. The sympton you describe reminds me of some instances where cables, fans, or cards were not securely seated and plugged in or when BIOS settings were rendered obsolete by new components.
You describe yourself as technically challenged so I expect you had a shop install the video card and ram for you. If so, are they folks you can speak with to describe these symptoms? Be aware, many service departments will initially want to "wipe" your drives and reinstall Windows to start fresh. I do that myself once or twice a year (I'm a nerd :blush:), but you should know that any data dear to you (family photos, tax records, etc.) will be deleted if this is done.
 
Helsinki1 said:
I´ve read and understood everything about "minimum configuration" and can say that I´m sure to have more of what´s required ...

I installed the game without any error messages, confirmed everything mentioned during the installation process but when I try to start (doesn´t matter whether from CD or harddrive it seems the program trys to start, I see some messages like " init "this or that", than it seems to be through and the last thing I see is that my mousepointer changed to a kind of digger (?) and a message said "DONE"....and then everything stops! I can´t shoot down this message or do anything else but have to start the computer again.
...
Helsinki


Hello!

I have the same problem.
The program initializes without any errors (log file shows that everything is fine), but the game starts with a message box and a done button.
The corsor has changed to the dagger and music plays in the backgrund. When I switch to taskmanager and go back to Civ4 I still have the dagger, the music and a black screen. :nuke:

Does somebody know this and... maybe have a hint what to do except buying a new system.

My configuration:
Noteboog with
centrino 1,8 GHZ; 512MB RAM,
ATI Radeon mobility 9000 64MB

Thanks in adavance
 
Yup, My problem is identical to Dakota Strider's. So Dakota, you are not alone.

I have an Athlon64 3000+ on an MSI K8N Neo4, 1 gig of Corsair RAM an a NVidia 6600GT PCI-E video card, Win XP SP2. I assembled this computer myself, been assembling comps for 6 years, so I can tell you that there are no badly inserted cards or RAM sticks.

My machine will take everything I throw at it with brio, wether it be Doom 3, Call of duty 2 or Battlefield 2. Yet Civ 4 is, for all intensive purposes, its nemesis. I've never seen such a disatrous game technically. I've tried practically every fix this forum has suggested, and yet, the thing crashes everytime. It usually begins with the constant seeking from the hard drive. Although the music and mouse cursor still work, the graphics freeze. Disk will seek for a minute or two, then a message saying that Civ 4 has encountered a problem will appear:mad: . That, my friends, is the only thing that never fails, error messages:lol: The event viewer in Windows will mention an application error or a system crash, yup, sometimes, the whole comp just crashes.:eek:

All drivers are the latest, BIOS is up to date, I'm out of ideas...
 
DeliriousAnvil said:
Yup, My problem is identical to Dakota Strider's. So Dakota, you are not alone.

I have an Athlon64 3000+ on an MSI K8N Neo4, 1 gig of Corsair RAM an a NVidia 6600GT PCI-E video card, Win XP SP2. I assembled this computer myself, been assembling comps for 6 years, so I can tell you that there are no badly inserted cards or RAM sticks.
...


Glad to find out (I think) that I am not the only one with this problem. It did not make any sense to me, that I could have a physical problem with my computer, since every other application I have, runs flawlessly. And, I should have mentioned before, I do have the patch, and the crash I have described seems to occur a bit more frequently since that. However, if you you disregard my crashes, the game runs great now. The wonder movies, combat graphics, and almost everything else looks great. There is the problem of of when you try to move rapidly from one part of the screen to another, it will pause; but that is not really a big deal.
 
I have small problem. Last week we played one nice game through Direct IP connection and all works. (4 human players 1 AI) But today we try create game and no more than 2 Human can join the game.

Anyone know whats happen? Settings is still the same!!!
 
Indeed Dakota, we both suffer this game the same way. I also see movies run flawlessly. And I also get short freezes when I try to go from one end of the screen to the other quicly. So it all comes to this, if many have identical problems, perhaps we have a better chance of seeing a patch that will fix it all

I enabled the logs on the game, here are some of the errors found following my latest crash:

Audio
[5431.328] ERR: FAudioManager::GetAudioTagIndex(): Could not find string AS2D_BUILD_GROCERY of TagId 3
[5431.343] ERR: FAudioManager::DoSound(): Illegal scriptId -1 attempted./n
[5734.937] ERR: FAudioManager::GetAudioTagIndex(): Could not find string AS2D_BUILD_GROCERY of TagId 3
[6382.921] ERR: FSharedSoundData::Load: Could not read file Sounds/March.
[6382.921] WRN: Dynamic resident sound could not be loaded, GlobalId: 305
[6382.921] WRN: FSound::DoLoad: Sound Sounds/March could acquire a loaded buffer.
[6382.921] WRN: FAudioManager::DoSound(): Could not load scriptId 322./n
[6414.828] ERR: FSharedSoundData::Load: Could not read file Sounds/Collateral.
[6414.828] WRN: Dynamic resident sound could not be loaded, GlobalId: 326
[6414.828] WRN: FSound::DoLoad: Sound Sounds/Collateral could acquire a loaded buffer.
[6414.828] WRN: FAudioManager::DoSound(): Could not load scriptId 308./n

LSystem

LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Obelisk/Obelisk.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
Failed to place goal building ART_DEF_BUILDING_IRON_WORKS.
Failed to place goal building ART_DEF_BUILDING_HYDRO_PLANT.
Failed to place goal building ART_DEF_BUILDING_FACTORY.
Failed to place goal building ART_DEF_BUILDING_HOSPITAL.
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Obelisk/Obelisk.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Obelisk/Obelisk.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
Failed to place goal building ART_DEF_BUILDING_HOLLYWOOD.
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
Failed to place goal building ART_DEF_BUILDING_ISLAMIC_MONASTERY.
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Obelisk/Obelisk.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Obelisk/Obelisk.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
Layout failed to complete while adding generic buildings!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Obelisk/Obelisk.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Obelisk/Obelisk.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/BombShelters/BombShelters.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Colosseum/Colosseum.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Grocer/Grocer.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
building:Art/Structures/Buildings/Obelisk/Obelisk.nif does not contain a node called SHADOW. Its shadow, if present, will be corrupt!
LSystem failed to place node Leaf_Farm_4x4!

Resmgr

RESMGR: Texture PlayerColor01.tga failed to load
RESMGR: Texture PlayerColor02.tga failed to load

These are some of the error logged. Errors appeared only in these files, all other files seem ok.:confused:
 
Hi all - I do not see my problem mentioned here; I would like help if possible. I have been at it for weeks now. The game starts fine, when the 1st settler tries to build 1st city, the screen goes black and returns to Windows. I had an ATI 9550 card. Civ IV did not work with ATI out of the box software and then their latest software. Today I installed GeForce5500 card instead (more money!). Tried with software from the box, same problem. Downloaded the latest driver version from the Nvidia website and it is still the same. Two cards (no matter what versions of software), same problem. What to do next? and also, has anyone found a way to get money back from Take2, or Firaxis or whoever? this game is not fit for purpose and there should be some redress. And I get no response from them at all. Is there a way to write to Sid?
 
Some people had the problem that there were no intro movies, and then no menus, I had the same problem, and luckily found the solution today :):)

Simply instal the patch they released (1.09) and it works perfectly!
 
Hi all.

Version 1.09
Ati X700 PCI (5.12 drivers and 5.8).
1 Gig ram.
Athlon 4000.
SBlive Value with the last set of drivers ever released for it.

Civ works fine for me in all ways but one. It keeps CTDing. Since this post could get pretty long, heres what i found in brief.

Ati Cat drivers 5.08 gave me this error on a regular basis.

Failed to read from memory address XXXXXX.

Ati drivers 5.12 gave me these errors.

Failed to initialize....

After one CTD the cache got corrupted and i got the old ....

Failed to initialize render error.

Now heres the interesting part. In the game at the moment of the crash, in the box in the top left of the screen its reporting audio errors at the time of crash.

4 Channel descreet sound for example causes a different graphics error to occure from 2 channel stereo settings in options. Yes you heard me right. No mistake.

Changing the Audio options, changes the error the render reports.

So why on earth would an Audio error cause a graphics error popup to appear ?

I should point out that 4 channel descreet sound worked for at least 2 hours perfectly before the CTDing started.

Like most people have already said the CTDs get worse the further in to the game I go. Even after a cold reboot and reload the CTDs reappear almost right away. So its not memory fragmentation. At first theres hardly any crashes, then theres a couple each hour mid game and but around 1700, they occure every few turns.

Its about the time you approach the industrial age in my game (got the game today) that it crashes out every few turns on chieftian difficulty.

Every time it CTDs my destop display settings drop to 800x600x16 colour and i get minor corruption of the windows menu. Which im guessing is because the game did not exit cleanly.

The corruption of its own files points to that being the case and actually is the cause of the renderer failures on my system when they occure. I do not get them at any other time, other than after a major crash to the desktop.

So tomorrow, im going to try turning the Audio off completely. See if it makes any difference.

Yet I fear that until a new patch fixes these issues, Civ 4 will not actually be playable.

PS: Id be happy to send my crash reports in but the errors i see do not offer that option. Its the only program on my computer that does not offer the "send details" option when it crashes or the Debug option.

Giskard
 
giskarduk
Sound subsystem might be subject for threading issues which affect everything else. Try 'SyncInput=1' in 'civ4config.ini'. Many nVidia users (don't remember about ATi) avoided CTDs just with that change.
 
Thanks Hark.

I'll give it a try.

Id still be interested in knowning why an audio error causes a graphics render error to show.

Seems a little weird to me.

Giskard
 
Just checked, the config file you refered too is a shortcut to the CivilizationIV.ini in my game and that file has it already in it.

; Sync input to smooth interface (may run slower)
SyncInput = 0

Giskard
 
Thanks Hark. :)

Tested with all the in game audio turned off and the Failed to read from memory address CTD occured.

My monitor switched off as if it was a USB device that had been unplugged and windows gave that usual bong sound when it happened. Its not a USB device btw, just using an example you should be familar with.

Had to reset to recover.

Ive not seen that error before using the Ati 5.12 drivers, it was a common issue with the ATI 5.08 drivers though. So again, messing with the audio has changed the error i get.

Giskard
 
hey everyone-

Intel Pentium 4 2.6 GHz
512 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X

will my computer work? i have the demo right now (because im getting the full version for christmas) and when im using it the whole map is black and i just see the characters, the city, and a few faint rivers. im hoping that this wont happen to me when i play the full version, because i've read this has been happening to people. so i just wanted to check. thanks for any help!
 
HarK:

I tried your sync tip on my computer (ATI Card fitted) and ive not had a crash in over 30 game years (1882 is the current year). Previously id have crashed out every 2 to 3 years.

So even if I have another crash now, it looks like the serious issues have been solved for me.

Thanks for the help, much appricated:)

PS i also set my sound to use the system config. Dont think it makes a difference but just in case.

Im wondering if the on screen lists for various races has something to do with the CTDs because they get longer in the late game and hold more information. The late game being the game that crashes out the most.

Giskard
 
Hi all.

Can somebody pass these on to fraxis please.

The first CTD is the one Harks suggestion fixed for me. The second is a brand new ive never seen before but it occured after I followed harks tip. So far its a one off but it feels like a memory leak to me because caching gets worse over time until the game gets very choppy and then that error appears.

Screenshot of CTD1
http://www.respawn.co.uk/temp/civ4crash1.jpg

Screenshot of CTD2
http://www.respawn.co.uk/temp/civ4crash2.jpg

Giskard
 
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