2 Easy Fixes...Hope they help someone

My setup (stop laughing)
Dell Opti 240
512MB
P4 1.8
Radeon 7500-64MB
Civ4 Collector's Ed...got the French tree and mislabled CDs (Disc 1 is the PLAY disc)
Microsoft Digital Sound System 80 USB...hey, they sound great in my little goody hut.
Integrated SoundMax audio as a bonus.

Mind you, I've spent my painful hours on the phone with the tech support guy, the one with the accent so thick I thought he was speaking Dutch. I downloaded all the latest XML parsers and DirectX patches, back-rev'd my video driver, and did several installs, uninstalls, blah, blah, blah...
If it turns out to be a combination of the above and the below, may God help Take2Games figure out this soup-sandwich.

Fix #1
This fixed the numbingly stupid "Checking XML" then exit bug:
Open your Sound control panel, click the Voice tab, and be sure that your main sound card (the MS Digital Sound System 80, in my case) is not being used by the Voice Recording device. Luckily I had the integrated audio to switch it to...those of you with one sound card only, I have no clue.
Anywho, that finally allowed the game to start. Onward then,

Fix #2
Black Terrain...I've seen other posts that say drivers (important, yes...may even fix your problem), get a new card (absurd, if you meet the minimum specs, imo), and all kinds of tweaks to the cards themselves (cool, if you've got the time, the kung-fu, and the patience).

Here's something easy, but it's a cheat, kinda. Sue me, I'll whip the AI's ass until the patch comes out. This fix just starts the game with all terrain visible:
Open the file called "CIV4TechInfos.xml" For me, that was here:
D:\Civ4\Assets\XML\Technologies
Right-click, Edit (in notepad.exe, if it asks), and do Replace All. Find:
<bMapVisible>0</bMapVisible> and replace all with:
<bMapVisible>1</bMapVisible>

Now the terrain is there, beautiful, in technocolor. Polygons here and there (oddly, full zoom is the smoothest, easiest scrolling...medium to close zoom bleeds polygons and annoying shadows and artifacts--are those supposed to be clouds throwing shadows on the terrain below???)

So,after 5 days of searching for answers on too many forums, I offer these two tips. As always, your mileage may vary, not all results are typical, etc.

Kisses,

Hmmmm......bummer. I wish I had these bugs instead of the one that I currently have (Error message: "GFC error: Failed to Initialize the primary control theme.")
This comes up during the "Init Engine" step of the game start.

However, before getting this error, I was getting the Crash & Burn error (entire system crash) during game play. I have not had ANY video or audio problems - the game ran smoothly and looked beautiful (that is, until it started crashing for no apparent reason).

Any ideas? (I mean about the GFC Error).

Try the Art Pak patch. See the 'Fix-It List' for more details.

That's a novel solution, DavidA. All your maps are belonging to us...

Thank you . . . Fix # 1 worked.

My game was crashing to the desktop at the "checking XML" and I had tried everything. After installing, unistalling, installing, loading drivers, etc., it turns out all I needed to do was change the Voice Recording Device so it was not using the sound card. Now the game works.

Thanks again.

I can't take credit....i found both fixes on other forums after five days of searching. I was about to wipe and rebuild my PC, but the 2 fixes seemed easy and worth a shot before going nuclear.

i dont under stand how your able to edit a file in the D:\ drive?

Henry Ford said:

i dont under stand how your able to edit a file in the D:\ drive?

Click to expand...

D Drive may not be his CD rom drive, it could be another hard drive like his C drive.

Hmmm... I have no options for the sound capture device other than my sound card. I'd really like to not have it set to anything as I have no intention of using the in-game VOIP. And yes, I unchecked the option to use in-game voice chat.

The <bMapVisible>1</bMapVisible> fix works wonders. Seriously. Though, I'd imagine it'd only be necessary to do that for the first several technologies listed, at least marking that tag a 1 for whatever initial techs there are.

I'm working off an HP Pavilion with 512MB RAM and Intel 8**** card.
Other folks should probably take heed, since the Intel 8**** card seems to be the culprit behind most folks "Black Terrain" fix. Maybe this thread should be stickied, or referenced at least, considering how common this problem is?

Anyway, I'm playing through right now. There's a sacrifice in gameplay, but it's not the end of the world (until I get nuclear fission). Check it:

http://home.gwu.edu/~kizyr/civ4working01.jpg
http://home.gwu.edu/~kizyr/civ4working02.jpg

Pros:
- Can see terrain
- Can play game
- Still need to explore to find other cities and civilizations

Cons:
- Chesire Cat problem still
- Diminished role of exploration
- Videos still skip with the audio

But, those cons aren't so important, considering now I can actually play the game. KF