Vista

[jetjock]

Has anyone else tried Warlords with Vista? I loaded it and the graphics flicker any time a dialog box opens. The game is playable but it gives me a head ache. I am running a Core 2 Duo Extreme with 2 Gigs of RAM and BFG 7950X2 video card. I found a discussion about changing Warlords to run in XP SP2 compatibility mode but it won't find the CD now. Any thoughts?

 

[Goncyn]

I just installed Vista RTM on Friday and tried to play some Warlords today. No dice . I get the same thing you described, severe graphics flickering whenever I move the mouse over a dialog. It was totally unplayable for me, so maybe even worse than what happened to you. This is on a 7800 GTX using the drivers included with vista (version 96.86). I tried all the options on the compatibility tab for the shortcut, but none of them made a difference. I hope this is something that a video driver update will fix. I wanted to get my Civ4 fix in!

 

[Dire]

Has anyone else tried Warlords with Vista? I loaded it and the graphics flicker any time a dialog box opens. The game is playable but it gives me a head ache. I am running a Core 2 Duo Extreme with 2 Gigs of RAM and BFG 7950X2 video card. I found a discussion about changing Warlords to run in XP SP2 compatibility mode but it won't find the CD now. Any thoughts?

I have a test Vista box, a Dell E521 with 3800 X2 and 1 gig of ram with a Nvidia 6600 GT .. and its flickering away. Not to mention SLOW!! My main machine which is a P4 3.0 530 with 1 gig or ram runs the game about twice as fast. I would have to believe its the massive memory overhead required by Vista.

 

[LlamaCat]

Ah, the joy of migrating to a new Windows OS.... reminds me of the good ole days when we all complained how Civ wouldn't work with certain graphics drivers.... good luck boys, is all I can say

 

[Colossian]

I just installed Vista RTM on Friday and tried to play some Warlords today. No dice . I get the same thing you described, severe graphics flickering whenever I move the mouse over a dialog. It was totally unplayable for me, so maybe even worse than what happened to you. This is on a 7800 GTX using the drivers included with vista (version 96.86). I tried all the options on the compatibility tab for the shortcut, but none of them made a difference. I hope this is something that a video driver update will fix. I wanted to get my Civ4 fix in!

Same here. Vista RTM doesn't work with Civ4 at all. Firaxis says 2.08 is the final! it's too bad to Vista.

 

[Goncyn]

Firaxis says 2.08 is the final! it's too bad to Vista.

Do you have a link to wherever they said 2.08 is the final patch? Seems odd, Warlords hasn't even been out for very long.

Also, does anyone know what the proper way to report problems like this to both Firaxis and NVIDIA would be?

 

[Goncyn]

Update: these drivers fixed the problem for me. They are beta drivers published by an unofficial source, so your mileage may vary. Only install them if you know what you're getting into

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1520

Edit: update to the update. I found this newer version later tonight. Requires tweaking the driver inf file so it will install on your card, though.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=80839

 

[Underseer]

Ah, the joy of migrating to a new Windows OS.... reminds me of the good ole days when we all complained how Civ wouldn't work with certain graphics drivers.... good luck boys, is all I can say

Vista is an entirely different animal. It natively supports DicrectX 10, but DirectX 9 games are emulated and have an extra abstraction layer between them and the hardware.

The move to Windows XP didn't cause this much trouble for gaming.

The move to Windows 2000 didn't cause this much trouble for gaming.

In fact I have a hard time thinking of a Windows release with this much potential for causing headaches for gamers.

 

[Underseer]

Same here. Vista RTM doesn't work with Civ4 at all. Firaxis says 2.08 is the final! it's too bad to Vista.

2.08 is final? Are you serious?

 

[GenMarshall]

Personally, I would wait untill the OS's bugs are kinked out before upgrading to Vista.

 

[Goncyn]

Vista is an entirely different animal. It natively supports DicrectX 10, but DirectX 9 games are emulated and have an extra abstraction layer between them and the hardware.

DirectX 9 is not "emulated" in Vista. Vista has a new driver model, so it will take a while for hardware companies to refine their drivers to the point where XP drivers have gotten after years of tweaking and experience, but there's not a huge performance penalty built in to the OS for DX9 games or anything. There is a different rendering path for DX9 vs. DX10, but again, it's not emulation or a wrapper or an additional abstraction—it's just a different abstraction than the DX10 API.

In fact I have a hard time thinking of a Windows release with this much potential for causing headaches for gamers.

Windows 95 comes to mind. All those DOS games.... But anyway, Window Vista will be a headache for a while, but most of that has to do with drivers sucking at first. Give the hardware companies some time to catch up, and everything will be peachy. I'm already able to play all the games I want to now that I've found the updated drivers I posted links to earlier in this thread. Now if Creative would just fix their X-Fi drivers so sound actually works properly...

Patience, grasshopper.

 

[Clutch51]

I have two boxes right now, one a test bed running Vista and my main box that I have set for dual boot. My test bed has an ATI x1300 and my main has an nVidia 6800GT. I only get the flicker issue with my 6800GT in vista.
I am going to try Goncyns suggestion and give those beta drivers a shot!
Thanks Goncyn!

 

[Underseer]

DirectX 9 is not "emulated" in Vista. Vista has a new driver model, so it will take a while for hardware companies to refine their drivers to the point where XP drivers have gotten after years of tweaking and experience, but there's not a huge performance penalty built in to the OS for DX9 games or anything. There is a different rendering path for DX9 vs. DX10, but again, it's not emulation or a wrapper or an additional abstraction—it's just a different abstraction than the DX10 API.


[...]

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=Vista&message.id=1694

Here is the audio architecture under Windows XP. Just for fun, follow the path from "DirectSound" to the driver.

Now here is the audio architecture for Windows Vista. In case you can't make it out, here is a closeup of the section on DirectSound. This time, draw a line from the DirectSound applicatoin to the driver. Notice a few extra things in the middle? In the closeup image, pay special attention to the words "Microsoft DirectSound Emulation."

Read the article. Games written for DirectSound EAX may -- depending on how they are written -- not have functioning 3D sound at all under Vista. Games that use OpenAL for 3D sound should be OK.

The Vista audio architecture disables DirectSound 3D hardware acceleration; resulting in legacy DirectSound based EAX game titles not working as they did in XP.

Issues that may be encountered:
Could range from loss of EAX functionality in EAX enabled games to a complete game incompatibility, depending on how the game title was authored. This would only happen with games that render 3D audio using DirectSound, it should not affect games that render 3D audio using OpenAL.

[...]

Status:
These issues cannot be addressed by the Creative audio driver, because the functionality was purposely removed by the operating system. We look forward to game titles moving away from DirectSound and toward OpenAL for fully optimized Creative 3D audio hardware and technology support.

Some DirectSound apps will flat out break under Windows Vista, and unless the makers of those games come out with another patch, the only solution is to not upgrade to Vista in the first place.

 

[Underseer]

[...]

Windows 95 comes to mind. All those DOS games.... But anyway, Window Vista will be a headache for a while, but most of that has to do with drivers sucking at first. Give the hardware companies some time to catch up, and everything will be peachy. I'm already able to play all the games I want to now that I've found the updated drivers I posted links to earlier in this thread. Now if Creative would just fix their X-Fi drivers so sound actually works properly...

Patience, grasshopper.

Under Windows95, it was still possible to boot to DOS, which most of us did.

 

[jetjock]

Thank You all for the inputs. I usually don't have sound on when I play so that's not an issue. I am downloading Forceware 97.19 drivers on Bittorrent. I'll install them and let everyone know if that is a fix or not. I am running thelatest driver (93.71) so hopefully this will be a fix. As a side note, I jsut installed Neverwinter Nights 2 and have the same issue.

 

[Underseer]

Thank You all for the inputs. I usually don't have sound on when I play so that's not an issue. I am downloading Forceware 97.19 drivers on Bittorrent. I'll install them and let everyone know if that is a fix or not. I am running thelatest driver (93.71) so hopefully this will be a fix. As a side note, I jsut installed Neverwinter Nights 2 and have the same issue.

Be mindful. Neverwinter Nights 2 is full of bugs right now. It's probably not the best app to use to test for problems.

 

[ripple01]

I have been runiing Civ4 Warlords on Vista with no problems on my desktop and laptop. (Desktop x86, Laptop x64)

Not to make anyone jealous, but I thought I would post my experience.

ripple

 

[cbs1013]

I was also having the same issue with vista...(graphics flickering...etc) but I downloaded the 97.46 drivers from HERE/ It fixed my problem hopefully it works for you too.

 

[Tinydancer]

No, so seriously for those of us who are no so computer savvy, will civ 4 work with vista or not?

 

[ori]

welcome to civfanatics

unfortunately the answer is not that simple: for some people it does without problems, for some people it gives some solvable problems and some people seem unable to get it to run. However the most recent patch (1.74) should have solved most issues with vista.