A suggestion for everyone with technical problems

[wright100]

From looking at this board there are a ton of problems when everyone is trying to load teh game. And it seems the common problem everyone is turning too is hardware and i don't think that is really the problem. Before u return the game update all drivers on ur computer. Update ur Video card drivers, ur motherboard drivers, update Windows, and update directx. Thats where i think the problem is and seems a lot of people are blaming the graphics card. My friend has integrated graphics, which is just plain terrible for gaming and it works on his computer. The game is not that graphics intensive. I think that if u have a P4 or AMD equivalent system with 256 MB of RAM(prefferibly more) your hardware is probably not the problem.

Update everything u can think of and then try to play the game again.

 

[Woody]

Been there, done that. Still get CTD late in game on huge maps.

Can play any other size map with zero problems.

 

[EoE]

I agree that updating everything should be done first, before posting bugs here. But having said that, it hasn't helped me.

rgds/EoE

 

[Civivist]

From looking at this board there are a ton of problems when everyone is trying to load teh game. And it seems the common problem everyone is turning too is hardware and i don't think that is really the problem. Before u return the game update all drivers on ur computer. Update ur Video card drivers, ur motherboard drivers, update Windows, and update directx. Thats where i think the problem is and seems a lot of people are blaming the graphics card. My friend has integrated graphics, which is just plain terrible for gaming and it works on his computer. The game is not that graphics intensive. I think that if u have a P4 or AMD equivalent system with 256 MB of RAM(prefferibly more) your hardware is probably not the problem.

Update everything u can think of and then try to play the game again.

Done everything. Clean windows install, sound/video/chipset/BIOS/windows: everything is 100% up to date.

Updating chipset drivers resulted in a huge performance boost, but I still suffer from crashes and reboots.

It's too simple to say that it should be our fault just because it's working for you or your friend. I usually know how to solve computer problems, but this one I cannot solve.

 

[Moepheus]

updating everything wasn't the solution in my case

all I did was roll back my graphics drivers (now using the nVidia 71.89 drivers), did a fresh install and a reset after install was complete.

 

[wright100]

I don't see how it can be the games fault when it works for some but not for others. The game u got has the same code as the game i got. And if it works for me how can it be your game?

Lets try this. If your game works say that it does then post these specs at least. Same if it doesn't work, just be sure u specify if it does or does not work. Maybe we can find a common factor between those that don't work.

CPU speed
Amount of Memory
Video Card
Operating System
And the Date u bought the game
whether or not u have the patch


Me and two of my friends bought it about a week ago and havn't had any problems. Maybe there was something wrong with the first batch that came out?

 

[Woody]

I don't see how it can be the games fault when it works for some but not for others. The game u got has the same code as the game i got. And if it works for me how can it be your game?

Because all hardware is not the same, just because it runs on your particular system without problems does not mean it will run on all systems without errors.

Lets try this. If your game works say that it does then post these specs at least. Same if it doesn't work, just be sure u specify if it does or does not work. Maybe we can find a common factor between those that don't work.

AMD 64 +3200
1 gig memory
nVidia 6800 GT 256mb with latest drivers (81.95)
Windows XP Pro with all security updates
Bought game through amazon during the first week of release.
I have applied the patch, if anything crashes became more frequent.

My problem is CTD late in the game when playing on large or huge maps. It seem to happen most often when the game "recenters" itself on a city or unit that is a long way away on the map, most often during the AI's turns or when its going through my cites build orders.

 

[Moepheus]

my game works just fine

no need to post my CPU, Graphics card (but i am using the nVidia 71.89 drivers) or memory because they are included anyway as a signiture

Windows XP Pro SP1 fully updated (don't like SP2)
bought the game about a week ago
patch is installed

 

[Underseer]

I don't see how it can be the games fault when it works for some but not for others. The game u got has the same code as the game i got. And if it works for me how can it be your game?

Lets try this. If your game works say that it does then post these specs at least. Same if it doesn't work, just be sure u specify if it does or does not work. Maybe we can find a common factor between those that don't work.

CPU speed
Amount of Memory
Video Card
Operating System
And the Date u bought the game
whether or not u have the patch


Me and two of my friends bought it about a week ago and havn't had any problems. Maybe there was something wrong with the first batch that came out?

If the game displays the same bad behavior for everyone, then it is unequivocably a problem with the game itself. If the game is fine for some and broken for others, then it could be a problem with the game, or it could be a problem with the drivers for certain cards, or it could be inadequate hardware, or... well... just about anything, but the point is that the game is not necessarily off the hook if a problem appears for some and not others.

Nine times out of ten (OK, I pulled that statistic out of my butt, but certainly in the vast majority of cases), the problem is eventually fixed by a patch from the game developer or by a driver update by a video card or sound card manufacturer.

 

[wright100]

If the game displays the same bad behavior for everyone, then it is unequivocably a problem with the game itself. If the game is fine for some and broken for others, then it could be a problem with the game, or it could be a problem with the drivers for certain cards, or it could be inadequate hardware, or... well... just about anything, but the point is that the game is not necessarily off the hook if a problem appears for some and not others.

Nine times out of ten (OK, I pulled that statistic out of my butt, but certainly in the vast majority of cases), the problem is eventually fixed by a patch from the game developer or by a driver update by a video card or sound card manufacturer.

It seems from reading all these other topics that NVIDIA with a few exceptions cause problems. Some of the lower end ATI cards seem to work. My friend has integerated ATI graphics and it works.

 

[TJonLongIsland]

Nine times out of ten (OK, I pulled that statistic out of my butt, but certainly in the vast majority of cases), the problem is eventually fixed by a patch from the game developer or by a driver update by a video card or sound card manufacturer.

I disagree. Updates are not fixing the problem in most cases. In a few cases, updates are causing more problems. It could have something to do with how it was written; using an interpreted language may be flexible for changes, but certainly isn't the fastest or most efficient way to program such a graphics intensive game...

 

[JensG]

I have noticed that many of those who have the game running perfectly have "older" computers, probably with AGP video cards.

Has the problem with unstable game to do with PCIe?

 

[Civivist]

I have noticed that many of those who have the game running perfectly have "older" computers, probably with AGP video cards.

Has the problem with unstable game to do with PCIe?

This is not true. You'll find many examples on this forum of people with older computers who are also having trouble, including me. (I have an "old" computer with a new AGP Geforce 6600 GT in it.)

 

[Fiontar]

I was having constant reboot causing crashes, to the point I lost my admittedly sub-par, stock Compaq power supply as a result. Everything updated and current, which with this problem seems to have been my mistake.

After reading some threads here, I decided to try an older ATI Radeon driver, actually the Omega version of the ATI 4.12 drivers. (There are a few other threads in this forum with the link). I followed ATIs directions to fully manually uninstall the current ATI drivers https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=20870 Then I installed the Omega drivers. Now I can play through small map games to the end (twice so far) with out a single problem.

Hopefully the devs will be able to take this information to narrow down the problem in the game. There is obviously something different in the more recent drivers that is not agreeing well with the game. Since NVidia users are also having these problems, sometimes also solved by a driver rollback, it must be some newer DirectX feature compatability introduced recently. I know some threads mentioned that using tweak tools to manually rollback pixelshading to an earlier standard has helped some people.

It's pretty ironic really, if the devs had kept the display drivers current on the dev and testing systems as they went, fixing any problems that popped up as a result, we might not have experienced all these problems at launch. Since it appears the problems with ATI and NVidia drivers may have the same root, I'm going to take a wild guess that it is a problem with Firaxis not coding completely in line with the most recent APIs, rather than driver problems.

Edit: The exact driver is the Radeon Omega Drivers 2.5.97a (Catalyst 4.12), it can be found in the archive section at http://www.omegadrivers.net/

 

[Coreymas]

I disagree. Updates are not fixing the problem in most cases. In a few cases, updates are causing more problems. It could have something to do with how it was written; using an interpreted language may be flexible for changes, but certainly isn't the fastest or most efficient way to program such a graphics intensive game...

Where is it written that the entire game was written with an interpreted language?

Corey

 

[Woody]

I have noticed that many of those who have the game running perfectly have "older" computers, probably with AGP video cards.

Has the problem with unstable game to do with PCIe?

Nope, my sytem is only a year old but I use a AGP 6800GT. I get the random CTD on huge maps etc etc

 

[Spleenfarmer]

Stupid Question: For the other computer illiterati, would you mind posting tips on updating drivers? I've updated my video driver and audio driver, but I could use tips on where to look to update other drivers.

Thanks!

 

[Underseer]

I disagree. Updates are not fixing the problem in most cases. In a few cases, updates are causing more problems. It could have something to do with how it was written; using an interpreted language may be flexible for changes, but certainly isn't the fastest or most efficient way to program such a graphics intensive game...

Of course updates aren't fixing problems yet. The game's only been out for a few weeks.

 

[j0hnnnym]

Updating drivers was also certainly not the answer for me either. I updated everything (graphics, chipset, direct x). Civ 4 still runs very slowly and loads extremely slowly. I have an Nvidia 6600GT and P4 2GHz with 512MB RAM. Any suggestions? Does rolling back the drivers really work for this problem? If so what version works the best?

 

[Pado]

And what about we who hot DVD and cant load it couse it say we have incorect CD-ROM inside.CD ROM and we got DVD and only 1 dvd.Whats the fix for that problem?I write 2 times to support and still dont got any answer.I will go crazy with this game.