ATI 7500 mobility fix?

[ecchang]

I had the same black terrain/floating eyes and teeth problem as many other people, but some combinations of patches and workarounds has corrected it. Thanks to everyone who has posted before with suggestions. I've tried to attach the links to the relevant posts when available.

In the following order:
1. the unpak fix, (thanks to Alamo for collating the issues)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=135231
point number 9
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133787

2. loaded the ATI omega drivers, (thanks somebody)
http://www.omegadrivers.net/
-sorry, forgot which post I saw it on.

3. tried the cache fix, and (thanks Alamo again)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=135231
point number 11

4. used radlinker (thanks Dudeitsciv)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=139074

to change the vertex shader version. After each of the first three fixes, nothing changed. But after the last one, everything has worked perfectly (leaders are completely visible, fog of war works correctly).

The game warned me after the last fix that "my system was below recommended system requirements..." but heck, it works now (at least through 1000 BC)

I hope this will help others.

Thinkpad T40
ATI Mobility 7500, 32 MB
512 MB

 

[bmcaffee]

I have the exact same IBM, so I'm hoping this will work for me. The only problem is, I don't really see how you the Radlinker works. When I right click on the desktop I have the radlinker icon, which I then click on it. I see how I can adjust the clock speed, but I'm not certain where to go to adjust the pixel shader. Any help to walk me through that?

 

[Vladamier]

Yeah, I have one of the T42's and am having the same problem with radlinker. For whatever reason there is no direct X tab available, so changing the pixel shader is just not an option.

 

[Vladamier]

Yo Bmcaffee

Looks like the posted build of radlinker was not the latest...

http://www28.brinkster.com/chrisww1942/

Download the 2.033 build and you should see the 3d tab where you will find the vertex shader options. Believe it or not it looks like this has got me up and running!!

Thanks to the OP!

 

[bmcaffee]

Well, I was able to get the right radlinker, but it didn't fix my problem. After following the steps I still had floating eyeballs, and instead of working it crashed my whole system when it tried to load the new world. Oh well, I guess I'll wait for the patch and pray that it addresses this problem.

 

[gluboy2]

Hey, this worked for me too... regarding the leaderheads and the fog of war. However, I still have white/yellow terrain and the food only display problen. Did Radlinker fix these for anyone else?

Sony Vaio 1.5 GHz
512 MB RAM
ATI 7500 Mobility 32 MB

 

[sweKangaroo]

Yep, Radlinker made the game playable on my laptop. -No more black terrain!
Still strange triangular water, and pale terrain.

P4 1,7GHZ
512MB RAM
ATI Mobility 7500

 

[civjunkie]

Aauuuggh....so close! I have the same exact specs....T40, 512MB ram, Radeon 7500 card w/ 32MB memory. The leader heads are back the sun is shining (no fog of war) but I still have no hammers, no gold and the pale yellow/white terrain.
I'm going to head home from work and see if any other pixel shader values in conjunction with the vertex shaders will work. They're both set at 1.0....but I can't go higher than 1 on the vertex shader, the game won't load...some kind of Directx error.

 

[S.P.Q.R.]

Same for me... also white terrain and no hammers or gold.

 

[joesf35]

Tried it and also got white terrain. Better then AGP at 0 though.

I talked to firaxis a few times today,...kept getting disconnected, apparently the "Mobility" radeon 7500 does not meat the minimum requirements as it is stripped down from its bigger brother the plain old radeon 7500.
They were very helpful but I had to give up as I couldn't keep a connection in my apartment. They said they were working hard to fix the problem with the lower graphics cards but nothing about it being fixed in a patch, perhaps just troubleshooting it like in this thread.
Hopefully something will be found out.

 

[rahidz2003]

Sweet

Thanks for the workaround, leaderheads are perfectly animated, the terrain is white-ish, but the fog of war is good.

Now, if another genius could find a difference between food and hammers/gold...

THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH, THOUGH. I was honestly about to give up and return Civ IV, but this gives me new hope that these problems may be patched.

 

[BSmith1068]

Worked for me as well, but the landscape is now washed out/yellow.

Before I had no leader heads, black terrain, and funky fog of war when using the editor to reveal all tiles (but the terrain looked normal)

Fog of war now works properly and I have leader heads, but alas the yellow terrain color is probably just too annoying to deal with.

ATI IGP 345M 64M

 

[BigCMan]

This fixed the cheshire cat syndrome for me and turned the map into a yellow/white background. Can't see the money or hammers. If I zoom out just right, I can see the map as it was meant to be.

 

[Ron2112]

My laptop sounds nearly identical to the original poster's. Tried the suggested fix and got the same results as some of the rest of you. Fixed leader heads, but now terrain is white/yellow.

Looks like I'm still waiting for the patch (which I really hope fixes this problem).

Peace,
Ron

 

[S.P.Q.R.]

I just noticed that the colors display correctly in the satelite view.
So finally I'm able to really play the game .

Many thanks for the tip!