ATI Graphics Card Owners: re FAILED TO INITIALIZE RENDERER

[NobleAtreides]

I tried all except for uninstalling and reinstalling DirectX

so far, still wont load 'render error' on my ATI X800XL retail boxed vid card.

5.10 installed, tried to reinstall game, and drivers, still no go.

WinXPsp2 with all updates, ALL other games WORK, yes, even Black & White 2 (will soon unleash my creature in this forum, you wont want that, jk)

All ATI demos work, even as I burn and watch DVD movies on the fly.

ATI will have to release a fix rightaway, as it is something ATI and FIXARIS should be working on together. X800 is still relatively new, every driver update had tons of resolved issues for X800 cards and games about a year old, so we have no choice but to wait, or borrow another card.

I think games should be boxed with computers that work with them, like old style mini arcade games with dediacted Chip ROM or somehting. you could elimiate 100,000 tech support jobs, oh wait, i forgot, public beta is free....oh i forgot, oh wait so is out sourcing....

I guess we are getting (free) what we are paying (free) for.

 

[tofu]

Radeon xPress 200m (integrated, laptop)
Latest Cats (5.10) downloaded last night
Works fine

I find it ironic my lowest end card can run it while x800's can't.

 

[Jayseki]

rayanth-- i know this might be a dumb question, but is firaxis trying to reproduce this problem using their (developers) copy of the game, or are they using the gold/production version (the one you pointed out earlier that they didnt test prior to its release)? because obviously if the problem is unique to the gold version for some reason, then thats the one they need to examine.
P.S. you never told us WHY exactly they couldnt test the gold version prior to its hitting the shelves.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I have to completely agree.
We don't need pieces of information, we need the complete picture.

You've brought up another great point. We have how many threads on this issue? 4 or 5? How many different ideas and suggested fixes have there been by individual users, now lost in the depths of these disparate threads?

We need an official rep or someone with some serious computer software know-how to compile all this stuff into a single thread and help make sense of it all.

 

[ThBeNdS]

Ok so all this talk about drivers. Has anyone tried to custom install or install with out the online option. I think that was an option in the start of the install.

I'm at work and just thought about this as well... maybe someone can try it. When I load the game I get an XML error but I can click through the messages and actually load the game. It runs great except for the fact ALL the text is in XML code format and almost unreadable. There is no way to play the game like this. Maybe someone with the same problem can load the game and then try to tweak the settings and see what happens. Maybe a few game setting tweaks ingame will adjust something that will set it right? Just a thought.

 

[BlakMajiK]

I have, since first installing the game and getting the rendering problem, tried the following solutions (in no particuliar order) :

Installing older ati drivers than 5.10
Installing Directx 8.1
Installing Dirextx 9.0b
Installing the DX 9.0c on the cd using the 9.0b setup files (because it would not overwrite the files)
Rolling back DX with a util mentioned in these forums (or at apolyton) and installing different versions of DX
Changing my desktop res to 1024x768

I decided my last course of action was a windows reinstall. Did that. I have installed : Newest Omegas; Nforce2 chipset drivers; DirectX 9.0c off the Civ4 CD (which appeared to install fine after the windows reinstall); Civ4

Still get the error.

 

[SterRedtJe]

Not working...

DirectX 9.0c
Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz
ATi Radion 9600 Series AGP

Tried everything mentioned here... Still not working.

Sad.

 

[fantated]

Done everything except reformat comp. Uninstalled DirectX, installed it, uninstalled ATI drivers, reinstalled them.

No dice.

Oh, I have a Radeon 9550.

Ted

 

[Novish]

Okay, maybe I just got lucky...but I got the game to work. For now.

When I first installed the game, all I got was the splash screen that went through a few loads and then said Done. Then nothing, and eventually the game went to Not Responding and I had to close it out.

Went to ATI, downloaded new driver package with Control Panel (I have a Radeon 8500 card). Installed it, tried to play game, and now I got the famous Failed to Initialize Renderer message.

Back to ATI, got the uninstaller, uninstalled driver. When it prompted me to restart computer, I said no, figuring I'd have to reboot after I reinstalled the driver anyway. This was a mistake--when I went to install, I got a VGA error message of some kind (sorry, didn't write it down, but the upshot was I couldn't load the driver). So I rebooted, then installed the driver package, rebooted again. Then, remembering someone's advice above (and I have no idea whether it made a difference), I set my screen resolution to 1024 x 768.

Loaded game, and it played. My kid has been at it for over an hour now, with no problems yet. Fingers crossed that it holds. But my kid finally gets to play his game--you should have seen how disappointed he was yesterday. And last night. And this morning...

 

[SmCaudata]

rayanth-- i know this might be a dumb question, but is firaxis trying to reproduce this problem using their (developers) copy of the game, or are they using the gold/production version (the one you pointed out earlier that they didnt test prior to its release)? because obviously if the problem is unique to the gold version for some reason, then thats the one they need to examine.
P.S. you never told us WHY exactly they couldnt test the gold version prior to its hitting the shelves.

I have benn wondering this myself. None of the review sites have seen have talked about this problem. Everyone says the game is stable. I find it odd that all the review sites that install the game across the office don't discuss this. Even saying "We had some trouble with...but that was cleared up with a driver reinstall". The thing is, I am wondering if an old or corrupt file made it onto the disc. Also, the computers that are tested on have been built from release to release. What if the retail release didn't include a file that was already on said computer? Then those computers at Firaxis would be okay, while those poeple without these files wouldn't. This file could come from other games or programs which would explain why not everyone sees the problem.

While none of what I listded is likely to be the problem, I point it out because they cannot really reproduce the same scenario. They may get the error, but the don't have exactly the same hardware. They don't have the same programs installed. Heck even uninstalled programs leave files and registry entries behind that can cause issues...nice design Microsoft. It keeps me from uninstalling/reinstalling trial software, but ultimately it causes many problems.

I hear people who format and reinstall everything. If Civ is the first install on a fresh drive and you use that to install DirectX, then it seems to point to the install discs themselves as a possible culprit. Well, guess we just sit and wait.

 

[Jayseki]

there's a new thread with a supposed solution- about to try it

 

[Snicker]

CPU: Athlon 3500+ socket 939
Mem: 2GB
Card: Radeon X800XL
Driver Version: Everything out there
Works / Doesn't work: Dosn't work!!!

I have tried _EVERYTHING_ to get it to work.

-Snicker-

 

[Jayseki]

finally!!!!! i used the new solution posted in the other thread, and it worked!!! for a second it looked like it wasnt going to, but then the opening video came up!!!!! i swear i almost cried ( the emotionally poignant music didnt help either lol ) - anyway i came back here immediately after the video, so i cant really vouch for how bug-free the rest of the game is for me, but it works!!!! YAY!!! ok, heres the link..... http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140859
i have a radeon 9550, running with catalyst 5.10
good luck all!

 

[Euphoric One]

there's a new thread with a supposed solution- about to try it

That fix worked for me.

 

[SmCaudata]

finally!!!!! i used the new solution posted in the other thread, and it worked!!! for a second it looked like it wasnt going to, but then the opening video came up!!!!! i swear i almost cried ( the emotionally poignant music didnt help either lol ) - anyway i came back here immediately after the video, so i cant really vouch for how bug-free the rest of the game is for me, but it works!!!! YAY!!! ok, heres the link..... http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140859
i have a radeon 9550, running with catalyst 5.10
good luck all!

Do you get black terrain or movie slowdowns, etc now? I am curious if all the problems were linked to the game having problems unpacking files while running.

 

[marksman]

Okay, maybe I just got lucky...but I got the game to work. For now.

When I first installed the game, all I got was the splash screen that went through a few loads and then said Done. Then nothing, and eventually the game went to Not Responding and I had to close it out.

Went to ATI, downloaded new driver package with Control Panel (I have a Radeon 8500 card). Installed it, tried to play game, and now I got the famous Failed to Initialize Renderer message.

Back to ATI, got the uninstaller, uninstalled driver. When it prompted me to restart computer, I said no, figuring I'd have to reboot after I reinstalled the driver anyway. This was a mistake--when I went to install, I got a VGA error message of some kind (sorry, didn't write it down, but the upshot was I couldn't load the driver). So I rebooted, then installed the driver package, rebooted again. Then, remembering someone's advice above (and I have no idea whether it made a difference), I set my screen resolution to 1024 x 768.

Loaded game, and it played. My kid has been at it for over an hour now, with no problems yet. Fingers crossed that it holds. But my kid finally gets to play his game--you should have seen how disappointed he was yesterday. And last night. And this morning...

Initially when I had this problem I used the uninstaller and upgraded the driver from 4.1 to 5.1. That did not work. I saw your post and tried it again, this time after installing the driver and rebooting, I reduced my resolution to 1024 x 768. I ran the game and got the same error.

So it did not work for me, unfortunately.

 

[marksman]

I just saw the fix in the other thread and tried it out. Worked like a charm.

 

[Jayseki]

works fine so far
god yes this game is good
bye now gotta go play for next 100 hrs

 

[piranhaZ]

Do you get black terrain or movie slowdowns, etc now? I am curious if all the problems were linked to the game having problems unpacking files while running.

Yeah, that and I'd also like to see if this helps the puny Radeon 7500 on laptops. Come on, someone give me some good news. (crosses fingers)

 

[Stryck]

finally!!!!! i used the new solution posted in the other thread, and it worked!!! for a second it looked like it wasnt going to, but then the opening video came up!!!!! i swear i almost cried ( the emotionally poignant music didnt help either lol ) - anyway i came back here immediately after the video, so i cant really vouch for how bug-free the rest of the game is for me, but it works!!!! YAY!!! ok, heres the link..... http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140859
i have a radeon 9550, running with catalyst 5.10
good luck all!

Worked for me too!

Geniuses, brilliant. Wonder why it worked?
And, more importantly, was it a graphics card issue at all?