Ati Radeon IGP 345m 64 mo & Alice's cat

[JackTheNarrator]

Hi,

I have tested civ 4 on another laptop - an Presario 2500 - equiped with an 64 Mo IGP 345M.

This card is better than the IGP 320M aka 7500, and has, according to everest software, a fully T&L support...

However, I have the black terrain bug...

So here is my question: Who have a card with T&L and 64 Mo that DOES NOT handle civ 4 properly ? (I mean with a normal color terrain)

Thx

 

[Samtheknight]

I have the same card and the same problem as you do, and looks like it should work because it has T&L support, if you go to world builder and select make all tiles visible or something like that it won't be black any more, looks like the is problem with the fog of war code in the game , which can't be fixed unless the patch is released.

 

[Carver]

Thank you Jack for the info that the 320m is the same as the 7500. The 320m is what I have (in a Presario 2195us laptop). Of course, I have the blackness. I'm hopefull that Firaxis will find a solution.

 

[amirsan]

LOL! Carver, your avatar... wow. lol. Shouldn't everyone pity us?

Anyways, my laptop is a IGP 345M, so I assume we are speaking of the same card. I am having the same problems.

BTW, If this is a widespread problem, I dont see why Firaxis wouldn't release something as soon as possible... or else they will really be losing alot of sales.

 

[Samtheknight]

I have the same issue my card is Radeon IGP 345M(64MB) with T&L support. Funny though that when I select to play American Revolution scenario instead of the full game black terrain problem goes away, and game looks ok. Looks like there is a bug with in the game nothing wrong with the video card.

 

[amirsan]

I have the same issue my card is Radeon IGP 345M(64MB) with T&L support. Funny though that when I select to play American Revolution scenario instead of the full game black terrain problem goes away, and game looks ok. Looks like there is a bug with in the game nothing wrong with the video card.

Yeah, the American Revolution does show some texture and color for the terrain. Nothing like it should be, but it works somewhat. Its much better then the single player which is all black.

 

[armandweaver]

I documented my problems with screenshots. Feel free to post any new info on the situation.

Hi, I just wanted to add my report on the problems. I have HP Pavilion P4 2.6MHZ with RADEON IGP 345M - which is supportive of T&L. I mean I've been getting the BS from Firaxis - your card doesn't support T&L so beat it!

I didn't sleep for 2 days to find out more info on my laptop specs and I confirmed that RADEON IGP 345M supports T&L - and it is in fact a modernized RADEON 7500.

IGP 320M is for Celeron
IGP 340M is for AMD Athlon
IGP 345M is for Mobile Pentium 4 and is one step better that 320M and 340M taking advantage from increased graphical performance.

I came to the above conclusions following the path:
1) Called 2K Support Line - They brushed me off saying i will never be able to to run the game on my HP and that a patch for my problem is not feasible.
2) Called HP - Spent 3 Hrs online with them. In the end they confirmed the IGP345M as T&L compliant.

 

[armandweaver]

sorry posted twice

 

[amirsan]

So what do you suppose you do now? Do you have hard evidence that you can prove that your card has T&L support (actually, OUR card because I have the exact same one )? Are you going to call Firaxis also?

Maybe they think you are the lone wolf, and they dont realize that there are probably hundreds, or even thousands of other customers with the same problem.

 

[adwilk]

I have the 340 on my laptop and I have the same problem. Seems to be more a software thing than hardware thing but what do I know. What I do know is this has to be the buggiest game ever realeased. Not only am I having problems with the laptop I'm having tons of problems with my desktop that has 256 ram on the vid card and 1024 ram. It runs choppy some times and it carshes every 10 minutes. VERY FRUSTRATING.

 

[JackTheNarrator]

Yeah, The same for me, If I use the "all-reveal trick" first the game is very laggy and then it corrupt my ingame experience... I mean, I have buy a full 55€ game so I want it fully functionnal !

 

[JackTheNarrator]

By the way, graphics is not the only bug... There are a lot of small mistake like missing icon or bad translation (French version)...

I'd prefer to get Civ 4 for Christmas... But fully fonctionnal...

 

[amirsan]

Has it occured to us that maybe the T&L feature of our cards are probably not enabled. Maybe we have to click something to make it work on our cards. If we are saying that our cards do have T&L then maybe its just not functioning right on our cards?

 

[armandweaver]

Has it occured to us that maybe the T&L feature of our cards are probably not enabled. Maybe we have to click something to make it work on our cards. If we are saying that our cards do have T&L then maybe its just not functioning right on our cards?

Well I went into so much trouble finding any info re IGP 320M/340M/345M that to be honest with you I don't know. A lot of people on the forums say outright that these cards do not support T&L and they may be right but no hard evidence except the fact that HP and ATI and a few tester programs say T&L is YES.

Y'a all need to keep diggin'

 

[armandweaver]

Yeah, the American Revolution does show some texture and color for the terrain. Nothing like it should be, but it works somewhat. Its much better then the single player which is all black.

Post a screenshot, man

 

[adwilk]

Do any of you know where I can get a new drive for this card. I hae the 340.

 

[Carver]

^ All the official drivers should be at ATI and on the website of your comp's manufacturer. Then there are the other dirvers like www.omegadrivers.net which are usermade, but there may be stability problems with Omega.

 

[adwilk]

I looked all over the HP websight but couldn't find anything.

 

[amirsan]

it seems that HP and ATI totally forgot about the Radeon igp 340/5M series completely. There is no recent drivers on the HP site for over a year and none of the new ATI catalyst drivers to my understanding dont support our cards... We are abandoned.

 

[Willem]

LOL! Carver, your avatar... wow. lol. Shouldn't everyone pity us?

Anyways, my laptop is a IGP 345M, so I assume we are speaking of the same card. I am having the same problems.

BTW, If this is a widespread problem, I dont see why Firaxis wouldn't release something as soon as possible... or else they will really be losing alot of sales.

The IGP cards won't work because they only support Direct X functions up to 6, and the game needs 9c. Even though it says it has Hardware T&L, it's not actually functioning because of this limitation.

As for the 7500, it will work if you go into advanced display settings and turn off your ARP acceleration in the SmartGart settings. But the game will run very slowly after that.