Black Screen with Sound

[racecar989]

I just bought and downloaded Civ 4 and for some reason I start the game up and just see a black screen I hear sound though.
My specs are:
Pentium 4 3.2 GHz
1g Ram
Radeon X300 128Mb w/ DirectX 9.0c

So ya, any suggestions would be great.

 

[jlfarrell]

I'm assuming that when you say you just bought Civ IV, you actually mean "CIV IV - Warlords Expansion Pack" since it was just released today (July 25th). I noticed the same problem when I launched the program - a Black Screen with just sound. However, if you just click on the Black Screen the game launched just fine and seems to run OK. I wonder if this is a bug on the first day of release?

 

[racecar989]

umm wow i feel like an idiot no i bought the orginal civ 4 today.
i tried clicking and i didnt work

 

[Catcher]

racecar, if you bought it through the Direct2Drive program (which is what it sounds like) then you want to get the lateset patch for the D2D version. Try using the technique here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159306&highlight=direct2drive+patch Note: the latest patch is now 1.61, not 1.52. The patch has had a positive effect for many people who are running lower performing video cards with the 'black terrain' issue. Not guaranteed to work, but much better than running unpatched.

 

[racecar989]

Thank you I got the game up and running thanks for the help.