can't read city name HELP!!

markw

Chieftain
Joined
Dec 31, 2005
Messages
2
All I get are blue boxes where city name should be..Also can't read city size

I have a 64MB NVIDA GeForce2 MX video Card.

Looked for help on this site and couldn't find anything that addressed how to correct this

I have installed 1.52 patch. I tried updating Video drivers and all that did was then give me the dreaded "Failed to init Renderer error" and then I couldn't run game at all. Reverted back to old drivers and game runs fine with exception that the city name problem still exists so I am back to square one..Appreciate any help
 
GeForce2's are as low as they will support for the game - in fact GeForce 2's do not run Shaders, Firaxis have coded a fallback for those with that card, however the fallback is slow and a little precarious. Its unlikely they will support the GeForce2's for much longer.

If you post your Dxdiag we can have a look to see if a higher grade card can be fitted if you dont know yourself. Please also post the PC Type/Model number - sometimes its not clear on the Dxdiag being only identified by Maker, not model number

Regards
Zy
 
Thanks ZY..

I aprreciate the response. Love the game but very disappointed I cannot play to its full capacity. Was looking to upgrade PC in another year or so but was hoping to get by for another year. can still play all my other new games Would apprecaite any recommendation son upgrades that would work,

Dxdiag attached (i think)
 

Attachments

Thoughts on the Dxdiag:

You are running XP with 256Mb, with Civ IV on XP you really do need 512Mb

Pagefile is low, wack it up to 2000mb you have 33Gb free on C Drive so plenty of room - make it min=max to stop fragmentationof the pagefile. Civ IV is a memory hungry beast and yours is relatively lowspec machine, so it will use the pagefile a lot - heavy pagefile use will slow it down due to the slow access speed of hard discs vis a vis RAM

The graphics driver is out of date - looks like its the windows default driver. Worth going to the NVidia site for the latest driver set - they released a new set on 21 Dec 05. Make sure you have Civ IV Patch V1.52 loaded before updating the driver.

Reduce Grahics Load
Reduce the quality settings for resolution, textures etc etc, anything that reduces the load on the Card will make a significant difference. Each change on its own maybe small, but added together can make a significant difference on lowend Cards like the GeForce2. Dont forget to reduce the Desktop resolution and colour depth (32 bit / 16 bit etc) if you run Civ in a window - that will help reduce load as well

New Card?
GeForce 4's will run that PC, and are relatively inexpensive these days, would be ok as a stop gap - maybe the GeForce5's would run, but research carefully, may have cooling issues etc with the 5's, I dont know the Dell 8200 well enough vis the GeForce 5 possibility - could be a little OTT with your motherboard - if they will work without heat issues go for the 5's - not that much more expensive. The 4's will be fine tho, as you are changing the beast - still not going to get lightning speed with 4's, keep expectations down, but will run better. The other factor is support for GeForce 2's - I would be surprised if Civ didnt drop them sometime in the next 12 months, so you could be left high and dry without a change - the latter is not imminent, dont loose sleep on that aspect - yet - but as time goes on ....

So my view would be tweeks as above, buy RAM to get up to 512Mb, fit a Geforce 4 card, and that should keep you going until you change the beast. Am aware Dell memory is sometimes expensive, you would need to research that a bit more, no point buying the card to discover the main RAM cost blows you away. Doubt its an issue, but wise to pause and look first before diving in. Give the beast a good clean inside when changing the card, dust build up on the fans (case, cpu & card) is a common problem causeing significant heat issues.

In case your PC docs became invisible and nowhere to be seen, the link below will give you a good overview of the beast and the limitations of what you can do with it

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8200/

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EDIT: Just noticed - that beast uses RDRAM, now you really do have a problem vis upgrades. RDRAM is very expensive aka 4x the cost of DDR RAM. This link will give you an idea of cost

http://www.pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk/memory/rambus-rdram-16.asp (prices there are in euros) Google "RDRAM PC800" and you will drown in links

Talk to Dell about this - its going to be your major issue in upgrade terms
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Regards
Zy
 
I have the same problem except my game was running smoothly untill i had a driver issue with the video card ... i dont know what driver i used to have ... but the updated one has taken all city names and pop numbers and replaced it with teal and black blocks. I have tried to fix my driver but i cant find a solution. My specs are on a different thread. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=152920 Help plz
 
just to let you know i solved the problem the standard windows xp driver saved me ... i think. the updated driver is bogus.
 
The updated driver is a good one.

The problem you have is that its a low spec setup similar to the above, the main issue being the Geforce2 Card. The card does not natively support all the features needed by the game. Firaxis have coded a fall back which detects your card and works the code in a different way. This alternate route however is slow and somewhat unwieldy, they cant avoid that due to the nature of the card. You will have increasing problems as time goes by until you at least upgrade the video card.

You will have similar problems upgrading main memory as above, you should have 512mb playing Civ IV with XP.

Do not be surprised to find you face increasing issues this year as new patches come out.

Regards
Zy
 
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