Civ 5 doesn't load after updating Nvidia drivers

[packmech2011]

First main computer specs:

Dell XPS L501x
Core i5 M480 2.67 GHz
6 GB ram
Nvidia GeForce GT 420M

I got this laptop about a month ago and have been playing Civ 5 without a problem. When the most recent patch came out the game would crash sometimes later in the game, so the first thing I did was check my graphics drivers at I had version 8.17.12.5951 released 8/25/2010. Nvidia has a newer set of drivers out for the 420M so I installed those (version 266.58 released Jan 18).

With the new drivers installed the game doesn't load when using DirectX 9 (I click to play with DirectX 9 and then nothing happens) and when I choose DirectX 11 it plays the opening video and then crashes.

With the new drivers installed I can play the game only once after reinstalling the game. After that if I want to play again I found I can uninstall and then reinstall and be able to play once, but that is ridiculous to do every time I want to play.

Things I've tried that didn't work:
-going to the user settings file to disable the opening video, as well as trying to disable full screen
-lowering all graphics settings to minimum
-checking for Dell and Windows updates
-reinstalling Civ 5 and/or Steam
-installing from both my disc and downloading the game from Steam
-Updating DirectX

I have seen a number of posts between different forums describing not being able to load Civ 5, but I don't know how related each story is.

I have since replaced the new Nvidia drivers with the ones I had originally and the game loads without a problem. I fear the game will start crashing as I continue along in my current game, however.

Can anyone think of a potential reason that installing new graphics drivers prevents me from loading Civ 5 (besides the new drivers hating Civ 5), and can anyone think of possible fixes? I'm sure I'm not the only one playing Civ 5 with an Nvidia graphics card...

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

 

[The_J]

Welcome to the forums .

Next time when you can't start Civ5 again, then please delete the cache first (means you delete the whole Documents\My Games\Civ5\Cache folder). The cache is a temporary story folder, where things get saved for faster loading after you've once loaded a game. That you can only get it to run after the installation, is for me a hint that there might be something going wrong there, but i'm also only guessing.

 

[timtofly]

Is that the same as deleting local content?

 

[The_J]

Don't ask me, i don't even have a Steam account, no idea how this program works, i'm always speaking purely theoretically here.
Would be nice if you could check that, would probably help to avoid some confusion later.

 

[packmech2011]

thanks for the response, I have the new graphics drivers in again and as before I was able to load the game the first time with no problem. It wouldnt load again after that, and I deleted the cache folder but that didn't solve it.

I decided to look through the logs folder and noticed this in the xml file:

[385.384] **** Validating Game Database *****
[386.196] Performing Localization Checks
[386.196] Checking Tag Format...
[386.196] Note: Tags must only use [A-Z_] characters, start with 'TXT_KEY_', and be under 128 characters long.
[386.211] Validating UnitGameplay
[386.211] Number of selection sounds doesn't match number of units.
[386.211] Validating Notifications
[386.211] **** VALIDATION FAILED *****
[386.274] Validation Took 0.902319 seconds
[387.568] **** Validating Prefetch Process *****
[387.568] **** Validation Success *****
[387.568] SetGlobalActionInfo
[387.568]

could this "Number of selection sounds doesn't match number of units" thing and "validation failed" thing be the reason the game won't load?

 

[packmech2011]

I somehow fixed half of the problem now...

I tried deleting the graphics settings files for both DX9&11, the config file and the user settings file in the My Documents folder, then tried to start the game up again. Now I can load the game using DirectX 9 with no problems, but trying to load with DirectX 11 crashes before the movie even begins.

This is a step in the right direction, but I still don't know why I can't load the game using DirectX 11

 

[The_J]

What operating system do you have? If it's not Win Vista or 7, then don't bother further, it will not be able to display anything more beautiful.

 

[packmech2011]

I have windows 7, nearly brand new laptop that was built in january and I know it has DirectX 11 and a compatible card. I could run civ 5 with directx 11 before I installed the updated drivers, but the game play was pretty choppy (so i have been playing with directx 9 anyway)... i was hoping the newer drivers might allow it to run better with directx 11, but i can't even find that out