Civ 5 problem with main menu, invisible letters, no background

[zoltandober]

I have a Macbook with the following specs:

2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Intel GMA X3100:

Chipset Model: GMA X3100
Type: GPU
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 144 MB
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x2a02
Revision ID: 0x0003
Displays:
Color LCD:
Resolution: 1280 x 800
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected

I am no Techie so please use simple english when talking about a solution.

So I install the game; no prob.
I start game; no prob.
The intro video works beautiful; gives me false hope.
then when the main menu comes in, the background which is supposed to be about that buff guy holding the world on his shoulders is completely black (the background, not the guy).
The frame of the menu is present and is responsive, however the words are not there, they are completely blank.
I tried to blindly start a game, however once it finishes loading/talking about the invisible civilization I picked, it simply crashes.
Any idea guys?
The

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Moved to tech support.

Intel GMA X3100:

Not sufficient. No one has been able to get the game to work on that card. Only solution is a new graphics card.

 

[zoltandober]

can you install/replace the graphics card on a macbook?

 

[The_J]

Don't think so , it's a closed system.
But i don't own a Mac, so i'm not reliable at this point.

 

[Revelations]

I'm gonna play Civ 5 on my Vista.

But i am foruming on a mac; and i never got used to mac vocab.

If it's a laptop; I'm 98% definite you can't change it; unless the mac store can change it.

If its a big monitor with a computer, i am pretty sure you can; as long as you have a PCI slot.

 

[zoltandober]

K thx guys,
i'll ask at the store.
Wish me luck!

 

[automaticruss]

What was the conclusion to this problem? I just bought the new macbook pro and have invisible letters. Apple said it was a problem with steam.

 

[The_J]

Not a steam problem, it's a hardware problem AFAIK. It would help if you posted your hardware specifications.

You might want to try the workaround for garbled text (see here), because that problem is also due to too weak hardware.

 

[ignite]

I too have an invisible menu, and I am positive it is not hardware related. Well, the menu isn't so much invisible as the text is. I still see the background images behind the invisible text, but all the text is... missing. This only happens when I run DirectX 10/11 mode. In DirectX 9, all the text shows. My video drivers are completely up to date, DirectX is up to date, my hardware is not using an integrated video card. My setup:

Windows 7 64-bit, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti, 8GB RAM, Intel Core i5 LGA1155 Quad-Core 3.3GHz

When I run it in DirectX 9 Mode as well, I can't turn on any Anti-Aliasing (Full Screen, 1920x1200, with every other setting on high, but AA is all greyed out).

 

[timtofly]

I too have an invisible menu, and I am positive it is not hardware related. Well, the menu isn't so much invisible as the text is. I still see the background images behind the invisible text, but all the text is... missing. This only happens when I run DirectX 10/11 mode. In DirectX 9, all the text shows. My video drivers are completely up to date, DirectX is up to date, my hardware is not using an integrated video card. My setup:

Windows 7 64-bit, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti, 8GB RAM, Intel Core i5 LGA1155 Quad-Core 3.3GHz

When I run it in DirectX 9 Mode as well, I can't turn on any Anti-Aliasing (Full Screen, 1920x1200, with every other setting on high, but AA is all greyed out).

You may try varifying your files under steam, until you get the message all files varified. The last patch seemd to have introduced this problem, and doing that has helped me.

 

[ignite]

I ran the verification and one file was faulty. It replaced it, but the problem persists.

 

[orionx3000]

You are not alone, Civ 5 ran fine at launch on my comp on HUGE map in marathon mode GTS450 1gbddr3 Phenom x6 3.2ghz 8GB system ram.. not my hardware.. this is the first time i have found it on a pc besides me thank god! NO MENU TEXT, works in dx9 ..took a break playing between patch 2 and 3 or last patch.. played it before that last patch and it worked perfect ,max GRFX ..so now i go to play again 3 months later and i cant. This is >Expletive<. Its one thing to be pissed about a game you cannot play because its a sweet ass game.. its another to have played it perfectly only to lose playabliliity due to a fix for everyone else's slow machines. I even loaded a game via memorizing the click points for the menu and it crashed so.. NO MENU TXT , no game load works in DX9 , not my hardware not internal etc,etc,etc.. if this was any normal business they would be shut down.

 

[orionx3000]

windows 7 x64 too all updated.

 

[The_J]

Please check Civ5s file integrity in steam. Because such problems can be caused by corrupted text XML files (normally not so massive...but who knows?).

 

[Carl5872]

Please check Civ5s file integrity in steam. Because such problems can be caused by corrupted text XML files (normally not so massive...but who knows?).

How does one check Civ5s integrity in steam?

 

[The_J]

In Steam go library -> civ5 -> properties -> verify integrity of the game cache/local files.

 

[Wintershot]

In Steam go library -> civ5 -> properties -> verify integrity of the game cache/local files.

I was about to do a re-install as it seemed to be an XML file issue, however the above solution works perfectly! The integrity check found one file with issues, re-downloaded that file and the menus were working again.

Thank you, The_J and thanks to Steam for having the intelligence to put in an integrity checker for the game files.