Civ4 Problems Please Help

[Billyboy]

Hi, I've just recently joined this group so hi from NZ!
My name is Paul and I've been playing civ4 for a couple of months and it regularly crashes on me. Sometimes it can go for an hour, sometimes 10 minutes. Usually it starts by slowing down graphically, then the screen goes black and keeps flickering. I press ctrl-alt-delete and it usually says the program is running so I close it and reboot normally fixes it but I'm getting sick of doing this!
It has a couple of error messages:
1. Error failed to allocate video memory. Please try reducing your graphics settings. File:\Source\Main\Civ4\SDKs\Gamebryo2.0\CoreLibs\NiDx9Renderer\
NiDx9VBManager.cpp,Line:1019

2. Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library Runtime error! Program:Civ4.exe.
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the applications support team for more information.

After this the screen usually reverts to 800x600 pixels, lowest color quality.

I tried turning antialiasing off from my NVIDIA settings and have changed Civ4.ini file Hidepythonexceptions to 0 (was 1).

I have an Acer Aspire T180
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE, 512mb
Processor: AMD Athlon 2.2MHZ
Memory: 1GB
HD 140GB

Please can someone help?

Paul

 

[ori]

have you tried reducing graphics settings?
The hydepythonexceptions thing would just work if there was an error in the python files, but the failed to allocate video memory is more a problem with the memory use of the game.
You can lower some of the settings in the ingame options. You can try changing some of the video settings in the ini (basically anything with bik in its name refers to video stuff). You might also want to update your video driver/firmware.

Welcome to CFC by the way

 

[Billyboy]

Thanks heaps for that, yes I've reduced graphics settings, and have changed some of those bik (I think you meant bink) settings, so far so good, let's hope it stays that way.

 

[ori]

yes I meant bink - bik is the file extension the bink videos use

 

[Billyboy]

Just letting you know that the game is running good now, so thanks a million for your help, Paul

 

[SCBall21]

Billyboy I have exactly the same problems you have (or did have). What exactly did you change that made it better?

 

[Billyboy]

Hi there,
first I lowered the graphics settings, to do that start the game and look for options and graphics and turn them to low.
But this alone didn't fix it.
I went to a file called Civ4.ini, it's found in C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CivilizationIV.ini, look for the paragraph that says:

Allows some memory savings *** ALT-TAB WILL NO LONGER FUNCTION ***
MemSaver = 0

Change the 0 at the end to 1

Then I changed the paragraph that says :

Copy entire image each frame, not just dirty pixels
BinkCopyAll = 1

I changed the 1 to 0

There are other paragraphs that mention bink in them which you can experiment with, it's a good idea to write down what you've done so you can go back and change them back if you want to.

Good luck,
Paul