Crashes while initializing

[shawn41]

Hi there. My CIV 4 is crashing to the desktop while it is initializing the game play. Once I go through the steps to set up the map and civilizations, and as the game is beginning to load, it crashes at the "initializing graphics" screen.

Previously, I installed Civ 4 and realized I needed a new graphics card (it wouldn't even load before). Now, I'm running a GeForce FX 5500 OC PCI 256 MB graphics card. The settings are at 1024x768, 16-bit, 75 hertz, and image quality is set to Performance. I'm running a Dell Dimension 2400 Pentium 4 2.8 with 512 MB of RAM. Also, the video intro seems to be skipping every couple of seconds. The music isn't, just the video.

Here is the dxdiag:



I would appreciate any tips! Thank you!

 

[Zydor]

Make sure you have loaded Patch V1.52, its a must have patch

Change your Pagefile to 2000mb min-max

Update your NVidia drivers - the latest set (released 21 Dec 05 ) included support for DirectX 9.0c, thats important for Civ IV

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_81.98.html

Read the instructions link at top of the download page. When you deinstall current drivers, and eventually reboot, windows willdetect you have 'no' drivers and try to auto load some - dont let it. Say no when asked if it can load graphics drivers.

You will end up with an awfull looking screen 640 x 640 with minimal textures, dont worry thats fine, just go through the install of the downloaded drivers - this time say yes when asked (!)

If still issues post again, there are other things that can be tried

Regards
Zy

 

[shawn41]

Thanks for all your help. Two things were causing the problem. My Virtual Memory was set to 192 MB (way too low). Also, while installing the program, we got an error message about a missing file. I hit "retry" and it appeared to work. Thinking this might be the problem, I uninstalled the program, reinstalled, downloaded the patch, and now it's working well.

Thanks again!

 

[Zydor]

Excellent News

Happy World Domination

Regards
Zy

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Where on earth do you go to adjust the Virtual Memory???

 

[Neon Deon]

Where on earth do you go to adjust the Virtual Memory???

Virtual memory is quite burried

control panel/system/advanced/performance-settings/advanced/virtual memory-change/

Select custom size and set initial and max to 2000.

Good Luck

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Wow! thanks Neon! that was burried! i hope that fixes my problem...