Dear Sid

[Tempete]

I am sick of people trashing this game. I had problems at first - then I tweaked the options and things ran fine. I have an older machine - I can't expect torun things at the high end like I did when my computer was new.
If tweaking doesnt work then do a simple upgrade - if your computer is top of the line I bet the games runs perfectly - try getting newer drivers. try tweaking your graphics card. If you were a true civ fan you would be working on your computer, nit trashing the game, the company and the genius behind it. It sounds to me like you guys were prepared to be disappointed and so were. I was determined to play this game and I perservered.

Wow you made it sound so simple! Are you suggesting that we all have the same problems that you had? Please also consider the possibility that the issue may actually be in the game itself, not our hardware. What made you think that we haven't tried almost every possible fix conceivable? This call to the developers came out of desperation, not because we're lazy. Battlefield 2 runs ten times better on my machine than Civ 4 at the lowest graphical settings. Does that sound right to you?

 

[controlledchaos]

I can empathize with you. I had an Intel Integrated Extreme Graphics card and thought it would support this game. Well, it didn't. I had the black terrain problem. Come to find out my card didn't have T&L support, which this game requires. I went out and bought a GeForce FX 5500 128 MB card today for $80 and the game works fine now. I have an HP Pavillion Pentium 4 2.53 GHz 512 MB. I'm not sure if the GeForce you bought has T&L support.

EDIT: From what I've read when it comes to GeForce cards you really need the FX 5200 card or above. Maybe it has something to do with the Vertex Shader Version (seems to need at least Version 2.0)

 

[Speed Of Sound]

its not sid's fault. its Take2. pieces of crap.

 

[yvovandoorn]

Amen!(to the letter) so many bugs cant be put out into the game. my suggestion is that for beta testing not to use a fancy computer. why dont they just use some older computer, one that a lot of people would have. geez! i wish atari hadnt sold to taketwo

I swear I said the same thing in another thread lol.

In any case... list your complete system specs.

If you build your own PC, give us the motherboard model as well (so we can see if the chipset drivers can use drivers, help a lot of times) and manufacturer of your memory.

If you bought your PC, give us the model number.

Try to give us as much as we can. Information overload then so be it. We the members can then give you a hand ;-).

 

[Speed Of Sound]

I swear I said the same thing in another thread lol.

In any case... list your complete system specs.

If you build your own PC, give us the motherboard model as well (so we can see if the chipset drivers can use drivers, help a lot of times) and manufacturer of your memory.

If you bought your PC, give us the model number.

Try to give us as much as we can. Information overload then so be it. We the members can then give you a hand ;-).

the members here are indeed very helpful, but nothing seems to be able to fix my "failure to initialize renderer" problem, not even the PAK thing. Can you help me?

 

[yvovandoorn]

I can empathize with you. I had an Intel Integrated Extreme Graphics card and thought it would support this game. Well, it didn't. I had the black terrain problem. Come to find out my card didn't have T&L support, which this game requires. I went out and bought a GeForce FX 5500 128 MB card today for $80 and the game works fine now. I have an HP Pavillion Pentium 4 2.53 GHz 512 MB. I'm not sure if the GeForce you bought has T&L support.

Intel Integrated "Extreme" Graphics isn't even a graphics card, it doesn't even have a GPU, it uses your CPU to do the video processing. Most games do not like this and/or run in something called DirectX Software mode.

T&L has been part of 80% of the actual GPU video cards since the Geforce 3 line about 5 years ago.

However congrats on buying a real graphics card, you can now welcome yourself to the world of PC gaming.

 

[argle]

Here's my personal story:

After opening up my box and discarding the French tech tree, I anxiously inserted the CD into my drive. I had been waiting months for this game, and it felt like Christmas. I was immediately socked in the face by what must have been years of built-up mismanagment and incompetence by the developers. While the disc said CD-ROM, it wasn't compatible with my CD-ROM drive; the Safedisc scheme was simply disallowing my CD-ROM drive from recognizing it. I had to go out and buy a different one, so I'm down another $40 because of Firaxis' stone incompetence. The CD "worked" with the new drive, and now I'm battling some kind of hellspawn ART-file problem.

I've heard of issues with sound drivers, video drivers, chipsets, burning software, rendering errors, rendering glitches, CDs' not being in the box, mislabelled CDs, random crashing, load failures, and every shade among them, all in addition to my problems. This isn't the first time this has happened, either; anybody remember Play the World? They're selling defective products, and they must know about it. This is absurd and probably quite illegal.

Thanks a lot guys, but you're all impossibly incompetent; this is the last $50 I ever spend on your games. I don't know what crap you're spending that money on, but it's very obviously not development. Had this been a more considerable sum, I'd be filing a court complaint and complaining to the Better Business Bureau; in fact, I'll be sending the BBB an e-mail anyways.

Here's the website for the Better Business Bureau.
http://www.bbb.org/

 

[MrSevoe]

Dear Sid,

You screwed me. Bad. Not only did you screw me but you screwed a large percentage of your most loyal Civilization fan base.

Don’t try to convince me that you didn’t know there were several bugs in the program before you released it. Don’t bother trying to convince me that you didn’t count on folks
that have waited months and even years to rush to the stores last Wednesday to get their copy to provide you with information on those bugs so you wouldn’t have to make the effort yourself. You should be ashamed. You should be embarrased.

The so-called tech support that you provided from Take2? What a joke! If they weren’t being completely rude in their typical quaint English fashion then they were just outright
hanging up. The E-mail I sent them last Wednesday? Still haven’t heard from them!

I tried downloading different drivers. I tried reinstalling several times. I paid $150 to install a graphic card that was recomended. That’s right, recomended, not required! For crying out loud, Sid, I even purchased a second copy just to be sure I hadn’t messed up the discs!

And I still got the usual bugs, too many to list. By now, you know what they are, the ones you didn’t already know about, that is. I mean, c’mon, Sid, the install disc and the play disc were interchanged? Must have been a pretty rigorous debugging period, huh?

What is it that all the so-called “game experts” in the trade magazines are saying about Civilization IV? Intruiging? Powerful? Spectacular? They can have my copy. They can have both!

I’m calling you out, Sid. You and Firaxis. If you have any ethical sense of what is right then you will be on this website apologizing and offering something substantial to make up for the disappointment and frustration you have put so many of the Civilization fans through. Frankly, I don’t think you’ll do it.

And just in case you want to question my personal motives and sense of fair play please feel free to contact me via E-mail at opticaljim@yahoo.com.

Cordially,
James Green

You screwed yourself. Did Firaxis or Sid Meier put a gun to your head and FORCE you to buy 2 copies? Nope you did that on your own action.

Guess its obvious the non-technical oriented, [edited] people have gotten their hands on the game. Wait for a patch. Threatening only solves nothing.

 

[abj9562]

Amen!(to the letter) so many bugs cant be put out into the game. my suggestion is that for beta testing not to use a fancy computer. why dont they just use some older computer, one that a lot of people would have. geez! i wish atari hadnt sold to taketwo

Do you seriously think that even 1% of all computers are the same or even 1/100 of 1% are the same? That's pretty near impossible and points out your overly simplistic view of a complex field still in its first decades of existance. It also seriously diminishes your credibility and alerts others to the ignorance of your posts. If you wish to be taken seriously I suggest you state facts and not subjective opinions.

 

[CoolDude123]

I'm a little dissapointed too.
I took a day off, went to buy the game. Due to some kind of shipping delay in Canada, I was running around the city and calling everybody, trying to find a store that had a few extra preordered copies. After about 5 hours in total, I come home with a precious copy of the game only to find out it doesn't work.

Three days in, and I can finally run it, in a semi-playable state.

I'm not going to blame anybody except myself for being too eager to play the game... Actually that's Sid's fault

And I applaud the devs for showing up on the forums as soon as people started reporting problems.

On the other hand - what exactly was the rationalle for creating a fancy non-scalable 3D engine for a turn-based strategy game?
They know that most of their customers are people with somewhat older computers, right?

Oh well...

 

[yvovandoorn]

the members here are indeed very helpful, but nothing seems to be able to fix my "failure to initialize renderer" problem, not even the PAK thing. Can you help me?

I'm am sure willing to give it a shot.

First of all, what are your system specs. Try to answer the questions as best as possible.

Hardware side...
Motherboard maker & model #?
If you don't know, Computer maker & model #?
CPU maker & speed?
System memory maker, model #, amount, and speed?
Graphics card maker (the company that made your graphics card not the chip running it), chipset, memory manufacturer, memory amount on card.
Sound card maker & model #

Software side...
Windows version?
If XP, SP2 installed?
Latest updates installed from WindowsUpdate
Graphics driver version # installed (goto Device manager -> Display Adapter -> Your graphics adapter -> Driver panel -> Driver Version & Driver Date)
Soundcard driver version # installed (goto Device manager -> Sound, video and game controllers -> Your sound card -> Driver panel -> Driver Version & Driver Date


Suggestions for now....
Scanned for Spyware?
If using Norton (Antivirus, Systemworks, Internet "security") get rid of it..
Disable and/or uninstall any sort of "optimization utility"
Download the trial of TuneUp Utilities 2006 (http://www.tune-up.com/) and run the 1-Click Maintenance to get rid of Windows garbage. Always run this after you remove a system utility such as Norton as it never gets rid of it all.
Try running the game with _every_ single process other then the ones listed below in your Task Manager IF using Windows XP:
Keep (randomly listed):
svchost.exe
mdm.exe
lsass.exe
services.exe
winlogon.exe
csrss.exe
smss.exe
spoolsv.exe
System
System Idle Process
taskmgr.exe (the application your using to kill all the others).
If you don't have some that are listed above (for example spoolsv.exe is only on if you have a printer installed) then that is okay.

Last resort is to clean install Windows, however let me first see your system specs so I can see if there is a potential fix there.

 

[controlledchaos]

Intel Integrated "Extreme" Graphics isn't even a graphics card, it doesn't even have a GPU, it uses your CPU to do the video processing. Most games do not like this and/or run in something called DirectX Software mode.

T&L has been part of 80% of the actual GPU video cards since the Geforce 3 line about 5 years ago.

However congrats on buying a real graphics card, you can now welcome yourself to the world of PC gaming.

Yeah...I know it's not a "card"...it's a "chip". I don't play many other games other than CIV so this hasn't been a problem for me before. I have other things in my life that keep me plenty busy so PC gaming isn't at the top of my priority list

 

[yvovandoorn]

Do you seriously think that even 1% of all computers are the same or even 1/100 of 1% are the same? That's pretty near impossible and points out your overly simplistic view of a complex field still in its first decades of existance. It also seriously diminishes your credibility and alerts others to the ignorance of your posts. If you wish to be taken seriously I suggest you state facts and not subjective opinions.

No but you have to account for the fact that the dev's workstations were probably very similiar hardware wise. I don't think they are all running different hardware as that would be a NIGHTMARE for any IT person/department.

Sure software wise the dev machines could be miles apart, but hardware wise I am willing to bet that they are running high end workstation class machine with high end vid cards, unlike someone who bought $50 game and is trying to run it on a 3 year old machine with a 2 year old graphics card (or worse.. an integrated "software" graphics card).

 

[Speed Of Sound]

Hardware side...
Motherboard maker & model #? not sure
If you don't know, Computer maker & model #? Dell Demension 4600
CPU maker & speed? 2.39 GHz
System memory maker, model #, amount, and speed?
Graphics card maker (the company that made your graphics card not the chip running it), chipset, memory manufacturer, memory amount on card. 64 MB Nvidia GForce4 MX
Sound card maker & model # not sure, but if it helps i havent had a sound problem.

Software side...
Windows version? XP
If XP, SP2 installed? nope, because my IE doesnt work.
Latest updates installed from WindowsUpdate
Graphics driver version # installed (goto Device manager -> Display Adapter -> Your graphics adapter -> Driver panel -> Driver Version & Driver Date)
Soundcard driver version # installed (goto Device manager -> Sound, video and game controllers -> Your sound card -> Driver panel -> Driver Version & Driver Date


Suggestions for now....
Scanned for Spyware?
If using Norton (Antivirus, Systemworks, Internet "security") get rid of it..
Disable and/or uninstall any sort of "optimization utility"
Download the trial of TuneUp Utilities 2006 (http://www.tune-up.com/) and run the 1-Click Maintenance to get rid of Windows garbage. Always run this after you remove a system utility such as Norton as it never gets rid of it all.
Try running the game with _every_ single process other then the ones listed below in your Task Manager IF using Windows XP:
Keep (randomly listed):
svchost.exe
mdm.exe
lsass.exe
services.exe
winlogon.exe
csrss.exe
smss.exe
spoolsv.exe
System
System Idle Process
taskmgr.exe (the application your using to kill all the others).
If you don't have some that are listed above (for example spoolsv.exe is only on if you have a printer installed) then that is okay. All of them are on.

Last resort is to clean install Windows, however let me first see your system specs so I can see if there is a potential fix there.

 

[yvovandoorn]

Yeah...I know it's not a "card"...it's a "chip". I don't play many other games other than CIV so this hasn't been a problem for me before. I have other things in my life that keep me plenty busy so PC gaming isn't at the top of my priority list

Completely makes sense and is definitely respectable. I have only played 2 games this year. The first one being Empire Earth 2 (utter disappointment) and the second one this game.

However now that you have an actual graphics card, you can reclaim the 32-64megs of system memory the integrated card was gobbeling up.

Scary thing is that the chip isn't even its own chip... its part of the Northbridge chip that your computer is running off of. Thus it has to "borrow" memory from your system memory and "clock cycles" from your processor.

 

[Old Dood]

... It's not Sid's fault...

Sorry....but HIS name is on the product. They have been using HIS name for quite a while now to SELL this game. Sid is a big boy now. He knows what integrity means. He could have made sure any product with HIS name on the box would not go out until it was acceptable by HIS Loyal Fans.

I am not one of the many people that is having any problems. My computer is more then fast enough. My Son however is having problems with a laptop that should play this game. Anything over a P1.2 ghz should be able to play this game...no matter what kind of video card you have. They could have made the game able to turn allot of graphics/sounds OFF!

I agree with the OP....I would sign this too!

 

[yvovandoorn]

Lots of text.... deleted...

Umm IE isn't working? It sounds to me like you have other issues going on your computer. Thus this could probably lead to Civ IV not working.

Sounds to me like a reinstallation of Windows is in order. Either do it via those Dell "Restore Discs" and during the installation try to customize it so that the Dell utilities and its crud doesn't get installed.

Keep in mind that a reinstallation will wipe out your current data, thus backup any files you want to keep (documents, game saves, etc.). However it seems to me that your problems are computer related and you need to take care of that first. However a reinstallation is often recommended by the "big names" in computing to clean up Windows.

Summary... Problem A (your computer) comes before Problem B (Civ IV). Take care of Problem A first and see if Problem B still exists.

 

[Speed Of Sound]

Summary... Problem A (your computer) comes before Problem B (Civ IV). Take care of Problem A first and see if Problem B still exists.

Can do. Ill get back to you on how that works out. Thanks!

 

[animalstyle]

Do you seriously think that even 1% of all computers are the same or even 1/100 of 1% are the same? That's pretty near impossible and points out your overly simplistic view of a complex field still in its first decades of existance. It also seriously diminishes your credibility and alerts others to the ignorance of your posts. If you wish to be taken seriously I suggest you state facts and not subjective opinions.

Bugs okay fine....not all computers are the same, okay fine. We are going to have bugs, fine. But beyond the bugs is this- This civ game was not designed for real civers- im talking people who don't care about graphics, or flashy crap like that, people without top of the line computers. You look at this game, whats the first thing you see, its got upgraded graphics....you can zoom in and out. How useful. 3D graphics. Wow, obsolete in 6 months (already?). Civ is all about GAMEPLAY. Okay, im not bashing the gameply of Civ IV, it does have great gameplay. But why mess up the gameplay, by slowing it down with expensive (system hogging) graphics? Why have graphics, when they dont even matter; they shouldnt matter, especially when it alienates alot of the gamers from playing.

 

[controlledchaos]

Completely makes sense and is definitely respectable. I have only played 2 games this year. The first one being Empire Earth 2 (utter disappointment) and the second one this game.

However now that you have an actual graphics card, you can reclaim the 32-64megs of system memory the integrated card was gobbeling up.

Scary thing is that the chip isn't even its own chip... its part of the Northbridge chip that your computer is running off of. Thus it has to "borrow" memory from your system memory and "clock cycles" from your processor.

True...I'm glad I upgraded now and for reasons other than just playing this game. My system memory runs much more efficiently now.