Draw buffer?

[Zooey]

Sorry to be a pest, but another problem has arose.

Yesterday I finally got the game to run, but not without a crash every 20 or so turns. I'm not complaining about that now, but something more serious has reared its ugly head.

Whever I open the Civilopedia from a city view or I press Ok for the palace expansion, I get the error "Unable to allocate draw-buffer; terminating program." I figure it has something to the with the graphics now, but I can't imagine what. All of my drivers are up to date and the CD's running on a 32x CD-ROM drive. Is there any possible solution or justification for this? This is an error I've never seen before and I don't know what to make of it.

Thanks a lot for taking some time to read this.

 

[catsar]

up until today civ3 has run without problems, today i get that message as well whenever i try to start the game.

i'm going to try and reinstall the game.

 

[etj4Eagle]

I have also had a few of those crashes (one of the ways the game would crash on me if I filled up the virtual memory file). With at least my system the game has a memory leak, consequently I am running to with a 600MB virtual memory file. It fills up about 200MB every hour. Now I tend to quit the program before I get the draw buffer errors. (And once you quit the memory is all recovered)

 

[Aslan]

Firaxis has yet to say word one about the virtual memory/paging file problem associated with this game, that I have seen. Is this going to be fixed in the patch. There seems to be indications that it will be fixed as related to the save game fixes...could some Firaxian please elucidate on this for me? Thanks.

 

[Hassjo]

The Draw Buffer Error is caused from ATI Radeon graphics cards. Update your graphics drivers from:

www.ati.com

 

[Zooey]

Not to be rude but...well...I don't have an ATI Radeon graphics card. Don't think it would be that.

 

[Zooey]

Er...double post

 

[Hassjo]

Well, I guess that wrecks my & Infogrames theory about the draw buffer error.


/URL]

I was getting the exact same error as you until I:

1. Updated my video drivers
2. Shut off my hardware acceleration
3. Installed the latest patch

I did these at approximately the same time, so I'm not sure which one was the cure.

About 1/3 of the time my system locks up during the Infogrames startup logo, but when it doesn't it plays fine, no draw buffer error.

 

[Darby22]

Have been reading this thread with great interest. Love Civ, and was very disappointed when III wouldn't run for me. I'm getting the strange "printed over" text, and the "draw buffer" error message. Have tried nearly everything suggested in the posts above, to no avail.

Pentium III
Windows 98
Mem 128 Mg
Page File 110 Mg
Direct X: 8.1
Display: NVIDIA
Display Mode: 1024 x 768
Monitor: NEC
Main Driver: nvdisp.drv
Version 4.12.01.0384
Signed: no
Riptide Direct Sound
Device ID: \Driver PCI\Ven_127ADEV_4310SUBSYS_4318235
Man ID: 111
Prod ID: 301
Type: VXD
Name: Riptide VXD
Version 4.05.00.2144
Signed: yes
Other files: riptide.vxd vwstream.vxd
Provider: rockwell

Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Quintillus]

Sorry to mega-bump, but I just got this error. And it seems to be a lack of memory/page file error.

CivIII is using nearly 1.5 GB of RAM is the last screenshot - I might be playing a 180x180 map, but I've never seen it use a third that much RAM before. I think etj4eagle's memory leak theory is correct.

CivIII/System Specs:
Civilization III Conquests v.1.22 - evidently the problem wasn't fixed since the OP
nVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT video card with the latest official drivers from Dell
2 GB DDR2 RAM at 667 MHz
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
Maximum Page File: 2345 MB.

The error occured after capturing a city, which I kept, rather than raze. I'd had Civ up for about 3 hours at the time, but had been alt-tabbing between it and other programs extensively. I could actually return to Civ before clicking OK on the Fatal Error, but the Save function failed when I tried it and unit cycling failed, though I could move unit manually. Clicking the "end turn now" button gave the "Please Wait..." text, but didn't do anything else. I could even view my cities after hitting "end turn now".

edit: Found this page. DirectX is up to date, video drivers also are (could revert to June ones, though), don't think it was a background program, only QuickTime was running that I don't normally have up while Civving, and I don't think fonts is the issue. I know I've run Civ with 600 fonts before. I don't think it's alt-tabbing, either, I've done that like crazy while civving before, too. Obviously lots of memory was leaking in Civ3, though.

I think I was getting the same error four years ago running Win98 with 128 MB RAM, just as described on Apolyton here. Oddly, Civ now runs on that computer, only difference might be in DX version.