Eliminating Many Bugs People are Reporting

[mabusciv]

Often you can't do anything about a bug, like an interface problem or something hardcoded into the game. But problems like memory leaks, or blue screens or crashes can be fixed rather easily in most cases with some very simple steps on your part.

First off,
It's important to be aware that many people have pirated copies of the game. The pirated copies would usually be Beta versions, and would generally have problems which were corrected by the time the game went to Retail. If you happen to have one of these pirated copies, well, you know why it's full of bugs and why it keeps crashing. You get what you pay for

If you bought the retail version and are still having problems, read on

i) Run windows update. This will fix MANY computer gaming problems including audio video and memory issues. Make ABSOLUTELY sure you are running service pack 2. To do this click start/control panel/system and look in the general tab. If it doesn't say service pack 2 you are seriously out of date.

ii) Update your audio and video drivers. Go to the web site of your audio card, and video card makers, and enter the support/drivers section of the web site. Download the latest drivers and install them. This can make all the difference in the world

iii) Download and install an Anti-Virus program. There are lots of free ones online and they do a good job of keeping your computer clean from viruses which seriously slow your computer down

iv) Download at Spybot search and Destroy, as well as Microsoft AntiSpyware. You can also run Adaware for extra protection. Use them to make sure your system is free from spyware which seriously slows down your computer and eats away precious memory needed to run the game

If you do these 4 steps, you will likely clear up MOST of the bugs people are talking about here. Hope these tips may be of use to someone.

 

[zealus]

Unfortunaltely - it's not so easy.

I do have legit Windows XP SP 2, legit copy of Civ IV Collector's Edition, legit IBM T42 laptop (can't even compain about low-quality hardware - own this piece for almost 2 years already) and still have problems.

Besides all else - laptop is getting too hot by spinning CD in the drive whenever I tap Windows Explorer... Gee, I sound like whiny kid

 

[mabusciv]

Well the above doesn't take care of everything. Just most common problems

Laptops will definately have a harder time running a memory hog like this no question. Obviously the best advice would be to run it on a PC, but if thats not an option, i would suggest possibly getting one of those cooling mats for laptops. You put them under the laptop and they literally cool it 4 or 5 degrees. If you put it right under the CDRom it may help you with this issue.

 

[mikojava]

Nice try, but many of us are completely legit and irritated that the game doesnt work. The dark terrain problem is real.

 

[Montasque]

100% legit everything, have serv pack2, spybot, virus scanner, ect, ect.

The game just has some things that need to be fixed in a patch, no biggie really.

 

[SaintAvalon]

Often you can't do anything about a bug, like an interface problem or something hardcoded into the game. But problems like memory leaks, or blue screens or crashes can be fixed rather easily in most cases with some very simple steps on your part.

First off,
It's important to be aware that many people have pirated copies of the game. The pirated copies would usually be Beta versions, and would generally have problems which were corrected by the time the game went to Retail. If you happen to have one of these pirated copies, well, you know why it's full of bugs and why it keeps crashing. You get what you pay for

If you bought the retail version and are still having problems, read on

i) Run windows update. This will fix MANY computer gaming problems including audio video and memory issues. Make ABSOLUTELY sure you are running service pack 2. To do this click start/control panel/system and look in the general tab. If it doesn't say service pack 2 you are seriously out of date.

ii) Update your audio and video drivers. Go to the web site of your audio card, and video card makers, and enter the support/drivers section of the web site. Download the latest drivers and install them. This can make all the difference in the world

iii) Download and install an Anti-Virus program. There are lots of free ones online and they do a good job of keeping your computer clean from viruses which seriously slow your computer down

iv) Download at Spybot search and Destroy, as well as Microsoft AntiSpyware. You can also run Adaware for extra protection. Use them to make sure your system is free from spyware which seriously slows down your computer and eats away precious memory needed to run the game

If you do these 4 steps, you will likely clear up MOST of the bugs people are talking about here. Hope these tips may be of use to someone.

Sorry to say bud they release gold versions for warez, not beta...

-Dan

 

[Drac0nis]

100% legal copies on everything. XP pro, Civ4, and Symantec antivirus. Several nice spyware killers, all the latest drivers for everything I have, A 100% defragged box. Completely fresh install of DX 9.0c and the game.I have all you stated plus a few you didnt think to add...
Guess what, still getting CTDs randomly after the first 100 turns or so. This game has serious bugs. Its a GREAT game, I am not saying any different. I am not flaming anyone. Just please do not assume that most of the problems you see here are due to some dumb $#%@ not taking care of his system OR not knowing HOW to use his system or just plain being a thief. The game has LEGIT problems that need to be adressed, Saying there is nothing to be done about a bug is not the answer, Reporting it and discussing the problem and what is causing it is. Especially if we want to see some sort of fix anytime soon. After all with all the gamers out there no company in the world can put the man hours that we can into testing, its just the facts. And If we the gamers do not try to help fix these things by reporting them we should realy just hang up our sticks/mice/keyboards and STFU. :} Maybe buy xboxs or some $@%# like that.....................

But seriously good tips, and thanks for trying to be of help.

Peace,
Drac

 

[Willem]

Nice try, but many of us are completely legit and irritated that the game doesnt work. The dark terrain problem is real.

The dark terrain is generally caused by not having a video card that's Hardware T&L compatible. That's not a bug, it's a hardware issue that Firaxis is not going deal with. The requirements for the game have been clearly stated and the issue has been discussed ad nauseum. Go complain to the manufacturers of the crappy video cards you own.

If you're running a Radeon 7500 video card, apparently you can fix the problem by turning off your ARP acceleration in the SmartGart settings. This will make your game run very slowly however, but that's the sort of thing to expect from equipment that is listed as minimum. Apparently though, someone has discovered that if you turn your ARP back one step, reboot then turn it up again, you can at least turn it up to 2 and get some of the speed back. Though not all.

 

[mrgenie]

My dear mabusciv, what are you talking about? think about the number following this series:"sqr2, sqr5, sqr13, sqr34.." don't know what comes next? then don't bother us with trying to talk the bugs as if they were no bugs and only related to gamers-failures. let me state here:"most of the gamers know what system they have, they know how updates and patches work, they know how to install SP, they are well aware of anti-virus proggies, and they are well aware about spybot & co. and most important, they not only know but actually use these things, like myself!!" about legit gaming, I know a huge fan community in germany, we all buy the game legally, and we all have these errors! so stop talking as if everyone having problems is a criminal! from what country are you? in normal western countries someone is innocent untill found guilty at court! at least in western european civilizations that is the case, so stop bullying on people doing everything what you can expect from costumers to do right, and blame the ones responsible for this misery Firaxis! they have gone gold at Beta-1!! this is nuts! they should have told us:"we go public beta to find and test the software, we are well aware many problems will arise, and many many bugs are out there in the game, but please buy it because we need to money for further development" at least then we knew the status of the program. and really, your blaming costumers and more you are actually pley-guilty upon all of us, it makes me sick people really think that we all have illegal copies here! go talk in the mirror asking yourself:"why am i blaming people without knowledge, not even statistically, and definitly not personally"

 

[snepp]

My dear mabusciv... *snip*

My sentiments exactly.

 

[batteryacid]

The dark terrain is generally caused by not having a video card that's Hardware T&L compatible. That's not a bug, it's a hardware issue that Firaxis is not going deal with. The requirements for the game have been clearly stated and the issue has been discussed ad nauseum. Go complain to the manufacturers of the crappy video cards you own.

If you're running a Radeon 7500 video card, apparently you can fix the problem by turning off your ARP acceleration in the SmartGart settings. This will make your game run very slowly however, but that's the sort of thing to expect from equipment that is listed as minimum. Apparently though, someone has discovered that if you turn your ARP back one step, reboot then turn it up again, you can at least turn it up to 2 and get some of the speed back. Though not all.

It works up to a point- I still have the problem of a whitish-yellowish terrain, which isnt that bad, I have to put every graphic setting to a min. (otherwise I only see the shadows of the Cows and Pigs and Horses) - but there still remains the worst problem:

The Toast only city screes and terrain bug which means that you can only see bread (in some cases also invalid number and no hammers or coins (NO, this is NOT due to the terrain type, as somwhere mentioned to one of my posts before), and this makes the game UNPLAYABLE (believe me, with the new resources and tile improvements and let´s not forget some tech and civics that additionally alter the output of your tiles it´s not possible to estimate the output of a tile)

 

[Khaim]

The dark terrain is generally caused by not having a video card that's Hardware T&L compatible. That's not a bug, it's a hardware issue that Firaxis is not going deal with. The requirements for the game have been clearly stated and the issue has been discussed ad nauseum. Go complain to the manufacturers of the crappy video cards you own.

That would be a great thing to say, except that it's wrong. People without T&L can't play the game at all. People with T&L can't play the game correctly, because there's a bug in the game.

If you're running a Radeon 7500 video card, apparently you can fix the problem by turning off your ARP acceleration in the SmartGart settings. This will make your game run very slowly however, but that's the sort of thing to expect from equipment that is listed as minimum.

Two things:
1) I expect it to be a bit slow if my processor or RAM is minimum. My graphics card, however, should run the game just fine with minimum graphics detail. Want to guess if that helps any?
2) Thanks for your kind and wonderful support. If you'll just send me the check for $500, I'll go buy a computer to run my $50 game.

 

[Neubauer21]

Why do all people think copyrghted games are all bugged to ****? lol the downloadable version came out on the day civ4 was released ,someone bought it and ripped it ?bugged beta versions? I am a hardcore fan of the civ series so i bought the game instead of downloading it

 

[mabusciv]

A few people seem to have missed the point of my post and gotten offended. So let me go back and try to be clearer. Do some people have legitimate problems with the game? Absolutely.

Every game will have problems running on some computers because of a myriad of compatability issues and so forthe. These issues are looked at and patched before too long. It's simply impossible for the makers of a game to test the game on every concievable machine setup, especially when you add into the mix things like viruses and spyware, and other programs running alongside the game {like microsoft word or norton system works and so forthe} So compatability issues and bugs on some machines are inevitable.

That said, there are some cases {NOT ALL} where the game itself is not actually the problem. Where the user can actually do something him or her self to fix the problem. Someone a few posts up for example pointed out that one of the more commonly reported bugs has to do with video cards not up to par. There is no patch for this, you can wait until elephants turn blue but a patch will never be released for inadequate hardware.

I've personally met people complaining that it "just won't run" when they have Service pack 1 {or in a few cases didn't even have that} or had never upgraded their audio or video drivers since buying their computer years back.
Another tried to run the game on an earlier windows incarnation {Windows 98} and was upset that it wouldn't run. So thats really the point of the post, If you're having a problem running the game, it MAY mean you are one of the unfortunate few who will need a patch, but the odds are that there will be things that you personally can do to resolve the problems yourself with a simple download.

 

[adwilk]

Just for the record people who have T & L on their video cards are having the black land problem.

 

[batteryacid]

ad mabusciv:

myriad options for hardware might be right, but DirectX and XP and other normed interfaces are there to solve the problem
and: how the hell did they overlook bugs concerning graphic cards which are in 1/3 or more of the laptops that are in use ? thats not myriad of possibilities but simply invalid beta testing

I1 of 5 pcs where my friends and I tried to plays the game without bugs, the rest is suffering from "black terrain /faint terrain", or "only toast city screen" or "no music in ancient era" or "no wonder movies" which makes the game unplayable and they fulfill all requirements!

and yes, we all have bought the retail version have all newest drievrs installed, made the art0.fpk thing and the xml trouble thing and I don´t know what else

sorry when I sound pissed, but my friends and I wasted the whole weekend on the issue without any results

 

[Mazruk]

DirectX and XP and other normed interfaces are there to solve the problem

That is all well and good, but what if the bug is in the interface? Anyone would think you think MS never releases bugged software...

Do a google on dx9.0c problems that existed before Civ4 even came out...

I havent got the game yet, but when I do, I'll check my system out thoroughly first if I get problems, rather than complain about the game first like most people have.

FYI as an example I just upgraded my graphics card to a 6600gt and had lots of problems once I put dx9.0c on it - nothing to do with civ4 (as I said, dont have it yet). Needed to patch my mobo bios and try loads of nVidia drivers to get it stable - all without Civ4 being on my machine.

Why does no-one think that dx9.0c could be the problem? A lot of people wont have had it on their machines before and therefore think that civ4 is the cause because it requires it. If they've had another game that used 9.0c OK, it could still be bugged depending on what parts of the interface that game uses compared to civ4.

 

[mabusciv]

Batter;

1 of 5 pcs where my friends and I tried to plays the game without bugs, the rest is suffering from "black terrain /faint terrain", or "only toast city screen" or "no music in ancient era" or "no wonder movies" which makes the game unplayable and they fulfill all requirements!

I'm sorry to hear you're having so many problems. Did you try the suggestions i listed at the beggining of this thread? Things like audio problems for example have nothing to do with the video card problem everyone is talking about, so it sounds like you may need to upgrade some drivers most likely.

 

[Willem]

let me state here:"most of the gamers know what system they have, they know how updates and patches work, they know how to install SP, they are well aware of anti-virus proggies, and they are well aware about spybot & co. and most important, they not only know but actually use these things, like myself!!"

You're sadly mistaken there. Most people know squat about their systems. They plug it in, stick the disk in and hope it works. If it doesn't, they haven't a clue how to troubleshoot, and quite often immediately complain that the game developer is at fault.

 

[Willem]

The Toast only city screes and terrain bug which means that you can only see bread (in some cases also invalid number and no hammers or coins (NO, this is NOT due to the terrain type, as somwhere mentioned to one of my posts before), and this makes the game UNPLAYABLE (believe me, with the new resources and tile improvements and let´s not forget some tech and civics that additionally alter the output of your tiles it´s not possible to estimate the output of a tile)

Yes, that could possibly be a bug. It might also have something to do with the Hardware T&L as well. And from what I've seen, that is a very isolated problem. Unfortunately, you are one of the very few who are experiencing it.