Eliminating Many Bugs People are Reporting

[Willem]

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.

Sorry, but you're just flat wrong. Everyone who tries to run it on a non T&L card is having the dark terrain problem. They can run the game, sort of, but the map is black and the leaders are nothing but floating teeth and eyes, with maybe a necklace. If people with T&L are having the problem, it's because of the reasons I mentioned before.

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?

This is a 3D game, your video card is doing most of the work rendering the graphics, not your CPU. If it's sub par then all sorts of issues can crop up. The CPU is handling things like AI routines, pathfinding etc. It is not doing anything that has to do with graphics, or at least very little.

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.

So what do you expect me to do, give you a hanky and let you dry your tears? I'm just telling you how it is. If you want to whine about it, that's your problem. I did have some sympathy for you, but you just blew that away with your smart ass comment. If you want to play modern games, get a modern computer. Otherwise quit crying like a baby and wasting people's time.

 

[Willem]

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

I've already mentioned this, read my previous post.

 

[Willem]

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

They didn't overlook them, they made a design decision that they knew full well would prevent many people from playing the game. Software people do that on a regular basis, if they didn't computer technology would never progress. It's up to the consumer to keep up to those changes.

 

[Willem]

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.

Not to mention that Civ 4 uses Dx 9 routines that haven't even been released to the general public by Microsoft yet, they're brand new. Civ 4 players are really being beta testers for Microsoft at the moment.

 

[cplarsen]

Perhaps the developers should have just written it to work with DirectX 9.0b then, eh?

 

[Scot_free]

Quote:
Originally Posted by batteryacid
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.

Isolated, eh? Considering it's the 4th highest replied topic in this forum (most of the replies are from people who have the problem too), I wouldn't say it's just isolated. I'm all for getting the other problems fixed first (esp. for those w/ ATI graphics problems), but this problem isn't just an isolated one, it's quite well documented, not to mention still mysterious.

 

[Greek Plunder]

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.

Considering I have a Radeon 9800 PRO, which is quite capable of running T&L features, and the terrain STILL occasionally flickers dark, it's safe to say this is a bug in the game. Of course, it's going to be dark for people WITHOUT T&L but there is NO reason it should do this with those with the capability to run it. Especially not when they've updated drivers, tried back issue drivers, etc.

 

[Willem]

Isolated, eh? Considering it's the 4th highest replied topic in this forum (most of the replies are from people who have the problem too), I wouldn't say it's just isolated. I'm all for getting the other problems fixed first (esp. for those w/ ATI graphics problems), but this problem isn't just an isolated one, it's quite well documented, not to mention still mysterious.

I've been prowling around these forums for several days now, and I've only seen a few people bring up this problem. IMO, yes it is isolated. Go take a look in Technical, there's only one thread on the first page about the issue and only one other person replying who's having the same issue. That doesn't exactly indicate that's it's common.

 

[tastyhero]

I heard on other forems that they are comming out with a patch real soon for people with the black terrain problem. Right now the only fix is if you still want to play is when you first start the game go to the earth editor and click on tile reveal then click on reveal all tiles. It will reveal the whole map just like it would if you had satilites thats why people can play future era just fine. Intil they come out with the patch that is the only answer I have found. Havnt had any help from firaxis on this one.

 

[Alexfrog]

My dear mabusciv, what are you talking about? think about the number following this series:"sqr2, sqr5, sqr13, sqr34.."

sqr89.

 

[Willem]

I heard on other forems that they are comming out with a patch real soon for people with the black terrain problem.

There's a patch coming out, but no one has mentioned anything about it dealing with the black terrain. They haven't given any specifics about what it will fix. I wouldn't hold your breath if I were you, you're probably going to be disappointed. Though I could be wrong, I doubt it.

 

[mossmonster]

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.

I just wanted to post that I too am having both the dark screen problem and the only food - no production/commerce showing bug when I run the game on my laptop. It works fine on my home system, so I assume it is some kind of minimum requirement issue. The problem is that I do know my laptops specs, and it does meet the minimum requirements as posted:

Dell Inspiron 8200
2 GHz P 4 M
1 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go 64 MB with T&L
Win XP Pro with current drivers

To play on my laptop I simply set all the video to minimum in the 'options' and then go to the 'worldbuilder' screen and 'show all tiles' and the black goes off of the whole map. I can figure out what each tile produces by putting the cursor over them individually.

I don't know how isolated my particular case is, but my point is that perhaps the minimum requirements as listed may need to be a bit higher.

 

[Willem]

I don't know how isolated my particular case is, but my point is that perhaps the minimum requirements as listed may need to be a bit higher.

I think you're right there. Many people with your type of graphic card are reporting problems as are people with Radeon 7500s, both of which are supposed to meet basic requirements. My guess is that they simply looked to see if these cards supported T&L and didn't consider whether they handled it properly, being older cards.

 

[Yzman]

I think you assume way too much about all of us. I am aware of all the stuff you said, and while my card is not the best, it can definitely run this game of all things. And yet, I have all the graphics problems you can think of. I have a geforce fx 5200. LIke I said, not the best card, but it meets the minimums so it should work.

 

[Neubauer21]

My PC > QUake 4 Civ 4 > my pc WTH are they yup to eh i keep crashing every hour os so or until i get to a certain point, i've researched muskets about 4 times now it just keeps crashing and freezing damn what does this game have that Q4 does not?

 

[Willem]

I think you assume way too much about all of us. I am aware of all the stuff you said, and while my card is not the best, it can definitely run this game of all things. And yet, I have all the graphics problems you can think of. I have a geforce fx 5200. LIke I said, not the best card, but it meets the minimums so it should work.

Have you updated your drivers? For most people that solves their problems. If not, there is a patch in the works which will probably be out within a week or two. Firaxis has confirmed this, though they haven't given a release date or mentioned what problems it will be dealing with. And like mossmaster pointed out, it seems they underestimated the minimum requirements. You might want to consider upgrading your video card. As you mention. it's not the greatest.

 

[Khaim]

To play on my laptop I simply set all the video to minimum in the 'options' and then go to the 'worldbuilder' screen and 'show all tiles' and the black goes off of the whole map. I can figure out what each tile produces by putting the cursor over them individually.

That's basically what I've been doing, except instead of force-revealing the map, I've set the early techs to center the map, then I just make sure to explore the center area. It comes out to the same thing, since I can see hidden terrain just by looking at it.

Which, by the way, is another bug. It's a measure of how good the game is that I keep playing it anyway. And I will say that the food problem is a bigger one, since it doesn't have a workaround.

 

[coolfish]

I think the poster's original intent was genuine although it did come across a little like he was blaming the gamers machines vs civ 4.

I've already proven that the stuttering movies is a CIV 4 bug, and *not* a hardware/driver issue. The fact is that the standalone Bink Video player plays the files properly, which means everything is fine hardware/software wise, the issue is what Civ 4 is telling to the Bink interface. I even will go out there and say it might have to do with the blitting style used by Civ 4 which might not be as compatible as they had previously thought.

 

[Willem]

I've already proven that the stuttering movies is a CIV 4 bug, and *not* a hardware/driver issue. The fact is that the standalone Bink Video player plays the files properly, which means everything is fine hardware/software wise, the issue is what Civ 4 is telling to the Bink interface. I even will go out there and say it might have to do with the blitting style used by Civ 4 which might not be as compatible as they had previously thought.

Try playing in windowed mode. Some people have reported this at least reduces the problem if not outright cleared it up completely. I'm not sure how much RAM you have, but that seems to make a difference as well. There seems to be a memory leak in the game. Having at least 1 gig would help.

 

[Hannabir]

Some video and audio problems could well be caused by bugs in DirectX, or possibly Microsoft components, because I have seen similar problems in applications that I am developing.

For instance, if you stop a Windows Media Player component but don't close it, any music played from another such component may stutter. I guess it will be the same for video. And I have seen images displayed with black stripes on a windows form, while they are displayed perfectly on a panel component.

These are most likely memory or runtime mismanagement problems. If so, Firaxis might be able to prevent some of them by explicitly closing and disposing components when they are no longer used.

Memory leaks are normally no longer possible with modern languages, but it may be that the garbage collector has problems keeping up.