Failed to Initialize Renderer

[ununcle]

I've got a ATI "all in wonder" 9600 series and I loaded the game no problem. I played about an hr with no crash so far. I bought Civ today even though I knew having an ATI with this game was a gamble. One thing that bugs me about this ATI card though,,, Is that I get flickering speckles in games. FPS games are the worst. It will start as a couple flickers,,, then it'll progresively get worse until I quit and reload. It's not just Civ 4, It's pirates, HAlo, Dues ex,, What ever game I play with good graphics. Anyone have any experience with that?

 

[Annunaki]

ATI 9600xt 256mb
p4 3.0ghz 512 DDR ram DX9.0c
Having the same problem as everyone else, and tried most of the same useless fixes most people are tying. Mixed thoughts on whats causing the problem but it does seem to be the higher ranged ATI cards that are effected. It would just be nice to hear from Fixaris, acknowledge to their customers that there is a problem and they are trying the hardest they can to correct the problem. That would appease me for a week or so...even though i should be more patient, i doubt we will hear any official press release from any game developers for another week. Lucky my bro is going away for the weekend and he doesnt have a ATI card

 

[Decronicus]

Soweit ich obiges Zitat verstehe, soll man also die Radeon gegen eine G-Force 4 austauschen? OK, eine G-Force 4 mit 64 Mb hab ich zu Hause noch auf Lager liegen. Wird heut abend gleich ausgetauscht. Ich werd über dies die Radeon auf den Müll schmeißen und mir eine vernünftige Grafikkarte mit N-Vidia-Chipsatz kaufen. Hier steht bestimmt irgentwo die Lösung drinn, aber das ist zu viel zum übersetzen und meißt kenn ich gerade mal ein Wort im englischen Satz. Das bringt mich nicht weiter.

viele Grüße in die Staaten aus Deutschland!

tromp10

I used this tranlator to interpret your post: http://www.google.com/translate_t

"As far as I understand above quotation, is one to thus exchange the Radeon against a g-Force 4? OK ONE, a g-Force 4 with 64 MT have I at home still in stock to lie. Heut evening is exchanged directly. I become over this the Radeon on the garbage schmeissen and me a reasonable diagram map with n-Vidia-Chipsatz buy. Here irgentwo the solution stands certainly drinn, but that is to translates and meisst knows I straight too much times a word in the English sentence. That does not help me. many greetings into the states from Germany!"

1. I am not an expert. There are other people who know more about the problem.

2. Yes, civ4 seems to like the N-Vidia chipset better than the ATI. If you are willing to buy a new video card to run Civ4, N-Vidia is the better choice.

3. Do not buy the video card I listed: geforce 4 MX440. This card gets me past the "failed to initialize renderer" error but is missing other features Civ4 needs.

4. Try your Radeon video card first. Only some Radeon cards are having the problem. Many Radeon cards work fine.

Many greetings and good luck back to Germany from the States.

edit: I've since gotten the GeForce 4 MX440 to run civ4 without the terrain blackouts. This card is a viable rout to getting civ4 working. Thanks to Comraddict's TnL thread for correcting my mistake.

 

[jadelith]

inspiron 9100

ati radeon mobility 9800 256mbram, latest drivers/directx. clean format of windows xp sp2, and all the other updates.

doesn't work :/

 

[Imperator666]

I know its a little drastic. But has anyone tried doing a re-install of the OS, installing your drivers, then the game with DX9 supplied? Just a thought.

do you reinstall your entire OS when you write a new forum post? its firaxis obligation to fix their product that i have bought with my hard earned money in a way that i can at least START it. i refuse to reinstall my OS and i refuse to believe the "solutions" they suggested will do any good. my drivers are up to date, the game should work and yet it doesnt. how could an issue like this been overlooked it the betatest, which i believe couldnt have taken place in a professional manner. just look at this thead - 30000 hits in one day says it all.

 

[Snogmonkey]

I'd like to add myself to the displeased customers who can't play due to obviously inadequate testing or rushed delivery of product. I have 3 different machines each with different models of ATI cards, none of which work and all of which return the same error. Yes, they all have the latest directx and drivers, and yes I've tried the lame things suggested so far, before I even checked the forums and found out how disappointingly widespread this problem seems to be. ATI only accounts for what, 40-60% of the PC market video cards? Pretty sad. I had hardware issues with nvidia cards in the past so I switched over to ATI and have been happy with their product, but repeatedly let down by software manufacturers who don't bother to make their programs work right with a major card. Often these programs have nice little nvidia sponsored splash screens when they start up. I'm beginning to think it's not a coincidence.

For the record, the machines are all desktop P4s of various speeds, running XP with a radeon 9550, 9600 pro 256, and a x700.

 

[bonespro]

My results with 3 computers: 2 desktops and 1 laptop.

Laptop HP zd8000
ATI Mobility X600
DirectX 9
Result: Inititilize error (tried all options except reinstall of OS)

PC AMD (old)
Directx 9
XP -SP1
Nvidia 6600 - Driver: 81.85
Works great!

PC Intel 3.2
Directx 9
XP -SP1
Nvidia FX 3000 - Driver: 81.85
Works Great!

 

[Grifter]

do you reinstall your entire OS when you write a new forum post? its firaxis obligation to fix their product that i have bought with my hard earned money in a way that i can at least START it. i refuse to reinstall my OS and i refuse to believe the "solutions" they suggested will do any good. my drivers are up to date, the game should work and yet it doesnt. how could an issue like this been overlooked it the betatest, which i believe couldnt have taken place in a professional manner. just look at this thead - 30000 hits in one day says it all.

Yeah, not saying I disagree, but it is one way to ensure a clean install of the drivers and not worry about any other programs interfering (including, but not limited to any type of video drivers, spyware, Adware, bad DX9 installs, bad chipset installs, etc etc) .

It was only a suggestion, and a question if people had tried it, since its the only thing that I have read that was NOT tried. Its not an insult or a post telling everyone "haha, mine works, yours doesn't, so deal". I apologize if it doesn't meet your criteria, but at least I am trying as opposed to *****ing about it.

 

[Harleking]

I Actually have a _very_ fresh install, only installed itunes before installing civ4...no change

 

[Imperator666]

yeah grifter i know what you mean, it just cant be that you have to reinstall your whole OS just for one crappy tiny annoying bug that shouldnt have been overlooked. tried many things myself but wouldnt go this far. i believe there will be a fix soon and all will be forgotten but until then i will rant as much as i can to keep them firaxis coders typing their fingers wound

"you know what really grinds my gears ...? "

 

[travh20]

Insinuating we as paying consumers should be the ones to figure out how to get their product to work on our machines is BS. If they post minimum specs and we meet them, the product better damn well work. formatting hard drives, erasing drivers, exchanging video cards is BS. While the game may be great (and I am sure it is) it is a piss poor product. If I were in charge of the company who made this heads would be rolling right now. Sid meirs and Firaxis' reputation is shot to hell, and it didnt have to be this way.

 

[theim]

Just thought I'd throw in an update.

I had DirectX 9.0c installed on my notebook BEFORE I installed Civ4. I ran the DX update when Civ4 was installing (it didn't seem to update anything though). Civ4 works fine.

 

[Dr. Broom]

Don't reinstall your operating system I tried that and it didn't work.

 

[69king]

I got Civ4 to work on my ATI card !!!!!!!!!

I just added this line to my .ini file:

disable_direct3d = 1


there is only 1 problem though:

 

[D0gg73]

At least ya got it up and running somewhat there 69King. I put it on my old machine and It loaded fine think it has an old geforce card in it but when i tried to run it it froze up when it was trying to create the game and map....got thru picking up what civ I wanted but not much farther past that then froze loading. Still no go on my main machine.

 

[EdCase]

At least ya got it up and running somewhat there 69King.

Ummm I guess you never played Civ (one as its now called).

Still the levity is applaudable 69king

 

[NotHappyToo]

Well I got this on order via Play.com and luckily the shipping date has been delayed so I have chance to cancel my order.

I think the worse part of this is that nothing what so ever has been put up on the website under latest news. That is truly and is what makes me want to cancel my order more than the game not working itself.

Therefore, if there is nothing posted on the main website by tomorrow morning regarding this I will cancel my order A company that has no value for their customers well being isn't getting nothing from me.

I hate to think of the number of average Joe users out there who have this game along with the errors and tearing their hair out thinking this is a problem with their machine, when a simple acknowledgement from the developers/publishers can ease there mind and allow them to sit back and await a patch.

Moderator Action: I understand your frustrations, but please watch your language.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Anglo]

Im laughing pretty hard over all these cancelled order kneejerk responses. Yes its apparent the game was rushed, and yes its a bummer the game doesnt work on mine, or a bunch of other peoples systems... but honestly, go do something else, play another game for a few days, go to work, whatever, and wait a patch, honestly its not that HUGE of a deal. Saying Sid and Firaxis are failures is the biggest crock I have ever heard. They made Civ 4, and by all counts it is an amazing game. So the QA team dropped the ball a bit on this one, I honestly dont think that reflects the compant as a whole. So take a pill, relax, and wait a few days for a hotfix.

Oh yeah and the guy that says he'll warez it... by doing that your promoting piracy, and promoting the fact you think game developers shouldnt be paid for the hard work they do. That my friend is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

 

[Brommel]

I decided to play other games on my shelf, I am just playing Dungeon Siege 2, oh and the graphics look even better (Catalyst 5.10) after I updated them trying to get my radeon to work, so no its not my computer, graphics card or ATI, its merely an issue with CIV4 and I am sure they will patch it.

 

[Zoomba]

Go to this thread and try the PakBuilder fix... It worked perfectly for me. I can finally play!

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=4090697&t=1441#post4090697