Fatal Error Message

[Zydor]

lukasbradley

Your hassle is the 9000 card, its boarderline for the game. Need to reduce as much as possible the load on the Video Card. The error you got was likely caused by the increased load V1.52 put on the Video Card - 1.52 had a significant shift from main system RAM to Video RAM to free up system RAM for lower end machines. Good cpu, but low end card, if you can get hold of a mid range card you will resolve many hassles with this.

Meanwhile...

By now doubtless you have had many trys at sorting it. I strongly suggest you do a clean deinstall/install - see

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=152620

Make sure you have loaded Patch V1.52, but, also ensure that the memsaver switch in the ini file is set to 0 (figure 0 not a letter O). The reason is that 1.52 placed more load on video cards to help those with low main RAM, if memsaver is switched on (using a 1 in the ini file entry) it switches on that feature which you dont want as your graphics card is your weak spot.

- Turn off textures in the game Options menu
- Set the game resolution to as low as possible
- set your desktop resolution to the same as you are going to use in the game
- set the res in the ini fileto16 bit or even 256 colours
- set the desktop refresh rate to 60Hz
- Turn off any background application or services running that you dont really need (via MSconfig). That includes going off line to play Civ, and turning off Anti-V & Firewall (obviously notan option if an MP)

Video Drivers
The Video drivers you have are outdated (May 2003), download new drivers from here
http://www.omegadrivers.net/
Scroll down that page until you see Radeon Omega Drivers 2.5.97a (Catalyst 4.12) they are not the latest,but they are a very stable reliable set, and probably better for your older setup. If they dont work properly, try Radeon Omega Drivers 2.6.83 (Catalyst 5.11) at the top of the page

You are boarderline for graphics, if you have the dosh and the machine will takeit, get a mid range card, that 9000 will cause you long term grief with Civ IV

Regards
Zy

 

[lukasbradley]

@Zydor

Thank you very much for the response. I, like the majority of posters in this thread, am using a laptop. I can't upgrade the video card because it is "on board". Back when my video unit (Radeon Mobility 9000) was manufactured, it was the responsibility of the laptop distrubutor to release updates to the drivers. The newest drivers from ATI will not work on my machine.

I have tried decreasing all settings within the game, and most within the hardware acceleration settings, but still get the errors.

I'd also like to note that I was having NO game crashes with the 1.09 patch and (how soon we forget) the DLL hack.

Lastly, my machine greatly exceeds the minimum requirements to play the game, and most of the recommended requirements.
http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/support_msr.htm


EDIT -- I'm trying the Omega Drivers now.

 

[Zydor]

Pity about the card - some laptops do

You have the Mobility version of the 9000, its very boarderline for the game as it does not have hardware support for T&L - thats done in RAM without the assitance of a Video Processor. In theory it could work, but in practice its too low a video standard to work in any satisfactory way.

The error you got was likely caused by the increased load V1.52 put on the Video Card - 1.52 had a significant shift from main system RAM to Video RAM to free up system RAM for lower end machines. Without the dedicated video card, your problems became worse, hence the difference between V1.09 & V1.52. In your case the biggest change you can make is the memsaver switch outlined above.

If the above measures dont work, and I doubt they will to any satisfactory extent, its a case of remaining on V1.09 or a PC/laptop upgrade.

Regards
Zy

 

[lukasbradley]

It seems the Omega Drivers have helped, as it did not crash during a 2 hour session the other night. However, I still haven't finished the GOTM2. Will let this thread know if I do, or if I have anymore crashes.

In short, I'd advise people with this problem, and ATI cards, to try the Omega Drivers mentioned above.

 

[Aarontu]

I have a laptop, and also a desktop with better specs. I was getting this error on my desktop with the graphics low and on a small map. My laptop lagged a bit but could run huge maps all the way through the game with no crash. Both have the 1.52 patch. I stopped playing civ on the desktop for a while, and after a couple weeks I decided to try it again. I installed the blue marble mod to my desktop and then opened the same save file and played it to the end with no crash. I then started another game and was playing it with no crash. I don't know what the problem was, but it hasn't happened since I installed blue marble. Perhaps this is a coincidence? I don't know, but the game hasn't crashed since.

 

[civ_god06]

The out of video memory problem can be solved by enabling the memsaver option in the config file(must be v1.52)
Also, reduce graphic options to low and it should work ok

 

[Boris Badinov]

I seem to have a variation of the same problem. I also have a laptop and the single player game plays fine. I can save, resume, play for hours many times. Have even completed two (2) marathon games. The problem happens when I play a scenario (mod) like Fall from Heaven (FfH), Song of the Moon (SoM), tutorial, revolutionary war or desart war. Then I can only play until the first save. Trying to resume from those saves, causes the crash mentioned. Attached is DxDiag results, I running on patch 1.52

 

[spatulacity]

I have recently been getting the same message "Your system has run out of video memory. Please try reducing your video settings." Then the game crashes and I see my desktop. I press ok and then I get another delightful message: "Using the MemorySaver option in your configuration does not allow device loss. Exiting program." I know that my video card is not that strong anymore (Geforce 4 Ti4200 - 128MB AGP) but I still feel that it has enough juice in it still to handle this game at low settings.

My game settings are:
Graphics Resolution - 1280x768
Anti Aliasing - 0
Graphics Level - Low
Render Quality - Low
Globe Quality - Low
Low Res Textures is checked.

I have been 1.52 patched since it first came out. I have not installed any custom content. I mainly played medium worlds, but I think the game that it has been crashing on is a large world map. I have been through about 3 crashes so far. It started happening sometime past the year 1700AD in my game.

Any Tips for fixing this, other than buy a new video card.

 

[auldian]

One player resolved this by forcing his display's native resolution per this post.

If that doesn't resolve it, try installing the newer version of DirectX 9.0c. Your DxDiag.txt lists a system.dll from May 12, 2005. The current one is from Feb. 2, 2006.
Microsoft Download Center is the place, you want the DirectX End-User Runtime dated February 7, 2006.

Let us know if this helps. Everything else looks in order spatulacity ... perhaps other eyes will see more.