Fix-It List

[Oceanrower]

I can not see the menu in the beginning (overlooking planet earth). Has it got something to do with what my graphic card can and can not do? It is a 128MB ATI Fire GL T2-card.

Anyone who has seen this problem?

 

[uksheep]

now i have the joy of having 2 pcs that should be capable of playing civ4, so atleast i can play it on one of them, unfortunatly it doesn't have sound so i can hear spocks commentry every time i get a new tech, anyway does anyone know of a way to force the game to run with out its water animations etc or force shaders off, i'm running a geforce 5200 which has had problems with shaders before and directX9 has some major problems with it, its annoyin as it plays call of duty 2 and quake 4 perfectly and before anyone points it out i can't swap the graphics cards around as i need a dvi output for my monitor

nvhardpage doesn't work

 

[lamaslany]

In my post, I say that I tried the XML-file edit, and by that I've proved that it's not a graphics problem and that it's an error in the game. If you want to play the game until the patch comes out, that's the only way.

ALTHOUGH, some gamers were able to fix the problem by updating their driver using Omega. From what I've read, the Omega driver is compatible with any ATI Radeon or Nvidia GF video card, so you have nothing to lose.

It didn't fix anything for me, though.

I'm just curious but does setting the mapvisible variable to 1 effectively disable the fog of war? If so, does anyone know if the fog of war makes use of TnL? If it does then simply disabling the FoW does not prove that the issue is not related to graphic compatability.

Just a thought...

 

[gose102977]

Alright, I have seen a lot of posts offering solutions to the black map issue. Would someone be nice enough to post step by step instructions as to how you solved this issue? I am not a tech guy so half of the stuff people are posting here makes no sense to me...I have been to the nvidia.com site and tried to download something, but I am not sure if I am downloading the right thing. If someone could post a reply with the instructions as easy and specific as possible, it would be much appreciated. I will not be insulted if you think I am an idiot...I am just a guy that wants to start dominating the Civ 4 world, you got to respect that....right?

 

[gwcarver]

Hi, maybe somebody could give me a hand. When I start a new game or load a saved game it takes 7 minutes to load and then 70% of the time it locks up. Right after I click "play game" the screen goes to the world map (all black), the autosave notice pops up on the left, sometimes the minimap shows up and then the cursor disapears and my computers is completely locked. Sometimes the game loads and plays fine. When I reboot windows sometimes says "unspecified error with ATI device driver". I clear the cache before every game and have tried adjusting the video settings in game. Lower graphics seem to improve chances of the game working but it still crashes often. I have:

Compaq Presario 1020us
Centrino 1.4ghz
512mb ram
ATI Radeon 9200 64mb (reinstalled newest drivers provided by compaq)
7gb free hd space

 

[strada]

I had a problem running the game on my PC, and I've finally fixed it, so I thought I'd share what was happening and how I resolved the issue so that it might hopefully help others that are tearing their hair out with the same problems !!

First my system setup.....

AMD 64 3500+
Galaxy 6600 256Mb
Audigy 2 Platinum Pro
Winfast (Foxconn) Motherboard with RAID card to add two extra IDE slots.
1 Gb Ram
LG DVD Combo Drive
Lite On 52x Cd-Writer.....
550W Power Supply

Think that's all you need to know !!

Right, the issue was that my version (the DVD version) just would not be recognised when trying to run the game. It would show up in My Computer, and you could explore the disc, but if you ran it, you'd get the splash screen, wait for ages and it would tell you that it couldn't find the CD. VERY ANNOYING !!!

What I've done to fix it.....

1- tried updating the firmware for my DVD drive - no change
2- made an image from the DVD, mounted with Alcohol, and used a securerom hiding program (works, but why should I have to do that with a game I've bought !!!)
3- Tried 3 different DVD drives, all different makes.... no change
4- Torn hairs out repeatedly
5- Waited for Firaxis and 2K to release a patch.... or at least tell us when the patch is due, and not lie about it.... ie say next week and then not deliver !!!

And finally......

I did have my CD and DVD drives plugged into the IDE card and my Hard Drives plugged straight into the motherboard...... this is what it didn't like.
I swapped over so that my CD and DVD drives are plugged straight into the motherboard, and the Hard Drives are plugged into the RAID card.......

AND IT FINALLY WORKS !!!! For some reason it didn't like it with the old configuration.... hope I'm now not losing speed in data transfer with my Hard Drives, but nothing seems to be going slower as yet....... fingers crossed.

Hope this has helped a load of people...... Tech support..... I was on the phone for an hour !!! Rubbish.

Barnes

 

[fedup]

I have been trying for 3 days to get this to work - I still get the "renderer" errror on start up - I don't use an ATI graphics card and out of desperation even went out and bought a new (& more expensive than the game) graphics card from Aeolus (FX5200).

Dunno if I am in a (small?) minority still but this is pretty poor from Firaxis. I've tried all the fixes and got absolutely no where. Sure its a great game but I buy PC games to play not to spend ages fussing around the technical set up of my PC ...

Presume all I can do is sit and wait for the glorious day when they release a patch to make the game actually playable

 

[Pyerun]

Hi This is my problem

http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bug1up.gif

Holy sh... I would say that it's a video card problem, but I can't be 100% sure. Dowload the latest driver for your video card and MAKE SURE IT'S THE RIGHT ONE. If you have an ATI Radeon or a Nvidia video card, then you could download the latest OMEGA driver. Take a look a this post for more info --> http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3266631&postcount=1

If no driver can help, then you should wait for the patch, but I'm not sure it will help, so the best solution would be to get the newest video card.

Good luck

 

[Bosoxboy321]

Eheheh... um, I just realized that my vid card and ram are low for reccomended performance... I annoyed ppl with my constant posts for the last few days... this whole time I needed a vidcard and RAM upgrade... Um... thank you for your time... *runs away*

 

[Pyerun]

Hi, maybe somebody could give me a hand. When I start a new game or load a saved game it takes 7 minutes to load and then 70% of the time it locks up. Right after I click "play game" the screen goes to the world map (all black), the autosave notice pops up on the left, sometimes the minimap shows up and then the cursor disapears and my computers is completely locked. Sometimes the game loads and plays fine. When I reboot windows sometimes says "unspecified error with ATI device driver". I clear the cache before every game and have tried adjusting the video settings in game. Lower graphics seem to improve chances of the game working but it still crashes often. I have:

Compaq Presario 1020us
Centrino 1.4ghz
512mb ram
ATI Radeon 9200 64mb (reinstalled newest drivers provided by compaq)
7gb free hd space

Either your computer is crappy (which is false) or Firaxis/Take-Two sold us a beta version (which is true). So my best suggestion is that you wait for the patch that is supposedly going to be released at the end of this month (November 2005). Happy waiting

 

[midell]

Hey cardsfan, thanks for bringing up the issue about the terrain productivity not showing up. I only see two bread slices for every terrain square, no coins, shields, food, etc. I assumed that the problem could be solved by clicking something, but I am stumped how to fix it. Everything else seems to be working fine (except a few random crashes). Ideas anybody?

 

[Pyerun]

Alright, I have seen a lot of posts offering solutions to the black map issue. Would someone be nice enough to post step by step instructions as to how you solved this issue? I am not a tech guy so half of the stuff people are posting here makes no sense to me...I have been to the nvidia.com site and tried to download something, but I am not sure if I am downloading the right thing. If someone could post a reply with the instructions as easy and specific as possible, it would be much appreciated. I will not be insulted if you think I am an idiot...I am just a guy that wants to start dominating the Civ 4 world, you got to respect that....right?

Here are the symptoms ---> http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3271549&postcount=10

Here it is explained about the OMEGA drivers solution
---> http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3275169&postcount=18

Here I explain why the black map issue is a bug and, if you must, how to play having the whole map revealed. It's kinda ****ty but that's the only solution, apart of the OMEGA driver solution, to play the game until the patch is released ---> http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3275169&postcount=18

You're not an idiot Guys who sell beta versions are... eh... not very nice.

 

[cougz]

I can't even get a log of my games failure to start, I can't find a civilization4.ini file anywhere.

I have installed the game 4 times, all were a complete success as far as the installation process was concerned. Have installed to different areas, default as well as a another partition. Installed from Admin account (using win2k pro SP 4) Have created new user accounts.

No matter what I do I don't get the folder in "My Games".

It's no surprise the game doesn't start when it can't even find an ini file.

 

[slo5oh]

9. Art Pack Patch

A new game utility can be found here for WinXP or Win2k.

2000 patch is not there!!! Anyone have another link?

 

[cougz]

Ok, further to the above.

I fixed the problem by installing the game to my laptop (Win XP, but below requirements), and copying the files from the folder in "My Documents/My Games" over to my decent machine.

Ok, new problem. I can load the game up once, no problems, if I exit and try to re-open it, it fails.

If I reboot the computer, I can get 1 succesful startup again.

Anyone else know of this problem?

 

[peterthegreat25]

After playing civ 4 a lot over the past 2 weeks, and some of my friends have been as well, we noticed that the game crashes when you've been playing it for a while. Basically it came down to virtual memory. Two of us have identical laptops, with the only difference being one has 1GB of memory and the other 2Gb of memory. The 1Gb crashed often and the 2Gb never crashes. So a handy tip is to only play up to standard map size with 512MB RAM, up to large map size with 1Gb RAM and only play huge map with more than 1Gb RAM. It doesn't matter how good your computer is, as my Athlon 4000+, 256MB X800XT PE, 1Gb dual Corsair ULL still crashed, yet my Z71VP laptop with 2ghz PM, 128MB 6600, 2Gb RAM burns through it at high res, no lag and never crashes.

We tried clearing space plenty of space on hard drive and defragging, making sure page file not fragmented, all on WD Raptor 10K hard drive, defrag only prolonged crash a few turns later.

So if you have this problem, at the moment you have to put more RAM in or play at low map sizes.

 

[hrc333]

I am not sure I agree with the map size. All my games tend to crash around 1200 ad. I have played tiny with 3 civs to huge with 8 civs and it tends to crash around the same time in the game. So my problem at least does not seem to be map sized related. For reference I have 1gb of memory and 256mb on my video card (Radeon x700)

 

[Lahdoz]

This thread was created as a "Fix-It-List" to detail possible solutions to the many problems people are experiencing. If you are just having problems and want a fix, please post elsewhere. If your solution isn't here, it probably will be, just ask for it in an appropriate thread.

Thank you to all that have contributed to possible solutions, and thank you to alamo for organizing, in the beginning of this thread, the possible solutions picked from so many other threads.

 

[nomester]

Yep, I posted the same prob across in graphics prob thread.

Has anyone else noticed that when you turn on the option to show the productivity of terrain (i.e. food, commerce, production)-- or open a city window, or select a settler-- the map only displays 2 food on each square, regardless of the terrain type? Is this a common issue, and if so is there a fix or a patch? Whatever is causing it, it is really irritating.

 

[StyxNCa]

Selling a beta version is genius! They have the buyers do the beta testing for them, freeing themselves up to do more important things.....like counting money, running to the bank, etc.