Fix-It List

[Terrahoming]

aw i feel sry for all u guys, my civ4 ran perfectly on my first trial, i didnt even have to update windows or any of my old drivers

EDIT: lol i regret saying this, now my wonder movies start lagging and stuttering, even in early game

 

[slc193]

So I played the game fine for a week. Then suddenly today, I get the "cannot locate the CD-ROM" error. The tech support website doesn't help because it simply claims that it is a mislabeled CD. I know that is not the case since I was able to play for the past week. Any thoughts on why this might be happening all of the sudden? I'd rather not have to reinstall, but that seems to be my next option. Any thoughts?

 

[spirithiker]

I purchased Civ IV the day it was released. I have played this game many times (almost daily) and have reloaded saved games, daily, without any problems. That is until I did a Windows update last Wednesday February 15, 2006.
After downloading these five 'high-priority' updates, listed below, I can no longer load my saved games.
Also, I can start a new game and save it, but when I try to reload it I cannot load that game either.

I have dropped back to a 'restore point' in order to play my game and I have turned off the 'Automatic Update' feature of Windows XP (which is not an acceptable situation) because these 'high-priority' updates continually want to be downloaded and updated.

I also searched the Microsoft 'knowledge base' for similar problems to no avail.
Has anyone else run into this problem? If so, and even if not, what is the resolution?
Here are the five 'high priority' updates I loaded:
Security update for windows xp (KB913446)
Security update for windows media player 10 for windows xp (KB911565)
Security update for windows xp (KB911927)
Security update for windows media player plug-in (KB911564)
Windows malicious software removal tool – February 2006 (KB890830)

I would like to download each update one at a time to determine which one is causing the problem, but I am not allowed to. I have to take all five updates or nothing.

As it stands, I have taken nothing so I can continue to play my game. Please help.
Thank-you

 

[chewtoy]

I purchased Civ IV the day it was released. I have played this game many times (almost daily) and have reloaded saved games, daily, without any problems. That is until I did a Windows update last Wednesday February 15, 2006.
<snip>
Has anyone else run into this problem? If so, and even if not, what is the resolution?

Spirithiker, I think I'm in the same boat as you. Everything was fine (well, not fine, but at least not crashing) until about 10 days ago. I didn't put two and two together until reading your post, but I think a Windows Update hosed my Civ experience, too.

I can play fine until mid-late game (Standard-size Terra maps) when I start getting the dreaded "out of video memory... Line: 1018" errors. Clearing the cache files hasn't helped, fiddling with video settings hasn't helped (same problem all the way down on "lowest" settings for everything), even yelling hasn't helped . Interestingly, I don't have the problem with loading saved games -- all my problems are in-game.

Not sure what to tell you that hasn't already been said in this thread (and others). I guess we all just have to sit back and wait for a patch. I'm with all the other people, though, who say that this game never should've gotten out the door in the shape it's in.

 

[ice_dragone]

I got mine a little after Christmas, but I just got a chance to play it a few weeks ago. The screen is black, except for my city, my units, and sometimes the forests. What do I do to fix this?

 

[dragonlaird]

Hi Gang,

It is both encouraging and discouraging to see so many folks with video troubles from Civ4. Don't know why I expect the Civ line to be developed better or somehow special compared to other software houses... maybe its just from my love of the previous versions of the game.

Anyway, I was wading through the previous posts (problems and suggestions) on this and another thread, but couldn't correlate all the info in my head, so I'll lay out my situation here and see if someone has a suggestion or two for me. Like everyone else, I'm quite irritated by the game's misbehavior, but it let me play for a few hours before showing its dark side so I'm hooked.

My Rig:
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB (71.89 driver version, run 800x600, 32bit color)
1GB RAM
2.53Mhz chip Pentium 4
Windows XP Professional Svc Pk 2
Oodles of disk space (27.5GB free on C: 3.08GB free on D: the games drive)

Misbehavior:
Straight setup vs 8-9 AIs. Around 1700s began to slow down quite noticeably, enough that I had to start multitasking with something else while I waited for it to resolve the AIs turns. But this I could live with if it were the only problems.

Saved my only game so far (1830AD) and came back to it later. Loaded it up and ended the turn. Music plays, pointer spins, nothing changes video for about a minute, then the screen goes to VGA mode and announces: "The nv4_disp display driver has stopped working normally. Save your work and reboot..." I'm in 4-bit color mode and have to reboot to get the driver happy again.

I changed the nvidia setting from quality to performance with no change in behavior. Now the only posts I noticed that had found solutions to their problems seem to like the 71.89 nvidia driver release, but since I'm crashing running 71.89 that doesn't appear to be the answer for me.

Any and all suggestions and miracles are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Jim

www.dragonlairdgaming.com

 

[Champ989]

Why does the game crash after a few minutes?

I bought Civ. 4 some time ago, and I have yet to get it to work on any computer. I've tryed it on three computers, two of my uncles and my own and it always makes the computer crash. It never plays long, it only works for a few minutes or so. My computer is an AMD 3500+ 64 bit, 6600GT 128MB video card, 512MB of ram, 74GB Raptor Hard drive, and.. Yeah, I think thats all that I need to say.. The computer is more then good enough to run the game, so why won't it work?

 

[eveline_nd]

Hey guys. I installed Civ4 successfully, but when I get to the main menu screen the main menu graphics aren't there, so I can't see what I'm clicking on, etc.

I've taken a log, and it says some files aren't there which I've looked for. I'm assuming it's just the disk I bought, and I might have to buy another one, but I wanted to see if this was a bigger problem.

The missing files are graphics in the HUB section and in the recourse/themes section. Is there a way we can get these files from the internet or something?

It's not a video card problem or anything like that, I'm way above the requirements, but it's just that the files aren't <i>there</i> as far as I've seen.

 

[ZeroFame]

Well every time it's patching to the main game it's reboots my computer what do I do to start playing the game? Like when it's at the XML if thats how you spell it it reboots my Computer and when i try to remove it it's not there, what do I do?

 

[Aeon221]

Heres a list of the error messages I get during init XML (uncached):

There are more siblings than memory allocated for them in CvXMLLoadUtility::SetVariableListTagPair
Current XML file is GameInfo/CIV4CultureLevelInfo.xml

Tag: GAMESPEED_MARATHON in Info class was incorrect. Current XML file is: GameInfo/CIV4CultureLevelInfo.xml

I get these two error messages six times each while loading. Sometimes I get to see an intro commercial, but most of the time it crashes before that.

I did not have _this_ issue until I downloaded the patch.

 

[needhelp]

Ok, there is/was 3 problems:

1.)The heads of the characters in the charactar select menus didnt appear, besides their teeth and eyes. The patch 1.52 seems to have fixed that.

2.)With the patch after loading, a game didn't start up, an error message appeared, talking about eth lack of video memory. I put teh graphics all to low and started the game again. It worked.

3.)In the game the map didnt appear, it wa all black. I could see my warriors, settlers, teh forests, elefhants and other items on the map, teh basic map, water grasslands, steps were all black though, what to do??

 

[primordial stew]

I've gotten BSOD many times on game exit with 1.52 (annoying, but I'm exiting the game anyway.. ). However the last time this happened various files got corrupted. For example the GoogleDesktopSearch index files, and the Firefox bookmarks file and profile. These files live on my only NTFS partition, but there was also some correctable problems in the host FAT32 drive. It's the first time I've seen NTFS corruption on my XP system. I've not played Civ4 since this, and in ~4 weeks of doing other stuff there have been no apparent problems.

This didn't happen to me in any other version than 1.52.

 

[Gaius III]

I have had some problems with Civ4 with the game freezing and crashing also after installing the 1.09 patch and especially after trying to install the 1.52 patch, so I took a look at this forum and I am apparently not alone having this problem. I been cycling through threads on this forum, looking for some solutions on the game-freezing-problem and I think I have at least made it better.

This my computer:
Processor: Amd Athlon 1700
Graphics card: Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 256Mb
Ram: 512 Mb
Motherboard: Epox (Socket A) EP-8RDA+
Hard drives: Two IBM 60GB (RAID), One Samsung SP1614N 160Gb
Soundcard: Creative SoundBlaster Live!

This is what I did:

1. I uninstalled Civ4 and after that, I deleted the Civilization 4 folder.
2. I downloaded and installed the latest Ati-drivers and let the computer reboot (it exists new drivers since the beginning of March).
3. Installed the game once again and after that, I installed the 1.52 patch.

4. This one might look strange: I also removed some unnecessary USB connections, like the one to my printer. I read and also heard that the graphic card need a lot of power and therefore it is a good idea to remove some USB-cables that are not used for the moment. It sure sounds like a not-so-well-motivated thing to do, but at least it is a thing I can do, and an easy one too.

Since this new installation, I have been playing a couple of hours and it only freezed once and that is a big improvement since it was crashing at least once an hour before.

 

[ctodd123]

Sorry if this question has already been asked...

when I try to create an online account to play online the whole screen freezes up except for the mouse, I can move the mouse around but i can't click on anything.

I then have to shutdown my computer to get back to the desktop

i tried minimizing it with alt-esc and i tried ctrl-alt-del and that had no response as well

I would like to know the source of this problem, and whether or not it can be fixed.

Thanks.

 

[corlagol]

8. Render Error Fix

Indication: Failed to Initialize Renderer - Check DirectX Version and Graphic Settings

First, check your startup resolution in the .ini file. This should be something your card+monitor supports!

This was first associated with ATI video cards, but has affected Nvidia owners as well. There are detailed instructions here.

a.) Uninstall Civ4 and Folder
b.) Delete c:\windows\system32\d3dx9_26.dll
c.) Reboot
d.) Remove Video drivers - ATI has a 'remove all' utility
e.) Download the latest Video drivers - ATI / Nvidia / S3 - do not install yet!
f.) Install Civ4, including DirectX
g.) Install Video drivers

Go to the Art Pack Patch (next) if you still have problems.

Yaikes thanks

You're the

 

[biscuithead]

When I installed Civ4 on my new laptop (that more than meets the requirements to play) and started the game, it just stayed on the loading screen for a couple minutes then shut itself down. There was no message about why it happened, only the send error report that I get when any program crashes. Any and all help would be appreciated

 

[joepro]

I'm only 12, so I hope my question does not sound to noobie
My mom just bought me civ4, and I'm having a
problem with installing it.
it keeps telling me...
Error Code: -5006 : 0x80070002
Error Information:
>SetupDLL\SetupDLL.cpp (1194)
PAPP:Sid Meier's Civilization 4
PVENDOR:Firaxis Games (##IDS_PRODUCT_URL##)
PGUID:CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8
$11.0.0.28844
@Windows XP Service Pack 1 (2600) IE 6.0.2800.1106


I have civ3+conquests and have no problems with it.
I can't wait to play this game please help.

GREAT form, glad I found it.

 

[Darkphoenix]

Hi i'm new and have not had any problems with my game until now. I recently downloaded the new patch (1.61, I believe), and all of a sudden there is almost no sound. I will have sound sometimes (beginning of turn with new units for example) but no ambience, music, or most interface sounds (or when the new technology comes up (waaah spock isn't giving me my funny quotes.). I have checked the audio section and made sure that the sliders were set to full and that "no sound" was not checked. I experimented with various sound set-ups as well (mono, stereo, and system).

I have only tried the Europe scenario (both custom and regular) since the patch came out.

I not very good with the technical aspects of computers (Im working on it though) and hope this isn't a stupid question (or one that hasn't already been asked).

Has anyone else had this? How do I fix it?

 

[ben-1uk]

Hi everyone.

Having read all the problems that everybody is having with their audio / video I thought I would list what I've had to do in order to get the game working as it should:

Rolled back the driver on the graphics card. I have a NVidia Ge-force FX 5700 and have downgraded it to version 78.01 (2 September 2005).

Updated my sound card to an Creative Audigy SE.

Installed more RAM so I now have 1GB.

Downloaded Rivatuner (v. 2.0RC 15.8) and changed the pixel shading to 1.1

In the games configuration (.ini) file I have changed the line of code that reads "HideMovieBackground=0" to "HideMovieBackground=1".

I have changed my screen resolution to 1024 x 768.

I have downloaded the latest patch from the 2K games website - v. 1.61

I think that's everything! If anybody else is having problems with choppy graphics and / or sound, then try the above. After a week of messing I've finally cracked it! Let the countless hours of sleepless nights begin

 

[knupp715]

For all the people who never had a problem with Civ4 until the latest patch (me) could somebody please tell me how to clear cache.

11. Clear the Game Cache

There is a game cache in the user profile. Apparently some config info gets saved there, so it should be cleared after every change. Look for it here
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\My Games\Civilization IV\cache (WinXP).

W2k users should have something similar in C:Windows\Profiles\...

I get to username and there is no Application Data. Instead I can go to My documents, my game, Civ4 but then there is no cache folder. I have windows XP. I've come to the conclusion that I am an absolute idiot.
Help Needed. Thanks in advance

Edit: Nevermind, all fixed. Turns out I had to reinstall the patch via the official Civ4 site. Whenever I downloaded it using the games check for updates option my game would be all messed up. Not sure why