Flickering graphics, occasional crash [Win 7]

[sanarchy]

I searched the forum and I think I have a different kind of graphical problem.
The objects on the screen flicker from black to color again. This can be very subtle, like a cow or a piece of a city momentarily flickering, or can go pretty wild, especially when scrolling/zooming alot, with parts of the whole world constantly flickering.
This is pretty annoying, feel very epileptic after a while, also, it DOES crash the game sometimes, mostly after an intense graphical procedure or something. [Like changes the graphical settings]. The screen goes into a color-frenzy and the computer totally freezes.

Like a rendering problem or maybe an overheated videocard or something. [It IS hot here now.]
But, there are a few strange things to note:
1) Sometimes, but only 1 out of 10 times I start the game, it doesn't flicker. I have no clue, tried all different settings suggested here and there but can't find a pattern as what this may relate to. With the same settings that made the game run ok, the next time it will flicker again.
2) But the strangest thing, and probably a big clue is that when I start CIV again after a crash, it says my system-specs are below recommended!!!

I'll include a dxdiag.txt maybe someone can take a look at it and tell me which part is below the recommended because it all seems fine to me.

By the way, I playing BTS and have all the latest patches, updated my videocard driver as well as directX, [that probably wasn't necessary but the problem is just the same.]

I run the game as administrator, disabled desktop composition, tried comp. modes with all systems. Fiddled around with the catalyst control center-settings. [Tried almost all permutations.]
It all doesn't work.

So I conclude that my videocard must be broken.. But still, how can CIV say my specs are below recommended?


[The irony is that on my previous pc, 3 times slower, much less memory and a geforce 64mb videocard the game ran fine!]

So, what do you guys think, should I go buy a new videocard? [Any card to recommend? I understand that this thing I have now isn't worth much, I don't play 3d games anyway, only CIV!! [and games like that]]

Thanks in advance!

 

[ori]

first I'd try a new graphics card driver - the windows 7 driver versions have tended to be updated a lot since its release - and yours is from last year.

 

[sanarchy]

You're right, but I previously had the last version manually installed, tried to uninstall it again and let windows automatically download/install the latest one. But apparantly that didn't really happen.

But right after I manually reinstalled the last drivers my game didn't flicker for as long as I played [few hours], yaaay!
Restarted the game and it's flickering again!! [Although less intense than before I think.]

Can someone maybe explain why CIV says my specs are below recommended?? Maybe if I knew how the program determines if the system it runs on is ok, I can also find out where the problem lies?

[Thanx for your reply btw!]

 

[Furiey]

Civ 4 says the specs are below recommended if it doesn't recognise the processor, so new processor=below recommended no matter how capable it is. My i7 is apparently below recommended too. You can turn the warning off in the .ini file, change the setting on the hide min spec warning line.

 

[ori]

I think it does try to do some queries with the card and/or driver and among others checks how long they take to complete the tasks. In many cases the below specs warning is due to the driver being slow to respond while the game starts up - not actually a below specs machine. You can turn that warning off in the .ini - but if the card itself is dying it may actually be the case that its not able to render the images quickly enough and that the warning is actually correct

Edit: x-post: I have seen it say the below specs thing on my own machine a few times when I started the game while some other resource intensive programs were busy and I am quite sure that part of the trigger is lack of response for some of its queries in a specific time frame. Couldn't have been a too new processor

 

[sanarchy]

Thanx for the info. I guess my videocard is probably dying then, although it's only a few months old...