Flickery Screen

[krasny]

After downgrading to Vista <spit>, the screens on CivIV are rather flickery, like my monitor was at 60Hz refresh, as opposed to the 75Hz it is at.

Is there anything I can do about this?

Thanks.

 

[Stewie0416]

not really, i have the same problem. It gets quite annoying after awhile

 

[ori]

are your graphics drivers uptodate?

 

[PieceOfMind]

I assume 75Hz is supported by your monitor at the resolution you're trying to play the game at? The new widescreen monitor I have, disappointingly only supports 60Hz, whereas my older smaller monitor could do 72HZ at 1280x1024 and more Hz at lower resolutions.

Rant: Am I the only one, by the way, who prefers more than 60Hz refresh on monitors? My eyes seem to fatigue faster on 60Hz monitors and I'm fairly sure I'm not imagining things.

 

[krasny]

My monitor supports in excess of 75Hz.

All other games play at 75Hz OR give the option of changing the refresh.

Is there anyway of changing the refresh in Civ4?

 

[PieceOfMind]

My monitor supports in excess of 75Hz.

All other games play at 75Hz OR give the option of changing the refresh.

Is there anyway of changing the refresh in Civ4?

Not that I know of, but I don't think Civ messes with the default refresh that windows uses. However I use XP so I'm not sure how vista changes things.

Tell me though, what happens if you set your monitor to 60Hz etc. while playing the game. Does the flicker go away? Assuming the flickering is being caused by some refresh rate being out of sync, you should be able to find out which refresh that seems to be coming up.

But if your monitor is LCD, I didn't even know they could get flicker issues. I thought that was mainly a problem with CRTs. I'm no expert but this leads me to suspect it's not a refresh rate issue. How sure are you that it is?

 

[krasny]

I changed my CRT monitor refresh to 60Hz and it had no effect on Civ.

I'm fairly sure it's a refresh issue.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I changed my CRT monitor refresh to 60Hz and it had no effect on Civ.

I'm fairly sure it's a refresh issue.

Oh. Sorry, I assumed you wouldn't be using a CRT monitor.

Seeing as you are using a CRT monitor, you're justified in assuming it's a refresh issue.

But I wonder, are you guessing that civ is somehow reducing the refresh to less than 60Hz? I've never heard of anything lower than 60Hz (except perhaps for PAL 50Hz CRTs).

I'm pretty sure flickering can offur if the refresh rates do not match, whether the one the VGA is sending is higher than the one the CRT is using, or vice versa.

If you changed the CRT to 60Hz and you suspect the game is using 60Hz, then theoretically it shouldn't flicker. There are two places you set the refresh rate...
1) Somewhere in vista, like the control panel or something. I know in XP you can just right click the desktop, hit properties, go to the settings tab, then hit advanced... etc. With vista I'm not sure.

2)On the CRT itself. I assume you found the buttons or whatever on the unit and successfully changed it to 60Hz.

If (1) and (2) both match I can't imagine why you'd get flickering.

Assuming the VGA output has the same frequency as the CRT is using, there should be no flicker.

Maybe your graphics card is somehow lying about the refresh rate it is sending to the monitor? Is the graphics card ok with Windows Vista? I know the card I have - a GeForce 8600GTS - is not suitable for vista.

 

[krasny]

Oh. Sorry, I assumed you wouldn't be using a CRT monitor.

Seeing as you are using a CRT monitor, you're justified in assuming it's a refresh issue.

But I wonder, are you guessing that civ is somehow reducing the refresh to less than 60Hz? I've never heard of anything lower than 60Hz (except perhaps for PAL 50Hz CRTs).

I'm pretty sure flickering can offur if the refresh rates do not match, whether the one the VGA is sending is higher than the one the CRT is using, or vice versa.

If you changed the CRT to 60Hz and you suspect the game is using 60Hz, then theoretically it shouldn't flicker. There are two places you set the refresh rate...
1) Somewhere in vista, like the control panel or something. I know in XP you can just right click the desktop, hit properties, go to the settings tab, then hit advanced... etc. With vista I'm not sure.

2)On the CRT itself. I assume you found the buttons or whatever on the unit and successfully changed it to 60Hz.

If (1) and (2) both match I can't imagine why you'd get flickering.

Assuming the VGA output has the same frequency as the CRT is using, there should be no flicker.

Maybe your graphics card is somehow lying about the refresh rate it is sending to the monitor? Is the graphics card ok with Windows Vista? I know the card I have - a GeForce 8600GTS - is not suitable for vista.

My monitor goes up to 100Hz. It's currently at 75Hz.

There is no flicker with anything except for Civ.

I have tried setting the monitor to 60Hz, but all that does is make everything flicker, including Civ.

I've decided to try a reinstall of Civ.

 

[krasny]

For the record, reinstalling Civ did NOT do the trick.

Running vanilla BTS gives me a fine display.

Upgrading to 3.17 + Solvers patch gave me back the flickery screen.

This is bloody mysterious.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It is. Can I suggest posting this in the bug reports forum, or enquiring in the technical support thread/s. I think I'm at the limit of what I can suggest your problem might be caused by.

It might be useful to know though, whether the flickering started straight after the 3.17 patch, or after Solver's patch. If the latter, you'd be wise to ask the unofficial patch creators.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: Moved to Tech Support

also please post your dxdiag results file

 

[WillmarJ]

not trying to bring an old topic to life, but wanted to make sure, that there is no cure for flickery background in civ 4?

 

[ori]

Welcome to Civfanatics

this is not a common occurrence with this game.
What exactly happens in your case?
could you post your dxdiag results file?

 

[krasny]

I switched to an LCD monitor, and the flicker was no more.