Graphics/Sound Problems? - Please post your DX Logs.

[ainwood]

If you still have problems with graphics issues trying to play Civ4, then please post in this thread with:

1. The symptoms: What problem do you have?
2. What you've take to try and remedy the situation.
3. Also, please post your DirectX diagnotics printouts.

To get these printouts, follow these steps:

1. Press the windows 'start' button, and select 'run'.
2. In the box that appears, type "dxdiag" (without the quotes) and hit the enter key.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions, until you get the main DirectX Diagnostic program.
4. Hit the "save all information" button (as shown in the graphic below). You will be prompted for a file name and can save the information as a text file.
5. Either upload the text file as an attachment to you post, or open it and copy and paste the data into your post.

You may also want to put [Spoiler][/spoiler] tags around the directx log information to make the thread a bit easier to navigate, but its not critical.

Hopefully we can get some experts here to help analyse the data and provide you with some suggestions &/or solutions.

 

[Pushead]

Never mind. I didn't have the motherboard drivers installed for the AGP. Now I'm a lucky owner of the Render Failed issue, but now I can go through those fixes.

 

[tyroneb97]

I also have issues with the intro movie. The video and music stutter every 1-2 seconds. I have tried turning hardware acceleration on and off for my sound card. No difference in performance.

 

[XOVER]

I too have intro movie sound & vid stutter. Also in the game, movements take about 5 seconds to initiate, and everything just seems to run in superslow motion.

I have got the text file, but I don't know how to do an attachment. Could someone please advise?

 

[ainwood]

I too have intro movie sound & vid stutter. Also in the game, movements take about 5 seconds to initiate, and everything just seems to run in superslow motion.

I have got the text file, but I don't know how to do an attachment. Could someone please advise?

When you hit 'post reply' (rather than use the quick reply box), scroll down below the box where you type the message. You'll see a button with 'manage attachments' on it. Push that, and it allows you to upload the text file.

 

[XOVER]

Thanks ainwood. Unfortunately, it would appear that my Radeon 7200 / 32 MB video card doesn't even meet minimum requirements, much less recommended requirements. Guess I've got to install a new card, huh?

Details follow:

 

[shmolnick]

I also have the stuttering sound in intro and wonder movies. Everything else appears to be working fine.

I have tried turning acceleration on and off, I have all the latest drivers, I have also tried starting the game from various screen resolutions - nothing has had any effect on the stuttering.

Dxdiag.txt attached.

Just My Opinion Dept:
In the grand scheme of things, this problem is a minor one. I can always turn off the movies in the config file or simply ESC out of them. But wonder movies was one of the selling points of the game so it would be nice if they were working. I think Firaxis focused so much on gameplay testing (so the game would be fun to play, which it is) that they might have neglected hardware and software testing. For example, there's really no excuse for the ATI graphics card problem to have occurred - I've worked for software companies for years and this SHOULD have been caught in testing. Their marketing studies MUST have known that a good 50% of the people out there have ATI cards in their machines (at least)! This had to have been a deliberate decision, to skip testing ATI graphics cards on "typical" end user computers. Or the problems were known and the decision was made to ship the software anyway, knowing that hot fixes and patches would be created soon after the ship date. This is probably more likely, based on my experience in software companies and corporations. The other thing to keep in mind is that it is standard practice to ship a software product before it's really done in order to capture the early market share, which is seen in business as a huge advantage. (Not sure I agree.) We'll be seeing a nice patch in due course, which the Firaxis programmers are working many long hours to provide, I can assure you.

 

[Jawster]

1. I can go into and play the game but whenever I build a city I can not read the city name, the city size, or the building information because there are blue boxes instead of text and numbers.

2. I have a NVIDIA Geforce2 Mx Mx 400. I have reinstalled and updated the drivers from NVIDIA website. Still have the same problem.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Jawster

View attachment DxDiag.txt

 

[Fabius]

I am having video, and to a lesser extent, sound issues. A game I'm playing with a buddy via e-mail (a succession game where we take turns leading the same civ) on a large map is nearly unplayable from the chop. Maps I've made on my own are usually small-sized and work fine for a while, but eventually they too become choppy. Saving, quitting, and reloading the game solves those issues . . . for a while. I can get about an hour out of it before I have to restart the game. Sounds like a memory leak on that one.

My sound issues are that every once in a while on a wonder movie it will stutter. Then again, most times the tunes play perfectly.

I've reinstalled new nVidia drivers for my FX 5900XT. Didn't help. I've played with graphic settings in the game from high to low, anti-aliasing 4x to 0x, and different resolutions: no joy. I made sure I had all updates from Windows Update. I ran DxDiag and ran all possible tests and came up with no errors. I just downloaded and will try to install new Creative SB2 Audigy drivers for my sound card.

 

[Trekker8]

My main problem is with the mouse. It works fine, but but flickers in and out like crazy (10-20 times a sec.) Very distracting. My only other problem is a slightly choppy intro movie (visual only, sound and all ther videos work fine). Otherwise the game runs just fine.

The diagnostic stuff you asked for:

 

[Pushead]

I've redone the ATI stuff, but I'm still left with herky-jerky video, and delayed movements and advisor screens.

 

[SFP]

I am running P4-M 1.7G, ATI mobility Radeon 7500 w/64MB, 640 SDRAM, etc.

I can load the tutorial. I can only see my units, but everything else is black tiles or blue boxes or what looks like sliced toast or sheep.

When I load the single player game, it lets me choose everything, upto when it is generating the world. then it crashes. While it is letting me choose my leaders, etc. I can not see their animated faces. I only see animated eyes and mouths!


Also, below is my init.log file.

[3263.622] DBG: FILE Cat Init
[3263.963] DBG: Using XML cache
[3263.963] DBG: Game Init
[3263.973] DBG: Multiplayer Init
[3264.444] DBG: Audio Init
[3266.707] DBG: ArtFileMgr Init
[3266.707] DBG: Python Init
[3271.173] VERSION: CIV Version: 0
[3271.173] VERSION: Save Version: 100
[3271.173] DBG: Input Init
[3271.183] DBG: Engine Init
[3276.751] DBG: Engine: Axis Engine Initialized
[3276.751] DBG: Engine: Scene Graph Initialized
[3276.791] DBG: Engine: Shaders Initialized
[3276.811] DBG: Engine: Scene Lights Initialized
[3276.841] DBG: Music Start
[3276.861] DBG: Font Init
[3276.941] DBG: Total Frame MS: 14745.0 FPS: 000 Min:000 Max:000 Avg:000 SampleFilter:10.000000
Time : Ave : Min% : Max% : Num : Profile Name
-----------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
[3276.952] DBG: Begin MenuManager
[3404.795] DBG: Engine: Camera Initialized
[3422.050] DBG: SyncRandSeed is 3384129, MapRandSeed is 3384129

 

[King Flevance]

This is pretty cool. I took a couple screenshots to show the problems, it seems not many have this issue with graphics. Everything else is fine but this.

1. Tiles are mostly white if land. (SS0000.JPG)
2. Zoomed out the color resumes but the water still remains black. (SS0001.JPG)

 

[Arcanus14]

After about 5 to 10 minutes of play my screen will freeze and I will get his jumbled mass of colors. the only way out of this screen freeze is a hard reboot. I have updated all of my drivers and direct x and have tried a multitude of fix its that have not work. Please resolve this problem, it is not fair that we have to pay 50-60 dollars for something that does not work.
Here are my specs:
Athlon 3400
1gb of ram
6800gt
Audigy sound card

Also there is thread by Yadda on here with many people with the same problem.

View attachment DxDiag.txt

 

[Tanstaafl]

My problem is also with the terrain appearing as if in the "fog of war", all black except the extra terrain graphics, like elephants, units, dye, flowing water. I removed and reinstalled the game and get the same problem.
Here is my dxdiag info.

------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 10/29/2005, 22:57:03
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: Pavilion zv5200
BIOS: Ver 1.00PARTTBL
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+, MMX, 3DNow, ~790MHz
Memory: 510MB RAM
Page File: 333MB used, 912MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

------------
DxDiag Notes
------------
DirectX Files Tab: No problems found.
Display Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
Music Tab: No problems found.
Input Tab: No problems found.
Network Tab: No problems found.

 

[milath]

This is pretty cool. I took a couple screenshots to show the problems, it seems not many have this issue with graphics. Everything else is fine but this.

1. Tiles are mostly white if land. (SS0000.JPG)
2. Zoomed out the color resumes but the water still remains black. (SS0001.JPG)

Same exact terrain color issues... Terrain appears white/yellow. Water is black or has black triangles in half the tile.

Same video card too. Radeon 7500.

DXDiag attached.

 

[krinklyfig]

Crashes to desktop after a few turns. Didn't happen for maybe 20 or 30 turns, and now it crashes all the time. The game will freeze after stuttering and will show some elements of the desktop and taskbar, but it doesn't render the whole desktop until a three-finger-salute (the game has already crashed by then). I'm using the newest Omega 2.6.75a drivers (a previous version wouldn't run the game at all). I already had DirectX 9.0c, but it ran erratically until I installed the one on the CD, though it's the exact same version. My setup:

Win2000 SP4
Asus A7N8X-E mobo
AthlonXP 2400+
1 Gig RAM (2x512MB)
ATI Radeon 9600XT

 

[BleckLord]

System:

AMD Athlon64 3000+ (Socket 754)
1GB RAM
ATI 9600XT - VIO w/ 256MB RAM
SB Audigy 2 ZS

Running ATI catalyst 5.10 and/or Omega Drivers equivelent (occurs on both)
Running SB Audigy 2 ZS drivers updated today (ver. 5.12.2.444)
DX 9.0c as per the Civ 4 install disc

Description:

Game crashes to desktop during game play. Started infrequently, now happens almost every turn; still playing the same game. Civ 4 has crashed hard enough to need system reboot twice.

Log Files:

Desktop crashes are reported in WinXP Application Event Log as two events with cryptic descriptions. audio.log always ends with sound fetch error for Sounds/CrowdCheer. LSystem.log always ends with warnings and errors about scene/animation nodes not present for shadows.

Attached is a zip file of DX diag, copy of recent logs, excerpts of old logs, screen cap of desktop after crash to desktop (note: desktop repairs afer redraw).

 

[zavarik]

Game CTD or even reboots my computer.
I updated to the latest Drivers (NVIDIA 6600 GT - 81.85 drivers) and problem is still re-occuring probably about 1 hour into the game or so.

 

[Whoracle]

I hve SFP and that other guys problem. I have what appears to be a fog of war on my main screen. Everything else is nice and pretty like it should be. Anybody figured out the problem yet since I see 2 others have it.