help - no terrain visible!

[citadelphil]

Help!

I am a new player of Civilization 4 and every time I start a new game I never seem to have any terrain graphics except when I 'zoom out'. I can see my cities, farms and workers etc, but they appear on a blank (black) background. I am able to toggle the resources on an off, its just the terrain itself I can't seem to find! I have scoured the booklet and the civilopedia but to no avail. Is this how the game starts off or have I inadvertantly turned the graphics off? This is ruining what seems like a fantastic game!

Cheers in advance to anyone ablle to steer me in the right direction

 

[Rabbit_Alex]

Post some details about your computer and someone will be able to help you.

 

[citadelphil]

Hi, I am almost certain its not an issue with the PC I am running the game on, rather an issue with the setup of the game itself. Is there a way to switch the terrain on or off, or does it only become visible during a certain point in the game? I have tried uninstalling then reinstalling, but no luck. Just in case I am missing the point, I am running the game on a Siemens Amilo Pro laptop, XP pro with serivce pack 2, 1.6ghz pentium processor, 512mb ram. Incidently, when I first began playing the game the terrain was visible, but now not. When I load these saved early games the terrain is visible. I can only imagine I have inadvertantly switched the terrain off somehow? Cheers

 

[MrCynical]

The problem you're experiencing is the Black terrain problem (no it isn't supposed to look like that), which is almost always caused by your computer's graphics card being below the spec needed for Civ 4, and so incapable of rendering the terrain. You don't mention what your graphics card is, but I'd hazard a guess this is the cause.

Have you patched the game to version 1.52? That fixes the problem in some cases as is includes a batch of low res textures.

 

[BeefontheBone]

Your laptop probably has onboard graphics or a cheap GPU which doesn't support hardware T&L (transform and light), a requirement for Civ 4. There are also about 6 billion threads about this - I suggest using the Search button in future...

 

[citadelphil]

I have downloaded the latest patch which seems to have done the trick, the textures may be low res but tey are certainly better than playing in the dark! Thanks for your help.

 

[Fallstrom]

Hello. I had the same problem with black background on a laptop with ATI Radeon graphic card. The solution is to download and run DH Mod tool V3 at http://www.driverheaven.net/patje/ , since ATI's latest drivers didn't work to install. Try it, it worked for me. Now I finally can play the greatest game of all!!!

=)

Regards Fallstrom

 

[minndizzyg]

Hello. I had the same problem with black background on a laptop with ATI Radeon graphic card. The solution is to download and run DH Mod tool V3 at http://www.driverheaven.net/patje/ , since ATI's latest drivers didn't work to install. Try it, it worked for me. Now I finally can play the greatest game of all!!!

=)

Regards Fallstrom

Hello all - oddly enough this is my first post here, although I am not a complete msg board newb.

Anyway, FYI: Fallstrom's DriverHeaven solution worked for me. So, add the ATI Mobility IGP 320M to the list of cards that DriverHeaven will correct. Now, I have not had time to actually play Civ IV yet, but I started the game real quick last night after installing ATI's current desktop Catalyst driver - 6.3 for WinXP I believe - using the DriverHeaven modding tool, and the Black Terrain problem was gone. So, for those of you on laptops above Civ IV min specs but have the ATI IGP 320M/340M/345M line, hang in there - there's hope!! Kudos to Fallstrom and Patje from DriverHeaven.

Notes Bene: I have NOT tried hardly anything else on my machine, so I do not know what other effect using the modded desktop Catalyst software will have on my laptop. I.e., while Windows and Office seemed to run fine, I have not tried any other games on that machine, such as UT, UT2003, Civ3, or HOMM4. Again, everything seems fine, but I've done virtually no testing other than starting Civ IV.

 

[citadelphil]

The updated patch of the game seems to have done the trick for me so I am loathe to try and fiddle any further - if it 'aint broke, don't fix it!! Cheers.