Help!

[Emperor Mansa]

Whenever I try to start a game, the game crashes, with a message saying that my computer failed to allocate video memory, and to try reducing my graphics settings, followed by a message saying that the program requested runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. I used to get this a lot with Vanilla, but it was fixed for the most part once I downloaded all the official patches. Now it's started again. I also found this in the ThemeParseLog file:

[Aug 13, 2007 - 14:20:57] Messages while processing 'Resource/Civ4.thm'

Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:401, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size3_Italic' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:402, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size3_BoldItalic' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Common.thm', Ln:408, Col:13) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size1_Bold' not found
Error : Decl - ('Civ4Theme_Window.thm', Ln:3048, Col:9) Assignment source propertyId 'SF_CtrlTheme_Civ4_Control_Font_Size1_Bold' not found
Error : Syntax - ('Civ4Theme_HUD.thm', Ln:887, Col:13) Unexpected '.' in the identifier assignment statement
Error : Syntax - ('Civ4Theme_HUD.thm', Ln:927, Col:13) Unexpected '.' in the identifier assignment statement

Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Ghost Ranger]

Shouldn't this be in the tech support thread?

 

[Emperor Mansa]

Well, it is a BTS bug. So, any ideas, anyone?

 

[H&K]

Its not installed properly

Edit: Uninstal every thing, then reinstall every thing, but dont instal any patches until after BTS has instaled

 

[Ghost Ranger]

Try doing what H&K said and also post your system specs...
And I still think this should be in the tech support forum because it isn't a bug w/ BTS, but a bug with your system.

 

[Emperor Mansa]

I have a Gateway with Windows XP and Pentium 4.

 

[Ghost Ranger]

how much ram do you have, and what kind of Gfx Card do you have. Also, make sure you do a reinstall, as it may be the only way to fix the problem.

 

[Emperor Mansa]

2.49 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM. I can't find the video card info.

 

[Ghost Ranger]

Try this start>Run...> type devmgmt.msc , press enter, click the plus next to "Display adapters" and it should have video card info.
(The ThemeParseLog thing is nothing, I have it too, and BTS works fine)
Also, try putting the game into a window (My Documents>My Games>BTS>CivilizationIV.ini)
Look for this

; Specify whether to play in fullscreen mode 0/1/ask
FullScreen = 1

change the 1>0

 

[Emperor Mansa]

Any other advice? I tried changing it out of fullscreen mode, and it still gave me the same problem. I have a Mobility M9 video card. I tried installing it on another computer and it wouldn't even install.

 

[Wenla]

Looks familiar.

PC: Win XP Home, Civ IV BtS V3.03, HP Pavilion, 2GHz, 1GB memory, NVIDIA GeForce 6200 Turbochase 256MB, latest driver (updated couple days ago).

After 1-2 hrs playing picture (=movement) freezes, display loses details (showing just ground and roads, no cities/workers/soldiers/mines etc etc), sometimes after a while details comes back and game continues (for a while) sometimes not -> crash. Used High/medium/low quality settings for graphics, no change.

Error message:

"Failed to allocate video memory. Please try reducing your graphics settings.
File:\Civilization4\SDKs\Gamebuyo2_0\CoreLibs\NiDX9Renderer\NiDX9VBmanager.cpp,Line:1019"

And then:

"Runtime Error!
Program (folder)Civ4BeyondSword.exe
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in unusual way. Please contact the application support team etc etc."

And I consider this one Civ IV BtS error, not my system error because no graphical problems with other games/graphics and others seems to have same or same kind of problems.

I hope that these informations help to produce fix.

Wenla

 

[Ghost Ranger]

To be honest, the reason why both of you are experiencing problems is because your Gfx cards aren't very good. You will probably have to upgrade.

 

[Wenla]

To be honest, the reason why both of you are experiencing problems is because your Gfx cards aren't very good. You will probably have to upgrade.

What!? Can you be more precice and please tell me why my card is not suitable for Civ IV BtS, because I don't know it? Do you mean that all Civ players with NVIDIA GeForce 6200 TurboChase with 245 MB memory have problems like this? Do NVIDIA knows it? I don't have problems with other games (meaning graphical difficulties )

This reply is NOT mean to be aggressive, but curious, because I really like to know why I should change my card. And (like you may see) I'm not a technically literated at all.

Wenla

 

[Ghost Ranger]

1) For every gfx card, the second number (most of the time) tells you what 'level' of gfx card you have. 0-4 means budget (i.e Radeon X1300, Geforce 7100), 5-7 means mainstream, 8-9 means high-end.

2) That "TurboCache" thing might be what's killing your system. This is because TurboCache apparently uses system memory instead of memory on-board the GPU that is dedicated to it. This may be why the "failed to allocate video memory" thing comes from. In fact, I have a video card that uses something similar,and I have gotten a similar error, however it has some of its own on-board RAM too. Before buying a new card, you may want to try reducing the amount of RAM your card uses from the BIOS.

Nvidia TurboCache website: http://www.nvidia.com/page/turbocache.html

 

[Wenla]

1) For every gfx card, the second number (most of the time) tells you what 'level' of gfx card you have. 0-4 means budget (i.e Radeon X1300, Geforce 7100), 5-7 means mainstream, 8-9 means high-end.

2) That "TurboCache" thing might be what's killing your system. This is because TurboCache apparently uses system memory instead of memory on-board the GPU that is dedicated to it. This may be why the "failed to allocate video memory" thing comes from. In fact, I have a video card that uses something similar,and I have gotten a similar error, however it has some of its own on-board RAM too. Before buying a new card, you may want to try reducing the amount of RAM your card uses from the BIOS.

Nvidia TurboCache website: http://www.nvidia.com/page/turbocache.html

Thanks for the explanation. Two comments anyhow:

1) reported also in other topics with cards with second postion number more than 0-4.

2) This was too technical for me, but this seems to be endless wheel like:
By a new PC -> buy a game -> play a game -> buy a new game -> not enough resources -> buy a new PC/recources -> play a game -> continue on and on, starting at any of these stages...

Still, my locig tells that there is something wrong with Civ IV and particulary with BtS ecpecially after reading so many reports considering graphics.

I really hope that patch will solve this one because I really like this game.

Wenla

 

[Ghost Ranger]

2) This was too technical for me, but this seems to be endless wheel like:
By a new PC -> buy a game -> play a game -> buy a new game -> not enough resources -> buy a new PC/recources -> play a game -> continue on and on, starting at any of these stages...

What I mean is that your card doesn't have its own memory, so it borrows some from the computer instead, which is bad.

So I would recommend waiting for the patch, as you said, and possibly reinstalling CIV in the meantime.

 

[Wenla]

What I mean is that your card doesn't have its own memory, so it borrows some from the computer instead, which is bad.

Are you sure (OBS: I'm not arguing!)? I read your pointer article twice and got the understanding that TurboChase uses viedoa card memory and 'conventional' memery if needed. Most propably you are right and I'm wrong, but that is how I it understood.

So I would recommend waiting for the patch, as you said, and possibly reinstalling CIV in the meantime.

I'm waiting for the patch...

Wenla

 

[Wenla]

Looks familiar.

PC: Win XP Home, Civ IV BtS V3.03, HP Pavilion, 2GHz, 1GB memory, NVIDIA GeForce 6200 Turbochase 256MB, latest driver (updated couple days ago).

After 1-2 hrs playing picture (=movement) freezes, display loses details (showing just ground and roads, no cities/workers/soldiers/mines etc etc), sometimes after a while details comes back and game continues (for a while) sometimes not -> crash. Used High/medium/low quality settings for graphics, no change.

Error message:

"Failed to allocate video memory. Please try reducing your graphics settings.
File:\Civilization4\SDKs\Gamebuyo2_0\CoreLibs\NiDX9Renderer\NiDX9VBmanager.cpp,Line:1019"

And then:

"Runtime Error!
Program (folder)Civ4BeyondSword.exe
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in unusual way. Please contact the application support team etc etc."

And I consider this one Civ IV BtS error, not my system error because no graphical problems with other games/graphics and others seems to have same or same kind of problems.

I hope that these informations help to produce fix.

Wenla

So, patch V3.13 didn't solved this problem, at least not for me.

Looks like my BtS gaming time is going to the end and this helps me also to make my decission to buy/not buy when/if next Civ version will be released. It's really a pity that they can use Sid Meier's good name with products like this.

Signing off

Frustrared Wenla

 

[Lobsang1979]

Does it not help to reduce the level of renderer in your BTS graphics options?

I agree that Civ4 puts a PC under quite a lot of stress, but that is the price paid for the 3D graphics.

Out of interest, do you run any virus-checkers/firewalls/internet security programs in the background when playing? Such programs take up quite a sizeable amount of RAM and processor time, and often cause problems with games.

Also, what "other games" do you play on your system? Should give me an idea of what sort of performance you are used to?

 

[Wenla]

Does it not help to reduce the level of renderer in your BTS graphics options?

No

Out of interest, do you run any virus-checkers/firewalls/internet security programs in the background when playing? Such programs take up quite a sizeable amount of RAM and processor time, and often cause problems with games.

Yes, but I thought this when problems started, but turning those things off didn't help.

Also, what "other games" do you play on your system? Should give me an idea of what sort of performance you are used to?

Like Civ IV (before BtS), EU III, HoMM V (and it's extenions), SE V. These are newist and have same/similar/harder PC and/or graphic card requirements.

Wenla