Leaderheads corrupted, not displaying - Vanilla, Warlords, and BTS

[Whitecloak]

I have a unibody macbook pro 15" running the 9400/9600 (always on better performance mode), also running Snow Leopard.

I was in the Mac store today (5th Ave NYC) and noticed they had one copy left of the BTS expansion and a Civ 4 gold edition (vanilla + warlords).

I installed the gold edition first and noticed after playing with the graphics settings that if I enable Anti-aliasing AT ALL the leaderheads display all funny.

Nothing but eyes floating in space. Just the eyebrows. Full models with the hair all crazy. Black spaces between the leaderheads... you get the idea, it's stupid looking.

I look at the back of the gold edition box and see the Nvidia 9600 is NOT specifically mentioned as a supported card. I assumed the game would've been patched after ALL this time since release, but after installing all updates the problem persists.

Next I install BTS and get it all patched up. Of course the problem hasn't gone away. I look at the back of the box and this time my card is named as supported.

What's the deal? I searched these forums and came across a few others who have identical issues, but there were no resolutions or fixes that I could see mentioned.

Now, I know that I could simply turn off AA, but I don't see why I should HAVE to. My card is listed as compatible, why isn't it???

This isn't a graphical powerhouse (the civ 4 series) surely the game isn't too much for a relatively powerful 6 month old $2200 laptop?

 

[AlanH]

Hi, welcome

Actually, Civ4 *is* graphically very demanding. When it first appeared there were lots of PCs and Macs that simply couldn't handle it. Hardware has caught up since then, and almost anything you can buy now can handle it, except the old Intel integrated graphics processors in some cheap PCs.

That said, I don't think this one a performance issue, and I think all modern Macs are afflicted. It certainly happens on my 8800GT.

My guess is that turning on anti-aliasing provokes some incompatibility inside Aspyr's emulation code that converts Windows DirectX3D into OpenGL. It looks to me as if the layers get shuffled, so some components of the leaderheads are rendered behind others, or even behind the background layer.

Turning anti-aliasing off fixes it, and as far as I can tell it doesn't actually change anything else - but maybe I'm not very observant. If you want it fixed then you'll have to contact Aspyr, but they haven't responded to this in the past.

 

[Whitecloak]

Thanks for the response! And the welcome!

To my eye, I can clearly see the difference between AAx4 and the effect disabled.
It is most easily seen when you zoom real close to the figures, instead of smooth they are pixelated along their outlines.

I know, I know, it doesn't affect gameplay. Also, for the most part it doesn't dramatically alter any of the visuals... it's just bothering to me and bewildering how you can specify that a graphics card is compatible, and then not have it render shaders correctly in the leaderheads which is pretty much the first thing the player sees when starting a new game.

It's not like I'm using Crossover tech that's not officially supported, or Boot Camping and having issues. those things are expected. But to load up a port of a game that is YEARS old and coming from a company like Aspyr who specifically target the gaming portion of the MAC crowd... well, I think it's unacceptable.

And yes, I will be taking my two posts and with minor re-writes forwarding them to Aspyr tech support.

 

[Brad Oliver]

That said, I don't think this one a performance issue, and I think all modern Macs are afflicted. It certainly happens on my 8800GT.

It happens specifically on Nvidia G80-class cards (the 8600/8800/9400/9600/GT 1xx/GT 2xx) when AA is enabled. I took some time last week to investigate and believe I finally have this fixed, although I don't know if we have enough (any?) other fixes to warrant a patch yet.

As a general rule, if you run into this please ping our support team and let them know; it's my understanding they haven't gotten too many reports on this specific issue. This will help us prioritize -- and also means it won't get lost after Friday when I leave.

 

[AlanH]

Thanks a lot for dropping by during your last days at Aspyr, Brad. Best of luck with your new friends at Feral. I don't suppose there's any chance that someone else at Aspyr will be monitoring this forum from next week?

I must say I'm surprised that there are so few reports of the leaderhead problems, they've been in existence ever since Civ4 first hit my under-powered G4, around day zero, and I'm sure I must have reported them. The anti-aliasing work-round only came on the scene in the last year, and I don't think it originated with Aspyr.

Aspyr Support do seem to have a way of (a) dismissing any ticket that even mentions a hardware config they haven't seen yet, and (b) discouraging future problem reports. Maybe it's a combination of these factors that has led to the shortage of tickets.

 

[Brad Oliver]

I must say I'm surprised that there are so few reports of the leaderhead problems, they've been in existence ever since Civ4 first hit my under-powered G4, around day zero, and I'm sure I must have reported them. The anti-aliasing work-round only came on the scene in the last year, and I don't think it originated with Aspyr.

Maybe so, but the only extant leaderhead problem *now* is with the class of Nvidia cards I mentioned and only when AA is enabled. If you know of another case, speak now or forever e-mail Aspyr support.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

On an g5 2.4 imac with the Radeon 2600HD Pro, when I fired up BTS leaderheads all had what I would describe to be googly eyes, reminded me of the martians from attack from Mars. One leader was nothing but a pair of eyes.. turning the AA off fixed it.

 

[AlanH]

Sounds as if we'd all better open tickets on this with Aspyr Support

 

[Brad Oliver]

On an g5 2.4 imac with the Radeon 2600HD Pro

Wait, a G5 iMac with a Radeon 2600? Do you mean an Intel iMac?

 

[robjess]

Im running a MBP 15" Nvidia and I have the same problem.

 

[Brad Oliver]

Im running a MBP 15" Nvidia and I have the same problem.

Right, that has the Nvidia 8600 in it, so it doesn't shock me.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

Wait, a G5 iMac with a Radeon 2600? Do you mean an Intel iMac?

Yes I do, I apologize for the error.

 

[robjess]

Right, that has the Nvidia 8600 in it, so it doesn't shock me.

Well Brad it may not shock you. But it sure as hell does shock me.. considering I paid full price for a game which has an obvious glitch in it. So for the sake of my hard earned money can you please pretend to be shocked by it..

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

Same problem - MacBook Pro 15" 8600M GT, OS 10.6.1. I'll try to log a ticket with Aspyr tonight. And tomorow I'll respond to the knee-jerk response I get from Aspyr Support by telling them that I am not, in fact, an idiot and that it really is a problem with the program rather than the user.

Hey, in the scale of things, I think a minor problem with the leaderheads is way better than the Kernel Panic and crash/lockup you get with AA under Tiger on an 8600M.

Edit: I logged the ticket and, in the process, reviewed my earlier tickets. When reporting the complete crash of Civ IV under Tiger with anti-aliasing on their response was - sorry, unsupported hardware, case closed. At least 8600s are now on their list of supported hardware.

 

[Chris Rex]

I joined the 'logging a formal ticket' party on this graphics glitch. Maybe we can get something done with numbers ;-)

 

[Frederico]

On an g5 2.4 imac with the Radeon 2600HD Pro, when I fired up BTS leaderheads all had what I would describe to be googly eyes, reminded me of the martians from attack from Mars. One leader was nothing but a pair of eyes.. turning the AA off fixed it.

I can play with AA on without these graphics glitches. I have an imac with the same graphics card. What OS version are you running?

 

[coffee junkie]

Same problem - MacBook Pro 15" 8600M GT and Mac OS 10.5.8

Funny : never had graphic problem with Civ4 and Warlords ... except sometimes some dark glitches on some units ( but only because I had many specific units )

But I still prefer playing with antialising on for better graphic units. Let's say all Leaders are AI from Outer Space bad disguised in human leaders

 

[Premier]

Any word on the fix for the Nvidia cards?

I just upgraded to the Nvidia 8800 GT from an ATI X1900. With Civ IV being the only game a play, I regret not having looked here first.

I've since opened a ticket at Aspyr - maybe bumping this thread will get others to do the same.

Oh well, at least the 8800 is quieter...