Machine below specs problem that should not be a problem.

S

sulla32

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Messages
19
Hi,

I am new here. This looks like a great site. I have also heard that this is the best site for solving issues with Civ games. I am hoping to get help for a problem I am having.

I have a strange issue with Civ BTS. I have a HP Vista 64 bit machine which I bought about five years ago. It far exceeded specs for CIV four. I have a G force graphics card 9400 GT which also far exceeds specs.

When I played the game on my machine years ago, it kept crashing. The black screen stuff. I searched all over online and finally found a solution, which I was dumb enough not to write down.

So a few months ago, I got a bad case of malware and or virus. I had to reslick my machine completely with the disks and reload all software. A few days ago, I installed Civ 4, Warlords and BTS, with all patches up to date. I also installed my latest graphics driver for the card.

When I try to play BTS, I get this verbatim message from the game itself when I hit play: Your machine is below recommended specifications. The graphic settings were altered to accomidate this, however you may experience game performance issues.

Lol, that is an understatement since I get the black screen crash and have to hard reboot to get my PC working again.

This is the same thing that happened years ago, BUT, without that warning message. That is something new.

Can anyone help me with this? I called firaxis and Geforce and they have not been of much help. I have updated all drivers for the machine and the card. They are up to snuff for sure. If I can't get help, I can't play this great game anymore. I run Avast anti virus and Commodo firewall. I read that Commodo can kill Civ on some other site and turned it off, but to no avail.

If anyone is nice enough to offer suggestions, please be very exacting in telling me how to do something with my machine. In other words, please be patient enough to lead my step by exact step, I can do it, but Im not a PC guru so you have to tell me exactly how to do something.

Anyway, thanks so much for any help tendered to me by anyone interested in helping a total stranger. I am at wits end and my frustration level is beyond through the roof. It's all I can do to keep from throwing my PC out my window at this point, lol.
 
Furiey,

How do I get to the ini? I mean exactly how? Sorry, but like I said, Im not a guru so lots of this stuff is greek to me. I appreciate the help more than you know. Im going to try put up the dxdiag here. I got that. Hopefully Im doing this attachment thing right.

Im also going to load and try play CIV 5, which I have done before on this machine with no problems. If it works, then its something particular with CIV 4. If it doesn't work, then I guess its looking like a PC issue or graphics card.
 

Attachments

mintegar,

Thanks so much for the advice and link. I will try it tomorrow with some other things too. Hopefully something will work.
 
Mintegar, Furiey:

Ok, I uninstalled Commodo and IObit anti Malware. I uninstalled all my CIV 4s. I did the direct x thing. So I installed Civ 4 and patches. Ran it, no warning. Installed Warlords and patches, no warnings. Then installed BTS with all patches, tried to play it and bam! there came that same warning my machine is not up to specs, lol.

I tried to play Warlords and despite the fact I had not warnings, it crashed to black screen after about five moves.

You know, now that I think about it, this is just the same situation I had years ago when I bought CIV 4. Back then I didn't get an error message, just these black screen crashes. Then I found that fix and by the time I played Warlords and BTS, the problem was rectified, so I didn't get crashes or the message by the time I played BTS.

I could kill myself for not writing down that black screen crash fix. I looked for days on all kinds of sites and threads till I found a solution someone wrote that worked. It was with anti aliasing or changing something in the script or code or doing something during install. Ill be damned if I can remember it. Uggggggghhhh!!!! I was not the only one with the problem. I also remember that fixed worked for some, I was a lucky one, and it didn't for some others.
 
Want to hear something really funny? I was just screwing around out of frustration last night with the BTS shortcut icon. And I hit run, and it brought the game up...without me having to put the disk in, lol. Not even a steam version, but the old CD game. And it didn't give me the below specs message so I started to play a game. After a few moves, it crashed again.

How on earth could the game run without the cd? lol. I am baffled by this whole thing.

I have ordered a whole new Civ 4 and expansion packs from Amazon. All I can hope at this point is that my original CD was flawed in some way and that's why I had those crashes back then and now. I have searched like crazy for that old fix on the net I found years ago but can't find it.
 
Furiey,

Thanks for the info. Thats a very nice serivice not to use the CD. I didn't know that. At least it explains what happened, lol. I was a bit in shock.
 
Furiey, Mintegar:

I got it!! I saw on a website yesterday that if you don't disable your old onboard graphics card before installing a new one and putting in the drivers, it can cause a conflict. So I learned how to disable the old one in safe mode, I uninstalled the Geforce and drivers, shut off my PC, put the Geforce back in, restarted, installed the drivers, ran the game and no more message. Wow, what a happy day for me!!

I want to thank both you guys for trying to help me. You both were most kind with your time and suggestions. You guys are the best. Thanks for you time and effort put in for a total stranger. Also want to say thanks to the others who took the time to read my thread.

Anyway, if anyone ever has the same type of problem, do what I did. It may be the answer for you as well.
 
Well,

I thought it was my happy day. Played quite a few turns, then screen went black and my PC rebooted itself, lol.
 
Turned anti alias off and played for three hours without a crash of any kind. Hopefully that is the final fix. So if anyone else with vista or 7 has that problem, do the graphics card thing I posted above and also turn anti alias to zero. Seems to have done the trick, knock on wood.
 
Furiey,

Thanks for your suggestions and help.

I played the game for hours last night with no problems. It has definately cleared up by disabling my old on board graphics card in safe mode, taking out the Geforce, rebooting, putting it back in and installing the drivers. That article I read about the drivers screwing up the graphics card if you don't disable the on board was right on the head in my case. Doing it the right way stopped the "your machine is below specs" warning and also stopped the crashes that forced me to do a hard reboot. And then the anti alias finished off the other crashes that actually rebooted my machine themselves. It was a two step fix.

I know there have been lots of players with crash problems because I have seen them complaining on the net and here. Hopefully a few will see this solution and it will work for them as it did me.
 
This is quite interesting about that driver conflict. Maybe you should link to that article/website where you found the fix instructions, they deserve all the karma they can get.

That your pc runs the game fine when anti-aliasing is turned off, yet black-screens and reboots with it on could be caused by: Gfx-card draws slightly more electrical power with AA on, power-supply can handle the load only for a short term.
I'd recommend having a look at the specs of the PSU of that PC (max current on 12V rail), and then comparing that against a rough estimate of what your CPU and GPU should consume at max. load.
 
Mintegar,

I wish I could post that link but I didn't save the site. It had no technical instruction so I never thought I would need to go back. He just said that sometimes if you don't disable the old on board card and install a new card with drivers, it can cause a conflict. It caught my attention because I knew I had not disabled my old card before I put in the G Force and drivers. And I kept thinking, "Man this specs message and the way the game keeps crashing so fast almost seems like its trying to run my old on board card." And apparently thats exactly what happened with me because as soon as I did the right way, that errror message stopped coming up and my hard reboot crashes stopped too.

Here is a link to how to install a new card and driver properly so you don't get that problem I had.

http://www.wikihow.com/Disable-the-...-a-New-Graphics-Card-in-Your-HP-Pavilion-6630



Hey, Mintegar,

I found the link on my Mozilla, lol, not IE.

Anyway here it is where he explains the possible conflicts that I surely had on my PC. I was lucky to find this. It got me started on my fix. Heres to good Karma for the guy who wrote it and to anyone who may be helped by it in the future with Civ or any other games or graphics problems caused by this.

Link: http://www.ehow.com/how_5946380_disable-integrated-graphics-card.html

Mintegar, as for the anti alias, that is interesting. Like I said, im no PC guru. Im afraid I don't know how to do what you just asked. If you wish to give me explicit instructions, I will glady do it and see if your hunch is correct.
 
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