Mouse Icon Freeze

[Quaqi]

This is my first time posting, although I've lurked here for quite some time. I'm one of the many people who has run into some problems with Civ IV. I haven't seen any other posts about this same problem, but I wasn't able to search the forum, so I apologize if this has been addressed.

Along with choppy, skipping sound, which I could only remedy by turning off the narration, I'm also getting random mouse freezes. My mouse icon will freeze on the screen, preventing me from seeing where the mouse moves to. I can actually still control my mouse, however since I can't see where it's moving to, it's impossible to play the game. The problem persists even when I quit the game. I'm unable to see my cursor on my desktop or in any other programs until I restart my computer.

The freezes don't seem to be related to any specific incident in the game. They have occured randomly, sometimes right at the menu screen, other times during game play. I haven't been able to play for more than 20 minutes without this problem occuring.

I've got a fairly decent computer. I'm able to play games like Sims 2 and Everquest II at high graphics settings with no trouble at all, and I've never had this problem with another game or program. My computer meets or exceeds all of the "recommended" system requirements; I've got double the recommended RAM and 6x the required free hard disk space. My graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500. I am using a Microsoft optical USB/PS2 compatible mouse that is nothing fancy, but has never failed me.

Any suggestions for a fix would be greatly appreciated, I'm dying to get back to my game, I was having so much fun before the mouse problem started.

 

[dog77_1999]

Ok, two suggestions for this.

1. If you have an integrated sound card, update your drivers. Your proceesor has to handle sound along with the game task and it could have problems doing this.

2. I have a 9800 Pro, but it might apply to you. Your video card might be overheating. Go inside your computer and touch the heatsink to see if it is really hot. If it is, that would do what you were describing to your computer. Your best bet for this is to get a fan to cool your video card.

 

[jcontre905]

I have had this exact thing happen to me. THe only way i was able to clear it, was to reformat my harddrive and start fresh with just the OS and CIv 4. I seriously doubt it has anything to do with your video card heatsink. Other games like Battlefield 2 stressed my system harder than CIV 4 does, and I never had problems like that before.

AMD 3800+
Nvidia 6800 ultra
1GB ram

 

[atefec]

I haven't seen any other posts about this same problem, but I wasn't able to search the forum, so I apologize if this has been addressed.

Try this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=135525

 

[Quaqi]

Thanks to all for the suggestions, and to atefec for the link to the earlier thread. I just wanted to check back in and give an update on my situation. I've uninstalled the game, updated every driver that could be updated (again), and defragged, but the problem persists. I've got no idea what to do now, and I'm very frustrated. Guess I've learned my lesson about buying a game before the first patch

 

[WHLNH]

Turn on "trails" in the mouse icon in the control panel. It will fix it until a patch is done.

Bill

 

[Paccali]

I know this seems like an "out there" kind of fix, but check this out:

I had the same problems, with mouse freezing, and choppy, skipping sound. When Civ IV installed, I hadn't noticed that it changed the bitdepth on my sound card, from 24bit to 16bit. Find your device controller (for my Audigy, it was in the Control Panal labeled "Device Control"), and change the bitdepth back to 24.

I haven't had the mouse freezing in a while now, and the sound doesn't crack one bit. Tell me how it works for you.

 

[Quaqi]

Looks like I may have solved my vanishing cursor problem, at least outside of the game.

After trying Paccali's suggestion with no luck, I decided to go ahead and turn on mouse trails to at least "bandaid" my system until a patch came out. When I checked the control panel for my mouse, I found that all of the files for the "Large" pointer scheme were corrupted. I searched online and found this page http://windowsxp.mvps.org/mousepointers.htm , where I found instructions for restoring the corrupted files. I restored the files, restarted, and haven't had the problem again in 5 hours of continuous use in all kinds of programs. Before restoring the pointer scheme files, I was losing my mouse cursor at least once an hour.

I guess there's a chance this problem was caused by something else and not Civ IV, but like I said in my first post, this problem began only after I installed Civ IV.

I have yet to reinstall Civ IV, so I don't know if this suggestion helps in-game, but I am posting this in case it is useful to anyone else who has lost their cursor to the game and had the problem continue to the desktop and other programs.

My thanks again to all who offered suggestions, and good luck to all with Civ IV troubles. I feel your pain.

 

[atefec]

I have yet to reinstall Civ IV, so I don't know if this suggestion helps in-game, but I am posting this in case it is useful to anyone else who has lost their cursor to the game and had the problem continue to the desktop and other programs.

Has anyone tested if restoring the mouse pointer files fixes the problem of the freezing mouse cursor in Civ4? I'm not very optimistic because the problem appears only when I play Civ4, sometimes after a view minutes, sometimes after several hours. I think that corrupted mouse pointer files would cause the same phenomenon in any other game or program.

 

[jcontre905]

You want to hear something wierd. BEfore i installed CIV 4 i opened the Read ME file off the CD and by just doing that it caused my mouse to freeze. I could not get back controll of my mouse untill after i did a HArd Boot. BTW this was right after a clean install of Windows XP and upgrading all my drivers and SP 2 as well. The wierd thing is that I use removable hard drives. One hard drive is a Western DIgital which has XP and CIV 4 on it, That drive plays fine. Its my MAxtor drive that i have that gives me problems. I have no idea why it would work on 1 drive but not the other, considering the software that i loaded onto them is exaclty the same.

AMD 3800+
Nvidia 6800 ultra
1 GB ram