Nvidia has problems also

[Isostran]

Thracias wrote:
As I read these forums, it seems to me that the answer to get CivIV to work is to NOT by a new, expensive video card


HAHA no kidding. Yeah its not a User Problem...so dont let Firaxis get away with blaming it on us. I would think Firaxis would be posting in here telling everone that the problem is gonna be looked at but it seems alot of big companies do the silent treatment first because of some lack of human respect. Just venting

 

[dredd3471]

Ben having similar issues with an FX 5500 as well....a driver update removed the 4 bit color in the case of a CTD but otherwise I have gotten nowhere trying to resolve this issue.

I might add, as a long time player of this franchise (I played Civ on my 286), that I am grossly dissapointed in the fact that this game has even been released...it runs like an early beta. I hope they get these issues patched quickly!

 

[gunnergoz]

Using the game in windowed mode has removed the reversal to 4 bit color when it CTD's...which admittedly isn't often but it still does. I'm on a large continents map and in the 1800's and have had one CTD to date in this game...and that was after frequent minimizing the game to go do something else. I now have in-game movie video and sound after dropping renderer level to low and setting my nvidia utility to performance vice quality. I also opened my MB AGP video aperture to 256 MB which had never been reset after I upgraded from a 128 MB card. The game gets a bit slow zooming out to globe, but it is playable...just not too robust as yet. They will get there...but meanwhile the game producers have really ticked a lot of people off around here.

 

[Sadan01]

Even though there are many "fixes" for the varying issues that are occurring, I think I have finally fixed mine, although more testing is needed (and I didnt have that much time last night to play Civ4 )...

I had the same problem as a lot of people where the game would bog down, graphics would corrupt, it would crash to desktop when viewing the world view etc etc etc. Sometimes the game would run for hours and then other times it would die after 5-10mins. I had tried the following nVidia driver versions (I do have an old ASUS Ti4600 128Mb card):

81.85
79.xx (can't remember the exact version)
71.89
And a couple of others

Anyway, I took the suggestion of a few people where I downloaded ASUS's implementation of the forceware drivers. The latest driver is 71.84. I installed this after removing the nVidia ones and also clearing out the remnants of those drivers. Started a new game of Civ4 and found that it didnt crash. As I said up above, I dont think I've played it long enough yet to say whether it is "fixed" or not - as I only played for about 3 or 4 hours last night however it is a good sign.

For those that have similar problems, if you haven't already, try the manufacturer drivers for your board and see if that makes an improvement.

Otherwise, wait for the patch which hopefully will be out this week .. Just thought I'd add my 2 cents.

 

[Utherhimo]

fx5200 here and it crashs, freezes, locks up, ctds, bogs why down...etc but it doesnt restart my computer. I have only once gone 3 hours without ctds but it was slower than normal the most time truely sad.

 

[Isostran]

I have a 1,8Ghz AMD with Gf5200 Ultra and 2 GB's of mem and it still hangs up when I look around the map..I tried the Old version Nforce drivers and it worked great until I started discovering Civs on my Map, then it seemed to lock up and freeze when I tried to move units long distances. I also Deleted the Cache file in my user/mygames Dir..again it worked well till I began exploring the map. They need to fix this cause I think this game is the greatest.

 

[phybre]

Ditto. Asylum FX 5200 256mb slightly overclocked but no artifacts, current forceware, current directx install. CTD, very rare hard reboot, flickering often precedes temporary game freezes. Terrain improvements often disappear. The flicking and the crashing have thusfar been separate for me, though. One rarely leads to the other.

I tried to unpak the art file just to see if it would increase performance and the game has not worked since then, even after reinstalling it. After that, it's giving me the error that is supposed to fix, "Failed to initialize renderer".

 

[Isostran]

Ok the main thing we forget is that we shouldnt have to fix this, Firaxis/2k shoudl of had the game tested before release. Here we are networking, helping each other out when those people get paid for it. I think we should all band together and create our own games. lol you laugh....so am I

 

[Isostran]

Oh and I wrote Firaxis should get a reply back when the patch come out

"We thank you for your concern..if you look at our home page at
www.2kgames.com/civ4/home.htm you will find we have released a patch for your problem. Good day!" And that will be the end of that. So everyone send them a mail at the support page with a copy of your DXDiag..por favor

 

[Sadan01]

I think we should all band together and create our own games. lol you laugh....so am I

And if you did that, you would never release the game as it would always have bugs on certain combinations of hardware, software, dll's, other programs, registry stuff etc etc etc... How can you guarantee that your software would work on any combination of hardware or software out there in the world?

Dont get me wrong, I am not saying that releasing something with bugs is a good thing but it is next to impossible to guarantee that any software is 100% bug free.

 

[Isostran]

And if you did that, you would never release the game as it would always have bugs on certain combinations of hardware, software, dll's, other programs, registry stuff etc etc etc... How can you guarantee that your software would work on any combination of hardware or software out there in the world?

Yep thats why I said I was laughing..it was a joke man

 

[atefec]

Really had bad problems with Civ4, CTDs every 10 mins. Now I exchanged my Geforce 5700 128 MB with a Geforce 6800 256 MB and had not a single CTD afterwards. Still using Nvidia driver 81.87 beta.

 

[Isostran]

Yeah Im gonna wait to hear back from 2k and see what they have to say about the problem. New GC would be nice though but I dont see the point if I exceed the requirements set on the box.

 

[Sadan01]

Yeah Im gonna wait to hear back from 2k and see what they have to say about the problem. New GC would be nice though but I dont see the point if I exceed the requirements set on the box.

Exactly and why spend the money when the forthcoming patch could fix all/most of the graphics problems anyway. It would then become a waste of money (in a way).

Besides, I've read of people here going out and paying money for a top-of-the-line graphics card and found the game performed worse. No point until the major bugs are ironed out. Who knows, Firaxis may exceed our expectations...

 

[zsc]

Not sure if it's relevant but I've been doing some searching. Here's what I found:

FX5200 - core clock at 250MHz, memory clock around 333-400MHz
(my old card, a few CTDs, slow gameplay...etc)

6600 - core clock at 350MHz, memory clock at 500MHz
(my new card, havent play enough but havent notice any MAJOR problems, like CTDs, somewhat better performance)

I'm thinking that this game, in its current state, require a lot of GPU processing. Perhaps it was not streamlined enough prior to release. Not enough options are available for people to customize their graphic settings, ie. no tree swaying or cloud covers. Hopefully, the patch will cover these issues.

 

[Ringwraith_JP]

I configured my Fx5200 to work with Pixel Shader 1.4. Turned off the in-game movies and it worked nicely. Slightly increased fps, but i got some crappy terrain details. At least iys playable.