People who have NO problems running the game...

[Comicsworld]

I played the game for 3 days, keeping it open also when i'm not at the computer for more then 12 hours without interuption each time.

There is a small memory leak that increase the amount needed with the time of play. I reached the 700Mb but my notebook has 2 Gb of ram and a 256Mb geforce 6800, so I don't have problem.

Buy 1 Gb of ram and you will solve almost all your probelm.

 

[BlueMagic]

I have an ATI card and experienced the infamous "Failed to initialize Renderer" bug. However after downloading and installing the driver, it works just fine.

Pentium IV -- 3.2 Ghtz
2 GB --- DDR2 Ram
Radeon X800 Pro --- PCI Express
Windows XP Home w/ SP2

No other problems noticed at all with all settings turned up to max, runs fast with almost no wait time between turns.

 

[Uty]

Not a single problem. Here is my system. (I built it in March.)

GfxCard: GeForce 6600GT w/ 128 MB GDDR3
Processor: Intel P4, 3 GHz, 1 MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading
RAM: 1 GB DDR
OS: WinXP w/ SP2

 

[CitizenCain]

Yes, but I've had no problems with the intro movie, leader graphics, no black sqaures, diplomacy screens, wonder movies, religion movies or anything. I've even played with high graphics resolution and sound!

It's just that after a while playing the system goes. I've checked my system resources and my CPU is at 100% when playing Civ IV!

Most programs (game especially) take 100% of your CPU time anyway, especially if you don't have another program in the background trying to use many CPU cycles, so don't worry about that. Everyone is right when they say get more RAM. 512 MB is basically the minimum any rig should have any more, and you'll see a much bigger performance boost by upgrading your RAM than you would by upgrading to a 4 Ghz processor. Seriously.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

My CivIV works perfectly, like a dream...

My computer has:

3.2 Ghz Pentium 4
1024 MB Ram
128 MB Radeon 9800 PRO graphics card.
600 GB of hard-disks
WinXP SP2

 

[Alistic]

That would be me too. I think there definatly is a memory leak though, i remember 1 game in multi it was mid game lotsa units and citys, getting a slight lag for some time then CTD. When I rejoined it was smooth as butter again just like when we 1st started the game.

Athlon 2600xp
Abit NF7s2.0
Radeon 9500 pro@346/292
1gig Corsair 3200 Dual VS
Windows XP SP 2 v2180

 

[nekom]

I've got an 1.5GHz AMD system, 512MB DDR Ram and a GeForce 6600OC (I think) with 256MB DDR3. On-board sound, VIA chipset I beleive. Runs great. Takes FOREVER to start a new game, I'm talking close to 10 minutes, but once it's running, it's smooth. I only play huge maps, epic speed. In the latter half of the game, I do have to wait sometimes between turns, but not too awful long.

 

[insydr]

See sig.

 

[Bast]

It sounds to me like you have a driver problem, and don't need an upgrade. Windows is set up by defeault to reboot when a Blue Screen of Death of occurs. So if the driver is causing a crash your system will simply reboot. You need to unselect the "automatically reboot" option in windows so you can see what driver caused the crash. Most likely it was the video driver.

To change it, right click my computer -> properties -> advanced -> and look under startup and recovery settings. Uncheck "automatically restart".

The only thing I'd upgrade would be the RAM. With 256MB your system may be swapping a lot and that really slows it down a lot. When the system runs out of RAM it stores the data in the disk drive but the disk drive is like 1,000 times slower than RAM.

A 1.3GHz Duron is probably close to the recommended requirements because Athlons/Durons outperform Pentium 4sclock for clock, particularly in games. I myself have an Athlon 1.5GHz that that outperforms a Pentium 4 at 1.9GHz, so in reality I probably meet the recommended spec for CPU. Firaxis must have set the requirements based on the Pentium 4 since that is what most people have. I would guess a 1.3 Duron would perform like a 1.6-1.7 GHz Pentium 4 for games.

I am running the game on a Radeon 9200 64MB and I haven't noticed any bugs or slowdowns that weren't my fault. I did notice a slowdown recently but it was because I was running a gizillion apps in the background. That's not Civ4's fault. Granted, I haven't yet played on a huge map with all the Civs but so far I haven't seen any bugs and have experience no crashes.

Thank you. I've changed it to no restarting so I can see what the problem is.

I'm going to play more games and find out the problem. I do like AMD processors too so even if I upgrade I'll get that.

Thanks everyone! I'll probably end up buying one of your suggestions.

 

[Bast]

Most programs (game especially) take 100% of your CPU time anyway, especially if you don't have another program in the background trying to use many CPU cycles, so don't worry about that. Everyone is right when they say get more RAM. 512 MB is basically the minimum any rig should have any more, and you'll see a much bigger performance boost by upgrading your RAM than you would by upgrading to a 4 Ghz processor. Seriously.

Ok. I was really worried when I saw that my system was using up 100% of CPU. I thought this was why. Thanks!

 

[Bast]

I really hope that it's just a RAM problem. If that's so, I could just get something like 1GB RAM and keep everything else, eh?

We'll see. I'll play another game tonight and wait for it to crash.

 

[sturmtrupp]

Flawless execution everything is working perfectly with the highest settings, with the exception of no AA. Only problem is Disk 1 is needed to play.

settings:

AMD 4200+ X2
ABIT AN8 Ultra, nforce 4
Geforce 7200 GT, manufactured OC
approx 1.5 gigs of PC3200 RAM
RealTek sound card
Serial ATA hard drive and DVD+/-RW

 

[sturmtrupp]

I really hope that it's just a RAM problem. If that's so, I could just get something like 1GB RAM and keep everything else, eh?

We'll see. I'll play another game tonight and wait for it to crash.

Make sure your RAM is seated properly. Try Memtest86, it does a series of checks on RAM to see if there is any errors. Bad RAM, or poorly seated RAM typically always manifest themselves of spontaneous CTD's. Especially in calculation heavy applications.

 

[Bast]

Make sure your RAM is seated properly. Try Memtest86, it does a series of checks on RAM to see if there is any errors. Bad RAM, or poorly seated RAM typically always manifest themselves of spontaneous CTD's. Especially in calculation heavy applications.

Sure I'll try that link thanks.

What's AA?

 

[Bast]

Oh btw.. I'm running Win XP with SP2

 

[Elponitnatsnoc]

I had the same graphics card as you- but my system restarted right after the game loaded. Anyway, i installed the newer version from the NVDIA website and now it works . Kind of slow and it freezes a few times when you get deep in the game tho.

 

[Mujadaddy]

.. and have played A LOT of games and hours on large maps and lots of civs with everything (graphics and sound) put up to max.

I want to hear from you!

Ok, after a beautiful start I'm now experiencing problems (as expected). I can start new games and saved games perfectly and run for about half an hour (on larger maps) and a couple of hours (on smaller maps) but after that my system restarts.

It's obvious that I need an upgrade. I have:

AMD Duron 1.3 Ghz
256 MB RAM
64 MB GeForce 440 video card

But I want to know WHAT to upgrade to. So that's why I want to hear from people who can run it perfectly.

I've been really surprised with my system because it's been able remarkable imo for a system that's so old and with such low specs. I mean look at them!

I've been able to play all movies, sound, graphics, diplomacy and everything REALLY well.

So the system restarting is the only problem. I think it's got to do with CPU and RAM?

Now here's the problem. I don't want to pay money and upgrade only to find I'm going to have problems. I want this restarting problem to go away and other problems to STAY away.

Can you please help me? Recommend me what I should get. Please!

Thank you.

Hello. My specs are below in my sig -- I'm only one bump in each catagory from you ... FIRST, uprgrade your RAM ... NEXT your Video Memory ... LAST your processor.

This is why --- more RAM and a better video card will produce a NOTICEABLE performance improvement AND you can migrate those components into a new/newer computer. Processor LAST because if you're going to upgrade that, you probably should buy a whole new motherboard at the same time as well.

Good luck!

 

[tomcat885]

Bought my copy today, been playing for about five hours straight and so far no problems. (I have been playing on a standard map and I have set the graphics details to low).

Of course if i upgrade my system a bit it would run a little faster.

P4 2.8 Ghz
512Mb RAM
GeForce FX 5200 video card

 

[WillemIV]

No problems, very smooth also when zoomed out.

xp3000+, 1 gig, 6800GT 256mb.

 

[Bast]

Ok I got the blue screen of death now.

The problem is with file: nv4_disp.dll

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA