Please help a newbie

[Tony Mac]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the site, but you have already helped me with my game......latest drivers etc.

Once I had updated my drivers I managed to open Civ4 for the first time and start a game, so I went to the tutorial and after about 10 minutes my computer crashed. Totally locked. With there being a few problems with the game I thought I would try just playing a normal game, incase there was a problem with the tutorial. So I played Civ4 for about an hour, I was so pleased that it worked.

Anyway, since that time, every time I play my computer locks up and crashes within about 1 minute of game play. What can I do?

I have the latest drivers for my nvidia card so I am at a loss, please help.

My computer specs are:

AMD 2400+XP cpu
ASUS A7N8X-X motherboard
512mb of ram
Galaxy nvidia 5700LE graphics card, fitted with the biggest cooling fan I could buy.

If there is any other information that would be helpful please just say.

Cheers,

Tony

 

[Max_x_fire]

You didnt say in your post but have you installed the patch?

• Run the game
• Click Advanced
• Click Check for updates

 

[Tony Mac]

Sorry, no I haven't installed the patch. I did mean to ask if I should, as I have read in this forum that some people are having even more problems than they did before.

I'll give it a go now.

Cheers,

Tony

 

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Same problem here. I got it on the PC today (holidays, meh) and fired it up.

First, all the resources looked like food (fixed with patch, yay!), movie sound dropped out once every two or three seconds, and the game would lock up and crash after a random length of time.

I looked around on here, then downloaded the patch. The food thing's fixed, but I'm still having the same dropout problem as Tony Mac here. It's only the first time I've run it after putting on the patch, so it might not be a permanent fixture though. This time, it locked up and packed in the first time I got a "most powerful civ" list onscreen. I'm going to go back to the autosave and see if it does the same thing.

This seems to be the only problem apart from the intro movie pausing while still playing sound could be bad, though. If it crashes again, I'll let y'all know.

EDIT: Oh, and some of the leader faces (tokugawa, washington and I think Saladin) are showing up with white eyes... Dunno what that means, but.

 

[Tony Mac]

I've downloaded the patch, it took me 2 attempts as the computer locked up on the first attempt. So I installed the patch and continued my previously saved game with no problems for about 30 mins. Then it crashed and locked the computer again.

If I had any hair I would pull it out

Any more hints on what I can do? Would starting a new game have made a difference?

Tony

 

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Second dump for tonight- played for about 40 mins then got trashed when I tried to convert the incan capital with a jewish missionary I guess the incas don't like jews.

I'll go back and do it again, but it looks like Tony Mac and I have the same problem. Grr. It's impossible for me to remember to save every turn, but that looks like what I'll need to do. Omg this is going to be a long night

EDIT: But at least my computer's not restarting; I've got a problem with my virus software which means it takes 5mins to load up after a boot... :S

 

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Increased priority to Abovenormal in task manager and played the game in a window instead of full screen. The movies ran smoothly but the game only lasted about three turns -_- at least I got an error message this time. I think it was a runtime error, too tired to remember atm.

 

[Moepheus]

I had a problem like that when I got CIV4 onto my computer.
it crashed every 10 minutes after starting the game, it really started to annoy me because everthing i tried failed to sort my problem out.

I did manage to sort my problms out by rolling back my nVidia drivers (to the 71.89 drivers), uninstalled CIV4 Reinstalled it (including the DirectX that came with it), reset my computer and it all worked fine from there.


hope this helps you to sort your problems.

 

[D12345]

I think an easy answer is to go back to school and get a degree in computer programing and by the time you have graduated, a patch that corrects all of the problems will have been developed.

 

[Tony Mac]

I tried playing another game on my pc last night, I have never had a problem with it and it is very basic compared to Civ4, and it locked the computer.

This makes me think the problem is no longer with Civ4 but with either my nvidia drivers or with directx 9.0c. The drivers for the graphics card are the latest available from nvidia.

Would the problem now be with directx? Could I go back to an older version (9.0a or 9.0b)?

Cheers,

Tony

 

[HounddogLGS]

There do seem to be problems with the 81.95 drivers. Roll 'em back.

Also, make sure you allow the game to install DirectX, even if you had the most current version.

Might ought to uninstall/reinstall the game along with all this.

 

[Tony Mac]

When I had the older drivers installed I didn't get any options in the main menu. The Directx is the one that came with the game, so I was wondering if I should roll that back instead?

Tony

 

[Moepheus]

If you want to be able to play CIV4 you have to have DirectX 9.0c installed.

When it comes to graphics drivers for nVidia I'm using the 71.89 drivers for my card.

 

[Tony Mac]

I am using version 81.95, if I change it over do you think that could solve it?

 

[Moepheus]

Rolling back graphics drivers worked for me, but that doesn't mean it will work for you because everybodys computer is different (even if computers have got the same specs).

Rolling back drivers could work for you but i'm not 100% sure, try it and see if it does..

 

[Tony Mac]

I changed the drivers.......again. Un-installed Civ4......re-installed Civ 4 and tried again.

Guess what......it bloody locked the computer again

I'm ready to give up.

Would my sound card cause these problems? I'm just trying anything now.

Tony

 

[Moepheus]

hmmm

The computer I have got is 3 years old and i have noticed that people with older computers can run CIV4 without a problem while up-to-date computers have problems.

I'll admit I had a few problems when i first got the game, but now the only problem I got is playing late stages of the game on huge maps.

 

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

I tried 71.89 and there was no change from 77.62 (came free with the 2nd-hand graphics card ). I then upgraded to 81.95 and there's still no change. CTD's every half-hour (on average). I get an error message if I'm running the game windowed, no warning if it's full-screen. I don't think I re-installed the game after upgrading to 81.95, so I might go do that now.

I'm working with a fairly old & frequently-upgraded machine atm, and the CTDs are the only problem I'm having. My performance is consistently good otherwise, although out of habit I'm running with the graphics settings turned down. I'm only running a 64MB card and 1.2GHz CPU, with 512 RAM though. Maybe its a memory issue, but with the amount of people suffering Civ4icide... I somehow doubt it. As far as I can tell the game's optimised to run on low-end machines, but OMG the CTDs are annoying

 

[Tony Mac]

I checked for error's on my computer last night and it says that drivers are not installed on my Ethernet Controller and my SM Bus Controller, whatever the hell they are. Could this be part of my problem and if it is, where would I get these drivers?

Just incase you hadn't guessed, when it starts getting past the normal graphics card and sound card drivers, I am completely lost.

Having twice played the game for over half an hour I am desperate to get it working, so if I have to spend some money, I will.

Tony

 

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Holy crud.

I just uninstalled, defragged, reinstalled the video drivers, reinstalled Civ...

And I can't run the patch.

Do I really have to spend another hour/half to download the damned thing?!

GRRRRAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!