Please help me!!!

[Axelfanten]

I bought the game for about 2 weeks ago!!! I don´t play that much computer, but I´m familiar with the civilization series and played civ 2 and 3 a lot, so I just had to have this new one, number 4. I installed the game, with no problems, and i was EXTREMELY excited when starting the game. But here comes my problem! When starting the game nothing really happens. The game loads and i press the "start" or "begin" or what ever it´s called button, and then almost nothing happens. The screens shows a picture of a settler, I guess, in the left side of the screen, and it says something like:" Axelfanden(my name) has joined the game - Autosaving - and bla bla bla, and then after a few seconds the music stops playing and my computer just freezes on that screen, with me having no options at all, but to reboot my computer. At first I thougt that it had something to do with the autosaves. That my computer maybe couldn´t autosave, so I turned of the autosaves. It didn´t help anything. The game still autosaves in the start of a new game, but I´ve kinda got the impression, that it also wasn´t really the very problem anyway. So I tried a lot of other things. I turned almost everything on and of, I re-installed the game. Nothing helped. Well I was rather desperate so at last i formated my computer and re-installed everything, with new drivers, new... Everything... Like starting with a brand new machine. But it didn´t help. Well of cause I also visited this site from time to time, and I realized that lots of people were having problems so I thought: "Hey!!! Knowing my computer dont really react the same way as the others having problems, the very problem may be the same, so I´ll just wait for the patch to be releashed." (I have a radeon graphiccard) And then it came. I installed the patch. Started a new game. And then... THE GAME FREEZED AGAIN!!! I found that "ThemeParseLog"-file among the game files and though I know only very little about computers I got the impression that this file kinda save all errors in the game. In that one i says:" Error : File - ('Civ4Theme_Custom.thm', Ln:4999, Col:47) Could not load bitmap 'Civ4/HUD/city_titlearrows.tga'" about for times. Thought it maybe had something to do with that?!
So my very questions are as follows:
Has anyone experienced a problem like this???
Can anyone tell me what maybe wrong?
And can anyone please help me!!! And guide me through the solution process???
PLEASE!!! ANYONE!!!

 

[Saiph]

I have got the exact same problem, Axelfanten, my "ThemeParseLog"-file says the same. I have got Radeon 8500 video card with the latest drivers. I do not know what to do too, I join your cry for help!

 

[Moo Zedong]

I have a Radeon 9200 and have exactly the same problem - I've attached a copy of my Log to show you're not the only ones.

The really confusing thing for me is that sometimes I can play it. Yesterday my first attempt to start a game ended just as you both describe but my second attempt worked! I started a gamewith Arabia on a standard continent map and it lasted until I finally switched off at stupid o'clock in the morning. It kept running for over 15 hours straight with only the odd bit of lagging and a few jumpy Wonder videos. But there were no crashes - although Iw asn't brave enough to log off and reload a few minutes later, my machine stayed on all bloody day!

Today though I'm back to an unplayable game. I've tried four times to start a game today but each time I get the frozen out just after I join the game.

We need to make sure this info gets to Firaxis and Take2 as I have a feeling that we won't be th only people suffering this problem.

 

[Saiph]

Moo Zedong, yes, my log file is exactly the same. I do not understand why the game can not load this bloody file. What could be wrong? I tried installing the demo game today, no positive results...

 

[Speedway]

I am having the exact same problem and have the same themeparselog.txt file. I'm running an ATI mobility 9600 with omega drivers. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the game and tried the 1.09 patch with no luck. For me It always freezes on when it gets to "DONE" on the loading screen.

 

[Speedway]

This will fix the problem:

COPY /Resource/Civ4/Custom/city_titlearrows.tga

place the copy in /Resource/Civ4/HUD



I found this on a search for "themeparselog" and it was in this post. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3276796&postcount=10http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3276796&postcount=10

Looks like when a game has so many problems it gets harder and harder to find solutions to your problem among all the other solutions to problems you dont have. I've been trying to fix this problem for 4 days now, and I am very glad I found a solution.

 

[Saiph]

Unfortunately it did not help me. The log-file disappeared, but the problem not. Anyway, Speedway, thanks, I hope it will help the others.

 

[Axelfanten]

Thank you Speedy!!! I´ll try it right away

 

[Axelfanten]

Thank you Speedy!!! I´ll try it right away!

 

[Axelfanten]

Hmmm... Didn´t help for me either... I´ll write an email immediatly in order to beg for a solution from the creators themselves!