Problems - unplayable

[jabberwocky]

Hello, i just joined these forums as i cant even play civ4 anymore and im at a loss as to what to do. first,

i had some issues installing it. eventually got it running, watched the intro and started with the tutorial.

playing the tutorial and following the directions, Sid stops talk and the tutorial does not move on to the next step. It had to do with city management. So I excited and decided to give a game a whirl.

Now, most movies that play for civ advances slow my system down almost to a halt. Scrolling around the map makes things progressivly worse. audio is skipping regularly now, and the further i get into the game the slower things become.

I have updated all my drivers for my onboard sound card, and my ATI 9800 pro, and figured my 512 of RAM and AMD 64 3400 are sufficent.

Now, for some reason, just loading it up is taking a long time. continuing my saved game is slower than ever and its just getting worse with every game i play. ill post my spec for direct x when i get home.

Is this pretty comon? are there fixes?

 

[flub]

Your lucky. Mine won't even start.

 

[FraggerLT]

Yeah mine too.
I click the .exe , the little loading screenie apears , nothing for a few seconds and bingo... Windows are very sorry for the damn inconvienience... Send / Don't Send
Bummer...

 

[Xeos]

Have you tried setting all the ingame graphics settings to minimum? Does it work well on duel sized maps at least?

 

[Jason The King]

Yeah mine too.
I click the .exe , the little loading screenie apears , nothing for a few seconds and bingo... Windows are very sorry for the damn inconvienience... Send / Don't Send
Bummer...

Have you tried to reinstall the game?

 

[flub]

Yep mine and 100's of others won't even start.

 

[FraggerLT]

Have you tried to reinstall the game?

Yep i tried it. Same stuff...
The interesting part is that it works to one of my friends , and that the civ4.ini or cfg file , can't remember how it's called now , in the game dir is not a real file... it's a shortcut... to nothingess So i can't turn on the error logs , and besides that there is "Civilization4" directory in My Games ...

 

[jabberwocky]

last night, in a fit of halloween candy bloated rage, i reinstalled all my drivers.

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro - new drivers
SB Live! - new drivers
Asus motherboard - new drivers
double checked for new directx - all good

started it up and, holy crap we have lift off! played a few rounds and then we had DOOMED EXPLOSION! Locked my system, could'nt ctrl-alt-del my way out had to hard boot my system.

and i'm back at the begining. Still cant really play, im stuck in 1780 AD. Diplomacy cant happen cause of the video. Wonder video is dodgy, audio skips like mad now. I just don't know what to do.

part of me wants to return the crappy lemon. while MOST of me just wants to wait for some kinda patch for this game that was released to early. I think im more angry with the publisher than anyone.

 

[FraggerLT]

Hm , where did you download your SB Live! drivers?

 

[jabberwocky]

from soundblasters site

www.soundblaster.com

oddly enought now, i tried playing the american revolution, and it seem to play fine, with a small exception to video to diplomacy. other then that it runs smooth.

if i play a normal game, it lasts a few rounds and then is unplayable. go figure.

 

[mysterioso]

Yep i tried it. Same stuff...
The interesting part is that it works to one of my friends , and that the civ4.ini or cfg file , can't remember how it's called now , in the game dir is not a real file... it's a shortcut... to nothingess So i can't turn on the error logs , and besides that there is "Civilization4" directory in My Games ...

Exactly the problem I'm having; no ini file installed, only a shortcut. I can get the rest to install OK, but nothing in the my docs\my games folder.

I'm at a loss as to what to try next... can anyone help?!

 

[FraggerLT]

What the hell is going on then?
Another bug or gi-glich of the so called "Bug-free-game" ?

 

[zsc]

who said anything about this being a "Bug-free-game"? This is more like a "Bug-filled-game". But it's only been two weeks, I'm sure years from now, we'll all look back while playing our "bug-free-game" and laugh. Give Firaxis some time, in the meanwhile, pull up a chair and welcome to the tech support section.

@ Mysterioso - the filename is "CivilizationIV.ini", try running a search on it. Also, the shortcut to it is in Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\_Civ4Config, try checking it's properties and see where it leads. Better yet, try double-clicking it.

 

[mysterioso]

who said anything about this being a "Bug-free-game"? This is more like a "Bug-filled-game". But it's only been two weeks, I'm sure years from now, we'll all look back while playing our "bug-free-game" and laugh. Give Firaxis some time, in the meanwhile, pull up a chair and welcome to the tech support section.

@ Mysterioso - the filename is "CivilizationIV.ini", try running a search on it. Also, the shortcut to it is in Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\_Civ4Config, try checking it's properties and see where it leads. Better yet, try double-clicking it.

Thanks for the reply, but I've done all that and more; after repeated install attempts, the civilizationiv.ini file is nowhere on my hard drive. I am 100% certain of that. So double clicking the shortcut to nowhere does nothing.

I'm not a noob, but nor am I a pro with all this, so I think what I need to know is what might cause the install routine to miss this part out, and what can I do about it? After reading around here a bit, my best guess is that the program disapproves of my DVD drive; it's a Samsung reader/burner combo. Which sounds like Game Over to me!

 

[zsc]

Sorry, I just wanted to cover all the bases, wasnt implying that you're a noob. As for the DVD drive, the people from that thread(s) mentioned the LG DVD drives. But who knows, we might have to add Samsung to the list.

 

[tao]

As for the DVD drive, the people from that thread(s) mentioned the LG DVD drives. But who knows, we might have to add Samsung to the list.

Add my Sony.

 

[mysterioso]

Sorry, I just wanted to cover all the bases, wasnt implying that you're a noob. As for the DVD drive, the people from that thread(s) mentioned the LG DVD drives. But who knows, we might have to add Samsung to the list.

No worries M8, i know the answer is usually very simple. But this one's got me stumped! I'll post my full DVD drive spec when I get home.

 

[Pornflakes]

Hello, i just joined these forums as i cant even play civ4 anymore and im at a loss as to what to do. first,

i had some issues installing it. eventually got it running, watched the intro and started with the tutorial.

playing the tutorial and following the directions, Sid stops talk and the tutorial does not move on to the next step. It had to do with city management. So I excited and decided to give a game a whirl.

Now, most movies that play for civ advances slow my system down almost to a halt. Scrolling around the map makes things progressivly worse. audio is skipping regularly now, and the further i get into the game the slower things become.

I have updated all my drivers for my onboard sound card, and my ATI 9800 pro, and figured my 512 of RAM and AMD 64 3400 are sufficent.

Now, for some reason, just loading it up is taking a long time. continuing my saved game is slower than ever and its just getting worse with every game i play. ill post my spec for direct x when i get home.

Is this pretty comon? are there fixes?

I had the same problem on my 9700 pro all i did to fix was install the 4.12 catalyst drivers game now runs like a dream on full setts.