Really Weird Leaderhead Problems..

[townknave]

Hi all... I started playing BTS but am having problems with opposing leaderheads showing up with transparency in the wrong places. In some cases, the leader does not appear at all except their hair, as if they were invisible. In others, the wrong parts of them are transparent. In the shot of Hannibal below, for example, it seems his face is transparent and I can see the back of his head through his skill. One of these problems occurs with every other leader, with variously grotesque results. The leaders display fine in the civ select screen and the Dawn of Man screen, it is only in-game that they are screwed up.

I am running an HP pavilion P4 2.6 GHz, 512 MB RAM, and a Geforce 4 MX 64 MB. I know it's below the recommended specs, but the game otherwise runs fine. Leaderheads always displayed perfectly in Warlords.

I have checked my Nvidia drivers and they are the latest. Directx install is also current using the link at the top of this forum. I have also checked to make sure that Vanilla Civ 4 and Warlords are properly updated. I really have no idea what could be causing this problem. It's not the worst bug a guy could have but it does detract from the enjoyment a little bit when I'm conducting diplomacy with an invisible ghost or a bizzarrely mutated freak.

Any ideas?

 

[eazy69stl]

We are tracking this problem in the No Leaderheads forum also...It seems to be a shader problem ut tat is all the info we have come up with so far and it only seems to effect Geforce cards(so far anyway)

 

[Jamesds]

This reminds me of the black terrain and leaderheads with only mouths and eyes (freaky stuff ) when Civ IV was first released. Several people were wondering whether their card would be supported, and many found themselves bringing Civ back for a refund. A patch fixed it for several graphics cards, but some were still not supported. This should be fixed in the next patch I guess.

 

[Cyrus_the_Great]

I had a GeForce 4 Mx 420 /64MB and the vanila Civ4 wouldn't even play. I finally found the only card I could use short of buying another motherboard. I now have a GeForce 4 4000 /128MB of video ram. I have 768MB of system ram and a Pentium 4 running at 2.4GHZ. I have updated all three versions of Civ4 and all load and run. Only BtS has the leaderhead problem.

I am waiting to buy a new motherboard and video card. I can't even run Europa Universalis III because my current video card doesn't support Pixel Shader 2.0 or any version as far as I know.

 

[not the nuke!]

i wasn't able to play europa universalis until the second or third patch came out. actually, i could play it, but the screen was mostly purple, green and white pixels.

i was just playing warlords yesterday but as of installing bts today, i have the green, white and purple pixels back again.

i have a geforce fx 5600 and again, didn't have problems with universalis III after they offered enough patches and haven't had trouble with civ base or civ warlords.

thanks for any help.

 

[Cyrus_the_Great]

If the problem is caused by a lack of support for Pixel Shaders on certain cards, then it begs the question as to why the main game and the first expansion don't need such support.

 

[Furiey]

I can only see the hair on the leaderheads. I have a GEForce2 MX400. An old card I know, but my motherboard won't take anything better.

 

[Cabay Jet]

A Geforce 2 MX400? I used to have one of those, and I ditched it because it was such a cruddy card. If your motherboard can't support anything better (Preferably a Geforce FX 5500) then it may be time to get a new computer.

 

[Furiey]

It's past time to get a new computer, but I'm stuck with what I have for a while longer...