Shaders...

[Tomlo]

I was experimenting with the shaders using NV hardpage and rivatuner. I tryed different options to try and get more performance with not much results I ended up disabling them and when I launched the game it said I didnt meet the recomended requirements. There was also very little performance gain. When I enabled them again and launched the game it still had them disabled, It must store that my video card doesnt support shaders in a file or in the registry...

Ive Tryed:
All of the shader options possible
Using a new config file
Deleting the Caches
Deleting the Profiles
Searching the Registry
Replacing the EXE with a backup copy

Any Ideas?

 

[Tomlo]

I have tryed uninstalling/reinstalling the game itself and patches, I think ive done everything short of buying a new hard drive will some one please give me some advice Its usually the simplist option I seem to overlook...

 

[Zanmato]

Looks like you have tried everything I would suggest about the shaders. What is the video card you have installed and the general spec of the machine you're running the game on?

 

[Tomlo]

My Specs:
AMD Sempron 2800+
ECS N2U400-A
512mb PC3200
XFX Geforce FX 5200
Samsung 80gb 7200rpm
Direct X 9.0c
Windows XP sp2

I know my video card isnt good expecially for civ 4 but it worked ok until I turned the shaders off, civ 4 still works its just an eyesore with no shaders expecially since there is no performance gain.
Too bad I cant just move the video card down a slot, I think that would fix it.

 

[Zanmato]

I had the 5200 when I first got the game. I just put the shaders down to 1.1 and it improved performance but only slightly. A new card sorted everything out though. There has been quite few FX5200 users with problems - it isn't a good 3D card. I know that some upgraded to a series 6 and everything plays smoothly.

Have you tried increasing the AGP aperture through the BIOS? That will make it run just abit faster if it is on AGP. Or is it PCI?

 

[Kristof73]

When I enabled them again and launched the game it still had them disabled, It must store that my video card doesnt support shaders in a file or in the registry...
Any Ideas?

The game itself don't save any information about shaders in any place. I'll check this. There is no need of reinstalation of the game. I do the same as you. By RivaTuner I turned off shaders. Reboot. Game without shaders. Turned it again - option (no overvrite) or beter force 1.1 to incerease speed.
(There was small problems with RivaTuner. It don't show Main/Driver settings/Customize/DirectDraw and Direct 3Dsettings/ but after clicking some others icons it back. I tried the same few times AND always it happens. Maybe only in my 2.0 RC 15.8 wersion.) Reboot. Ang game goes with shaders. There was no problem. Check in C:\Document and Settings\"YOUR USER NAME"\My documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Logs in file app.log what is shaders on or not.

On my system with shaders 2.0 turned on it shows:

[8272.390] CvApp::OnActivate
[8279.046] Shader Version - vertex:20 pixel:20 level:0 mem:240123904 HWTnL=1

 

[Tomlo]

First off my video card is AGP 8x...

I enabled logging and in app.log is says

[922.828] CvApp::OnActivate
[938.796] Shader Version - vertex:20 pixel:20 level:0 mem:242221056 HWTnL=1
[942.578] CvApp::OnDeactivate

So the problem isnt in civ 4 right?
It says shaders 2.0 are on but when launched they are visually clearly not...
When running various 3DMark's shader demos they are on so it cant be in my driver settings right?

Maybe it isnt the shaders that are wrong but something else, look at this screenshot of the main menu, it never looked like this until I changed the shader settings off then back on...

 

[Tomlo]

I emailed take 2 and got quite possibly the most generic response possible saying to delete windows temp files and close background tasks. I tryed using an older video card with slight visual improvement, I just want the game to look like it did when I first started playing, any ideas?