Terrain is Dark
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Willem said:
Ehm. No. The 7500 will not work if you turn off your ARP acceleration. It will get rid of the floating eyeballs and the misplaced fog of war, but it will also discolour the terrain in very bright shades. At present the 7500 does not work. End of story. It was specifically listed as being able to work, which a lot of people find somewhat annoying. Myself included.
GeneralMikeIII
That Naive College Kid
sbrzuc said:
I have the same card as you do, and this is what "worked" for me.
Start a new game. Open the world builder. In the toolbar on the upper-right hand there are two rows of buttons. On the bottom row, second or third to last there is a button that enters "reveal map" mode (I think it looks like a brown box with a crosshair in it, but I can't remember completely). When you click that, a third row pops up with two buttons on it. One of the buttons should be "lit up", click the other one. Exit world builder.
This is the only way I've been able to even play. There is still a dark tint, like it is always nighttime, and you don't have to explore (this is the part people hate about this one the most
) but you can see the tiles, and it is at least playable, although not as fun as needing to explore the world around you. NOTE: Does not fix floating eyeball problems.
Niles Caulder
Chieftain
I've seen mention that Intel 82845 chips aren't going to cut the mustard on this thing...but does this apply to my 82865G ? I'm sorely tempted to believe that my system is new enough not be so outmoded that Civ IV broke its envelope inside of a year of buying the dern thing....
I have the Radeon 7500 card, so apparently I have to turn off my APR driver to show the terrain. Would someone be kind enough to tell me how to do that (Windows XP home)? And will there be any problem turning it back on again if a patch is developed?
bogh said:
I agree with you that this card should not have been listed as minimum. It works to a point but not enough to really consider it compatible. They should have gone with the 8500 as the bottom end. It looks to me like the game need more than just T&L, it also needs Pixel Shading 1, which the 7500 doesn't have. Even the GeForce4 Mx 4xx cards have issues with the trade/production icons on the map, and those cards don't have Pixel Shading 1either.
Niles Caulder said:
This link here will take you to a list of supported cards. If you look, being sure to go down a couple of posts as well, you'll see that the Intel 8xxxx cards will not work with the game.
http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=141405
sbrzuc said:My mistake. I have edited wrong line
I can see the whole world from the beginning - it steals the fun from the game, but it's playable now...
Now let's wait for patch.
There won't be a patch for this, it's a hardware issue. Your video card is simply not compatible. Check the link I provided for compatible cards.
Cactus Pete said:
Go to Contol Panel>Display>Settings>Advanced, look for a tab that says SmartGart. Your ARP setting are in there. But as bogh as pointed out, this fix just barely works. Your game will run very slowly, and the colors of the map won't be right. And I doubt very much if a patch is going to fix your problems, it's just an old card that doesn't run the game very well. And I mean old in technology, not in years.
PS: It seems I've been wrong, it's actually called the AGP speed in the SmartGart settings. I apologize for any confusion.
GeneralMikeIII
That Naive College Kid
Willem said:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with you there. It seems like even people with compatible cards are having issues with the black terrain and so forth. If systems that are suppose to support the game are experiencing glitches, it seems like a programing problem. Any reputable company would make a patch for a problem like that, and I'm sure Firaxis will eventually.
I'm not saying the patch will suddenly make the game run perfectly on my machine (a labtop with an 82whatever video card), but there should be one to address the black terrain and the floating eyes.
GeneralMikeIII said:
Take a look at the list of compatible video cards I placed above. Your card does not work with the game, and that's not going to change with a patch.
Swingue said:
Also take a look at the list. You card doesn't work with the game either.
Willem said:
Two points:
That the game does not run very well is a bit of an understatement. The graphics are decidedly not working. We are not talking rare glitches or artifacts here, we are talking massive graphical errors that make the game next to unplayable. Noone expected a high speed, excellent performance out of their minimum specs system, but they did expect the game to work. It doesn't now.
The cards are clearly capable of rendering the terrain correctly. The black terrain problem eventually diminishes and areas of the map become lit up correctly.
In short: I would expect Firaxis to patch the game to a level where it actually works as intended for minimum specs. Whether it would be enjoyable (as per speed issues and general performance) is another question, but IMO serious graphics corruption on systemts that live up to the minimum specs is a bug, and a rather serious one at that.
bogh said:
I'm getting rather tired of debating this issue. I guess you'll just have to wait until the patch is released to see if it does solve your problems. I've already stated that those cards should not have been listed as minimum, there's not much more I can add.
ZubieMaster
Warlord
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GeneralMikeIII said:
Yes, there "should" be one, but fact is they made a purposeful decision not to when making the game for certain specs, so it is doubtful they will reverse themselves with a patch.
With regard to the link to the video card list at Apolyton -- and thanks BTW, it is a very useful reference -- but just for the record it claims the Intel 8**** won't run the game, and that's not entirely true. I have that video and I can play the game fine, there are just the following issues:
1. Cheshire cat leaders
2. Black terrain (somewhat solved by the reveal map fix)
3. Stuttering sound on videos
4. Horses and cows appear as little black spots
That's not a huge list. Even with my awful integrated graphics, the game almost runs as intended. So on one hand Firaxis really kept the hardware requirements to a minimum. BUT on the other hand, this is particularly frustrating because while everything else can run on crappy graphics, they decided in just a couple places to splurge on eye candy that left behind a whole generation of laptop users.
This is just a bizarre decision, IMHO. There's already the option to turn off videos. Seems to me they could have provided an option switch to turn off whatever is causing the other three problems (e.g., "3D leaders? yes/no" "3D terrain? yes/no"). Had they done this many hard-core laptop Civ users would not be feeling so disappointed and abandoned, at least they would have a playable version. But I think the Powers That Be felt it better to just not let these people play at all rather than play a watered-down version, even tho most of these users play Civ for its strategy, not graphics.
Niles Caulder
Chieftain
Willem said:
Thanks, pard.
$65 dollars later I'm openning a Radeon 9250 128 MB thingamajig to plug into the PCI doohickie. Wish me luck!
Willem;
At the risk of yet imposing on your kindness for sharing your expertise again, I most humbly ask for a moment of your consideration.
I have an Emachine with....
82845 GL graphics card
Celeron 2.19 Ghz cpu
768 meg of ram
55 GB hd
only PCI expansion slots
1. What do you recommend for a PCI display card that, in your opinion, is the best bang for the buck? I'm not a DOOM and/or RT player and only need it to work well with civIV.
2. One of my buddies states that "any" PCI display card is a waste of time and strongly suggests another type that I can't recall at the moment but would possibly mean having to buy a whole new computer system.
Do you agree? Or is it needed for civIV?
3. Lastly, would you know a reasonable web site for getting it?
If you do choose to respond, just think of the positive karma you'll generate.
ps...obviously, nothing you recommend would be held against you. I'm freely begging for your suggestions.
At the risk of yet imposing on your kindness for sharing your expertise again, I most humbly ask for a moment of your consideration.
I have an Emachine with....
82845 GL graphics card
Celeron 2.19 Ghz cpu
768 meg of ram
55 GB hd
only PCI expansion slots
1. What do you recommend for a PCI display card that, in your opinion, is the best bang for the buck? I'm not a DOOM and/or RT player and only need it to work well with civIV.
2. One of my buddies states that "any" PCI display card is a waste of time and strongly suggests another type that I can't recall at the moment but would possibly mean having to buy a whole new computer system.
Do you agree? Or is it needed for civIV?
3. Lastly, would you know a reasonable web site for getting it?
If you do choose to respond, just think of the positive karma you'll generate.
ps...obviously, nothing you recommend would be held against you. I'm freely begging for your suggestions.
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