Terrain is Dark

I updated the driver, didn't fix the problem. I downloaded the patch ... and it tells me my system is below minimum specs ... but my Presario exceeds recommended requirements stated on the box and in the manual. And then tech support and entries on this forum tell me I need to get a new high end machine, and "suggest" I use it only for Civ4 ... which to me means that a $50 game now becomes an $850 game. While the game is buggy, the developers probably did as best they could, but I'd really like to meet the architects and designers face to face and see if they can explain the stupid decisions they made.
 
There are ways to disable that stupid minimum specs message. I think it is actually a bug in the patch. (?) I have seen a lot of posts saying they get the message when their system meets the recommended specs. There are a couple steps for fixing the bug in the fix (to reiterate...(?)), but I did those and Civ works almost like it should now. Somewhere on the Bug Reports main page you should be able to find the topic about getting rid of the stupid message, you just need to look for it (I'd tell you how I fixed it, but it was too long ago and I don't remember, I think there was a code you had to edit somewhere). Good Luck.
 
Well, admittedly I don't meet minimum system requirements ...

But I'm getting the black terrain too, otherwise the game runs really good. I was getting the Cheshire cat thing, but the patch seems to have fixed that.

Revealing the map doesn't seem to help.

All I can say is that my system SHOULD be fine for a turn-based game; if this were the latest realtime, high end action-type game I would not mind but I think it is a little disturbing that this particular game won't work on my platform. Civ has never before been about high system requirements, or rare configurations. I think they goofed, attempting to appeal to new markets with fancy graphics: but now they will lose sales. They lost mine; I'm definately taking this back, because I'm not shelling out $$$ for hardware upgrades just to play this one game. It should not be difficult to make a turn-based game which can work on most modern platforms ... it really shouldn't.
 
I had all the previous mentioned problems, black terrain, cheshire heads, stuttering movies. I have a presario 2500, 1gb ram, ati mobility card. after installing the patch the heads were fixed but not the terrain or movies. I have now installed the omega driver and all is well except for the stuttering movies. I am a complete idiot with things like this and it worked for me.. Thanks to all for the essential advice.
 
Hello!

I just wanted to give hope to the folks like me owning a laptop with integrated ATI graphics cards.

I have HP ze4700 laptop at home with ATI IGP 320M integrated graphics card. It does NOT have T&L h/w support according to the follwoing page: http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=141405

However, with 1.09 Civ4 patch and Omega (http://www.omegadrivers.net/) driver 2.6.87 for ATI chipsets my civ4 started working!!!

I used to have "black terrain"/FOW issue, it is gone. The game is slow, but at least it is working now!!!
:crazyeye:
 
I got the game to run without the Chesire Cat problem or dark terrain on a 64 MB Intel 82845G video card. I have 254 MB of RAM. My processor is 1.8 Ghz Intel chip. So this game WILL work on a piece of crap computer, just not at super computer speeds.

Again, there was no Chesire Cat problem and I could see all the terrain just fine. However, due to low RAM the game ran too slowly for my liking, but it worked as it should.

Here are my steps to get it working:
1. I defragged my C:\ Drive.
2. Got rid of as many programs as I could (old games, etc.)
3. Installed the 1.09 patch from the official site.
4. Installed all recent updates for Windows.
5. Downloaded latest drivers for the Intel 82845G and installed.
6. Restarted my computer after each of these steps.

Apparently there is a bug in the patch that claims your computer won't run the game when you open it. Since I knew that my computer wouldn't run it I ignored it and opened a new game. Lo' and behold, the leader head was there, looking as it should complete with animation. Encouraged, I opened the game and there was no black terrain! Everything worked!

Hope this helps. To all of you with a crappy card like mine and low RAM, you can make this work. Just don't expect it to run too fast.
 
Same problem as everyone else, black terrain and poor opening video. I have an ATI mobolity, Radeon 7000 IGP. Tech support has been useless. The program runs on my desktop but is megabuggy. In the middle of the game I lost control of technology builds. Also, how does a third class primitive nation build mega stacks of high tech units to send against me. Realism is gone.
 
I have the VIA/S3G Unichrome and the patch didn't fix the black terrain. It fixed the faces, but the death-terrain remains. All other aspects of the game are running very well.

Am I the only one left?
 
OH joy, oh joy, I can at last play the game. New motherboard, faster CPU and Great Video card and now I can play. I hope it is worth it.

By the way where is a place to just ask questions?
 
I am on an admittedly older system. Micron Millenium, 800 mhz, TNT2 Pro graphics board. I have updated the driver to the 71.80 release and patched to the latest Civ patch. I have set the graphics options to low and tried the zoom out, enter world builder, etc.

Options and suggestions would be appreciated. I loved (and still play often)
CIV 2, hated CIV3 and would really like to try this game.
 
I get same problem as all of you above, chesire cat grins, dark terrian, loaded patch/update as I was told to do so (1.52?) and now cannot run at all get the following message:


Initialize renderer failed. Check DirectX installation. Latest Graphics drivers and graphics settings parameters.

then a bunchof width heighth flag numbers

Error Creation failed, invalid 3D device type.

I'd have pasted the image for you I (since I have anice .png of it) but apparently i can't figure out how to do that here.

So now I have gone backwards after installing the patch.

I am running Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Pentium 4, 2.00 GHZ, 1.99 GHZ avail, 512 MB Ram, I don't know what video device I amusing it just says legacy video driver in my device manager. Anyone have any ideas? I finally got it working on my tablet PC though it did indicate my system requirements were subpar and so it would not work as optimally as possilbe. My son is having fun with it so I don't care.

Help....
 
I just got civ4 for x-mas. Discovered this problem and now i have found this forum. I have just completed reading most of the posts since OCT !!!! Is there still no answer for this problem?? I have a new brand new dell desktop.
 
Same problem here, dark terrain on my laptop. The intro clips are a bit choppy, and the text doesn't look very clear.

I wish the minimum requirements would actually work for the game.
 
jimmygeo said:
I had the black terrain problem. too. This was after installing the patch. Before that the game installed but wouldn't run. But then I was pushing it since I have an Athlon 1.2Gb system running Windows Me. (Yes, I actually got it to run and played several turns under Windows Me). I thought about it and checked my video card (GeForce2 MX200) which was the problem. After changing to an ATI Radeon 9200 SE, bingo! terrain and units not only visible but 3-D and smooth scrolling/zooming etc. I'm still going to upgrade to XP, but it can wait a while until the after Christmas sales.:lol:

jimmygeo
Click to expand...

I wrote that at the beginning of the year and became thoroughly 'ticked off' with Civ4. Now I've finally u/ged to Windows XP and it works beautifly!! :goodjob: I'm sorry for the grumps. I can't stress too much the need for XP to run Civ4 (and lots of other stuff, too!)

jimmygeo
 
I just bought Civ 4 yesterday and I have black terrain. I can see my cities and people, but not any ground. I've been searching this forum for the last 16 hours and haven't found a solution to my problem (probably because I'm an idiot when it comes to computers). It's a gateway laptop and here are the specs

Op system: Windows XP
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3000+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2GHz
Graphics Card (or video card, not really sure): RADEON IGP 320M
CHIP Type RADEON 9200 AGP
Memory: 448MB RAM

please help
 
I just bought Civ 4 yesterday and I have black terrain. I can see my cities and people, but not any ground. I've been searching this forum for the last 16 hours and haven't found a solution to my problem (probably because I'm an idiot when it comes to computers). It's a gateway laptop and here are the specs

Op system: Windows XP
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3000+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2GHz
Graphics Card (or video card, not really sure): RADEON IGP 320M
Chip Type: RADEON 9200 AGP
Memory: 448MB RAM

please help
 
Welcome to the Forums herbfinkel. :beer:

Welcome to the Forums Turner10. :beer:

Welcome to the Forums stopfirefox.com. :beer:
 
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