The world is dark and City info blurred

[BlakesHeaven]

This would have been my first post but I replied to someone complaining about people's idle chit chat replies; the very thing preventing me from possibly finding a solution. You know, can't see wood for trees situation, so please bear with me if an answer is already out there.

Situation
Firstly it's my sisters PC. She is none technical and living 200 or so miles away so I'll deal with video/bios updates when I'm up there next.
Running Civ IV on my PC all is OK, but on her PC it looks like the world is in the dark ages; it does not show grass, rivers, lakes/sea, culture cross, mountains, etc. Trees are there as are all the little animated characters. Lakes/Seas do have a faint hazy line marking them. Also if the tiles are toggled on there are none shown. the other thing is that the city bars are just full of blobs and therefore next to useless.

PC/DXDiag Details
PC Running XP Home and I'm waiting for DXdiag .

I know this or these are known issues, but unless someone has a dead certain solution, I guess I'm interested in possible reasons as to what is causing it, eg RAM shortage, GPU no good, etc.

For now, I've suggest she updates to the latest patch although it seems to have mixed reviews.

 

[Zydor]

The latest Patch was very successful, this Board went from meltdown to gently simmering, of course their are some for whom it did not work - and they will post for help, people dont come here to say 'all's well' etc, so it looks as if the world is in doom & gloom, its not.

The largest category of hassles post-V1.52 was the number surfacing with unsupported hardware,as V1.52 shifted workfrom the main RAM to Video RAM to help those on lower spec machines. Many of those who had got it running on on-board graphics, were caught by that, and performance went down horribly, or it crashed. If there is on board graphics there, that is a red flag in your mind.

Load the V1.52 Patch - its a must have, without it loaded you will be masking any other real issues with the smoke of pre 1.52.

The symptoms you described are classic V1 straight from the disc unpatched hassles.

You got the Bios & Video upgrades in hand - have a look at the background apps and services in MSConfig, if there's lots - kill em until Civ IV is up and running,, then reintroduce the ones you cant live without one by one. No point having an Anti-V & Firewall running on singleplayer - go off line, shut em down in the sys tray, all saves RAM - Civ IV eats RAM (main & Video), and the more you nibble away at that the better.

If she has XP, she really needs 512mb, any less and you are in unsupported areas again, may still run, but slowly.

Overall - post V1.52 - the majority of hassles have been caused by unsupported hardware, low RAM, on board graphics, outdated drivers & too many background apps causing ram reduction and memory contention.

Suggest you note this thread url,and use it when there if you need to bounce something off anyone, the background above will help whoever answers understand the background ofyour visit/post

If you come to the conclusion you need to reinstall- do a TOTAL purge of all civ IV the routine for that is below

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=152620

Good Luck

Regards
Zy

 

[BlakesHeaven]

Thanks for the advise, suggestions and the link to uninstall.