tons of graphic problems (black terrain, no city info.)

[Justinian2]

I just bought the game last week, huge Civ fan of many years, I was so excited to play Civ IV... I downloaded the most recent patch, hoping it would solve my problems, and it did solve SOME of them (such as the "chesire cat effect" for the rulers profiles, and it sped up some of the movies and the load times).

Still, the game is basically unplayable, but I am trying...

The terrain is mostly black (all plain terrain w/ no bonuses, inluding all water, are all black). Plus, and this seems to be a common problem, I have no city info. that is readable. There are 3 colored bars, that I think should be indicators of my unit and city development progress. Also, there is no indicator for # of citizens, or city name visible...

I have lowered my graphics levels to lowest possible, all of them.

I don't know how to find out what my graphics card is, or how to update it, but I think that may be the problem? I have a Sony Vaio from 2001 or so, that I thought was a pretty good computer for gaming (Civ III had no problems whatsoever). I was also thinking maybe a lack of free space on my hard drive could be the problem... But I installed the game on my D drive that is basically empty... C drive does not have much room left, though...


Does anybody have any advice for me, besides going out and buying a new computer? Any input is appreciated, I really want to experience this game the way it was meant to be played, rather than the 1/2 game that I currently have...

THANKS!

 

[crunch]

First of all, give us some info about your system. Select "Start" -> "Run"; type "dxdiag" (without quotes), press Enter. Hit the "Save All Information" button to create a file ("dxdiag.txt"). Attach this file to your next post, please.

Another interesting thing would to see how your game looks like. Press CTRL+Printscreen; leave civ, select "Start" -> "Run"; type "pbrush". Paste in the screenshot, and save it (choose e.g. the JPEG type). Attach the screenshot as well to your next post.

Now some random ideas. I used to have the black terrain problem (but only with the unpatched game). As a workaround, it was possible to enter wordbuilder and select "reveal entire map". Which kinda ruined the fun of exploring, but still it was immensely better than the blind play.

The following options could help. Optimized for performance on machines below requirements:

In-game tweaks (Options -> Graphics). Lowest resolution, Anti-alias 0, all low. On the right, make sure the following are selected: single unit graphics, no combat zoom, animations frozen, effects disabled, globe view buildings disabled, low res textures, (and possibly no movies).
On the other hand, you can try different options to see if you your problem prevails.

Ini file options: Nointromovie=1, AllowScreenshots=0, SetMaxFrameRate=60, NoTechSplash=1, NoMovies=1, EnableAudio=0. Experimental: Fullscreen=1.