Try forceware 71.89 before you give up on Civ!

[eljeffe]

If you are having frequent freezes and CTDs and nothing seems to help, try rolling back your nvidia drivers to 71.89.

I started playing the game with 71.89 and had no problems. A couple of days ago, I updated my long neglected drivers to 81.85 and suddenly I had all the issues that people on this forum have been reporting. After rolling them back, the game ran smoothly again.

Now, this doesn't work for everyone, but I've gotten enough feedback on these forums and others to lead me to believe that rolling drivers back can help a good portion of those having problems.

ATI users.... sorry, I got nothing for you...

Edit

My original thread, with more technical specifics about what I did, plus WarX's thread in which he figured this all out before me.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=139419
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137370

Hopefully the comming patch will make all this moot anyway.

 

[madman1981]

Frankly, I don't really know how useful this kind of advice is. Seems people have different luck with different drivers, and that there is no trend pointing to one particular release or another.

 

[Viking163]

I had also problems with freezing up and exiting to desktop... also using more and more RAM...

after reading several articles here on support, I decided to give it a try and rollback my driver from 81.85 to 71.89, and it works ! No more lockups, and a whole lot less usage of RAM The game is still not that fast though, but that may be my system...

thanks for the advice, and i'm waiting also for the patch

 

[pygbe]

71.89 people, could you tell us about your systems? Graphic card?

Would help decide. Thanks.

 

[WarX]

Both fixes for nVidia and ATI have been reported before with a hefty success rate in the following links (with specs for each):

For nVidia cards go here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137370

For ATI cards go here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137255

 

[scampy]

If you are having frequent freezes and CTDs and nothing seems to help, try rolling back your nvidia drivers to 71.89.

I started playing the game with 71.89 and had no problems. A couple of days ago, I updated my long neglected drivers to 81.85 and suddenly I had all the issues that people on this forum have been reporting. After rolling them back, the game ran smoothly again.

Now, this doesn't work for everyone, but I've gotten enough feedback on these forums and others to lead me to believe that rolling drivers back can help a good portion of those having problems.

This solution has also worked for me. I am playing on a slightly above-recommended spec PC with 1GB RAM and found that huge maps from about 800AD suddenly started freezing/crashing or stuttering thru' black tile-blocks.

Prior to buying Civ4 here in the UK I had seen the advice to upgrade drivers and did so. However having sufferred a couple of days frustration at not being able to continue my huge map games, I saw further comments that rolling back to 71.89 had proven effective (after all that's the timeframe that beta-testing was going on).

Loaded the 71.89 drivers this morning and have just enjoyed 4 uninterupted hours of Civ High graphics settings, 1280x1024 etc.

If your having problems it is quick enough to try, and if it doesn't work it is easy enough to switch back.

 

[StreetX]

It fixed some bugs but it also added some. The game is still using more than 1024 mb (maybe I'v chosen a to big map).

The game won't sudenly shut down but I get artifacts. trees and other things displayed on the map are f***ed

 

[eljeffe]

Frankly, I don't really know how useful this kind of advice is.

Well it's a hell of a lot more useful than your post.

 

[eljeffe]

71.89 people, could you tell us about your systems? Graphic card?

Would help decide. Thanks.

Sorry, I had another thread all about this, with my sys specs. I just wanted to make a new thread with the fix in the title, so people would see it.

My specs are

AthlonXP 2700+ @ 2GHz
1Gb DDR (in two 512 chips) with 3Gb Pagefile
GeForceFX5200 256Mb
Audigy Platnum Ex

And I've learned from others that the Geforce 6xxx cards cannot be used with 71.89, but I've heard that 76.44 gives a similar benifit for those cards.

 

[Broholm]

I've also had succes with 71.89... No more slowdowns, memory consumption is steady at 260MB, ALT-Tab'ing is working fine and the CPU is not running at 100%. Furthermore it will now accept the DVD - I had to use sd4hide.exe before

GeForce4 Ti4200
512 MB RAMBUS
P4 2.6

 

[MeteorPunch]

I've not had one problem with Civ despite playing it a lot. Using 71.89, never upgraded beyond that.

And I've learned from others that the Geforce 6xxx cards cannot be used with 71.89, but I've heard that 76.44 gives a similar benifit for those cards.

Not true. I have a 6800GT.

 

[madman1981]

Well it's a hell of a lot more useful than your post.

Don't shoot the messenger. As I stated, people are having different luck with different drivers and there doesn't seem to be anything supporting one over others yet. So based on the fact that this exact version works for you doesn't mean it works better than any random version for anyone else.

So until it is settled that :
1) it is in fact a driver problem
2) one specific version works better than others
..I don't really see any reason for creating a thread dedicated to recommending one specific driver.

That's all. Don't be offended by that, it is just my opinion based on the mystery that is still the lack of stability in Civ4.

 

[WarX]

And I've learned from others that the Geforce 6xxx cards cannot be used with 71.89, but I've heard that 76.44 gives a similar benifit for those cards.

That is false, I have provided a link above to a thread that I posted one week ago suggesting the 71.89 driver as a fix for the CTD problems, and specifically if you have a 6600 as thats the one I have and tested it on. The nVidia reference for that driver includes support for 6x, but no support for OpenGL 2. People with 7x might face some problems though.

@madman1981:

You underestimate driver problems . the nvidia release notes for every driver always contain fixes for specific games, from crashes to graphical anamolies. Infact, the 77.72 driver I believe, fixes an interlace problem when watching the Big Lobowski DVD... yes, thats a -DVD Movie!- .

From the evidence around us, there are more people who fixed these problems by downgrading drivers than the total of those who tried all the other suggestions listed in the FAQ put together. But you are right that one driver might work for someone while another might not, but that is more because of support for different cards than the effectivness of the fix. The general rule is to downgrade your driver until you reach stability.

 

[MadHat]

I have found the 71.89 driver to solve some problems but the game still has issues from time to time.

Athlon 1.33
768 Mb RAM
6600 GT 128

 

[eljeffe]

So based on the fact that this exact version works for you doesn't mean it works better than any random version for anyone else.

This was not based on it working solely for me. I already had contact with a good dozen or so people on this forum and others who had the exact same experience with the exact same version of drivers. That is, we all had the same symptoms with 81.85 (Frequent hangs where all the graphics except the terrain vanish, often followed by CTDs) and we all had the exact same positive results when rolling back to 71.89. Other drivers between these two had been tried with varying success, but 71.89 was the predominate winner. There is nothing random about it.

This is why I created a post specifically addressing this version and urging people to take the few minutes to give it a try if they find the game unplayable. My concern sprung from seeing so many threads of the "This game is crap!" variety. It's a great game and I want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy it.

Don't shoot the messenger? How can I shoot the messenger when you have no message to begin with. All you said was that my post is no help to anyone which is obviously false given the people that have been helped by this thread and by the other that I started both here and at Apolyton.

So I stand by what I said. My post will not help everyone, I accept that, but who did your post help? Who exactly is trying to shoot the messenger in this scenario?

 

[eljeffe]

That is false, I have provided a link above to a thread that I posted one week ago suggesting the 71.89 driver as a fix for the CTD problems, and specifically if you have a 6600 as thats the one I have and tested it on. The nVidia reference for that driver includes support for 6x, but no support for OpenGL 2. People with 7x might face some problems though.

I'll take your word for that. My source on the incompatibility didn't seem too computer literate and I have a 5200 so couldn't verify.

And sorry WarX. I didn't notice your 71.89 thread till now. I started playing the game on 71.89 and updated only recently, then noticed all the issues--when a game goes from enjoyable to unplayable, kind of hard not to notice. My original post was of the hey-ain't-that-weird variety, but once the confirmations started rolling in I knew this was no random fluke.

 

[Sorceresss]

[...] I have a 5200 [...] I started playing the game on 71.89 and updated only recently, then noticed all the issues--when a game goes from enjoyable to unplayable, kind of hard not to notice.

Strange : I have a 5200 and the game runs without the slightest visual glitch with the 81.85 drivers. A mystery.

 

[MetHimPikeHoses]

Rolling back the drivers to 71.89 worked for me as well. The lag for movement and between turns has diminished noticeably on a standard map. I have a geforce FX5200.

 

[madman1981]

Don't shoot the messenger? How can I shoot the messenger when you have no message to begin with. All you said was that my post is no help to anyone which is obviously false given the people that have been helped by this thread and by the other that I started both here and at Apolyton.

So I stand by what I said. My post will not help everyone, I accept that, but who did your post help? Who exactly is trying to shoot the messenger in this scenario?

Your original post did not say that you had a big sampling to back up the claim that 71.89 worked better than other drivers.

Neither did it say that you had any experience with that driver other than your own, it just vaguely referred to "rolling back".

So based that on I can't see how I was not "being useful". From what you had told about your testing there was no reason for me to assume that it was more thorough than any of the random statements in other threads saying "version xx.xx worked for me".

I have the same goal as you, trying to find out what works and help people. Since you have tested this more than the first post indicated, I of course believe you, and salute you for making the effort. 71.89 can certainly be recommended based on that.

 

[Wardie9]

hey just rolled back drivers to it, and it worked!!! thanks guys!