Video Memory FATAL ERROR with 1.52

[Kinetia]

I have a HP Pavilion dv1000 laptop that's only a few months old. It may be widescreen, but I was able to play Civ IV out of its box with no problems at all. The problems didn't start until I downloaded the 1.52 patch.

Whenever trying to start or load a game, it'll get just to the end of the loading screen - that point while the screen's still up, but you can hear the background noises on the map. Then the game crashes to the desktop and I get this message:

FATAL_ERROR
Your system has run out of video memory. Please try reducing your video settings.

This thread has a screenshot of the error. I've tried increasing my virtual memory page file as recommended in that thread, but it didn't help any, so I changed it back to what it had been before.

Does anyone know how to fix this?? If no one can fix it, I think I might try uninstalling the game and reinstalling it without a patch. I thought patches were supposed to fix things?

I also have my dxdiag information attached to this message, in case it'll help.

 

[Zydor]

The game does not support TnL in the way your graphics chip runs it. The Intel 9 series can only support software emulation of TnL, not hardware. The (video) specs for the game are:

Minimum: DirectX 9.0c-compatible 64 MB video card with Hardware T&L support ( GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better)

Recommended: 128 MB Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel & vertex shaders)

I have seen some running the Intel 9 series chips run this, but it willbe on ever reducing numbers as the game develops with more and more emphasis on Video card processing as it becomes bigger & more complex.

In short - you may get it to run now through luck, but it willnot run in the long term as the game is developed, as the game does not support the integrated graphics setup you have.

Regards
Zy

 

[Kinetia]

Well, ****.

Thanks for the quick reply. I have other computers I can run the game on, so it's not a total loss.

 

[THEpaDDy]

Maybe you changed some keys in the configfile of CIV4 after the 1.09 Patch like I did. After the 1.52 suddenly the game hang up in multiplayer when we tried to load our old gamefile (also played with 1.52) with the same warning, but days before the game ran perfect.
Then a day later I tried my first single player game with 1.52, same **** when I tried to start a game. I had to set the graphic-options to low so I was able to play civ again...
...with 1.09 I had problems with system memory (needed to experiment with the virtual memory...1GB RAM... ), now I have problems with my video memory...
Try some options in the civilizationIV.ini (keep away form the "memory saver"-option this would make the video problem worse) some options that helped me with 1.09 caused my video problem in 1.52.