Waiting for the first patch

[12ozProphets]

I had to give up. After 8 hours of loading new drivers and experimenting. I have a Dell Inspiron w/15 inch UXGA, P4 3.06GHz, 1GB RAM. The video card is ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, with 64MB RAM. The game starts up, but locks up at the startup menu (I see the planet and cursor, but no menu). Has anyone been able to get this config to work?

It's sad, because at least to me graphics don't even matter. The graphic in civ2 and 3 were more than enough. It's the depth of features and AI that matter most to a diehard civ player!

I'm not going to return the game. I'll wait and see. But for now, it's back to civ3 for me

 

[zsc]

Sorry to hear, just to make sure, what have you tried so far?

 

[pdathert]

I am in the same boat, I posted elsewhere with my problem but i must have spent over 12 hours now plus forum time trying to get the game to run on a computer that should be more than adequate.

I would do a sad face icon, but the emoticons don't do justice to my feelings.

 

[12ozProphets]

Hi Zsc,

Thanks for your interest. I've tried updating all the software on my pc. I updating my ATI drivers with the new ones from the link. I kept getting errors during the install that said I need to load a standard vga driver first, and then retry the install. Researching this, pointed me to Dell, where I loaded their latest drivers for my video, but no luck. So I started playing with all of the sound and video settings, trying different combinations, along with changing the civ .ini files to not play movies and such.

I also upgraded from 512MB RAM to 1GB RAM. I didn't really think it would help with game startup but it's a laptop, and it's about the only thing I can upgrade.

I didn't try any of the game software workarounds, like unpacking files and such. From reading the forum, it seemed like a lot of people were going through much trouble and time but could still not get it to run. And those type of fixes should be addressed in the patch...

But if someone else has had success with my hardware I'd like to hear your story!

 

[mist]

i moved from 512mb ram to 1.25GB today (also a laptop). it's made a hell of a difference. the slower laptop hard drive seems to mean that the vast amount of virtual memory civ 4 seems to consume is worse than on a desktop.

 

[zsc]

the UNPAK fix is pretty simple and I've only seen only a few out of many who have had problem(s) with the program. Try giving it a whirl.

True, a lot of people have tried many possible fixes but still couldnt get it to work, and the weird part is that certain fixes work for some and not other. If you have time, try giving them a try. But yea, I'd rather let a software work for me than me work for the software. Good luck.

 

[12ozProphets]

Thanks,

I will try the unpak this weekend...

I'll let you know!
--bill

 

[12ozProphets]

I also see that 'Hardware based T&L' may be a problem on my laptop. I'm trying now to check with Dell to see if I have this or not...

 

[zsc]

try this site, http://www.srtest.com/

it might be able to tell if you have it or not, but if it says no, dont lose hope yet. The test told me that my GeForce 6600 is not a 3D card nor have T&L, but it is and it does. So i guess there's still some bugs in their system.

I think I've seen your card on the list of "acceptable" video cards. Many recent ATI and nVidia-based cards have it.

There's actually another thread about the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, give it a whirl.

 

[Bone_Jones_00]

The unpak fix worked for my Nvidia card, I bet it would band-aid your problem until the patch