what graphics card are you using and do you have problems with Civ 4?

[Akhenaton]

I'll test this next time I get a save where a wonder movie plays.

Changing "AllowScreenShots" to 0 didn't affect the wonder movie lag and I can confirm that the scene is rendered in the "background" or more accurately, in the sides of the screen around the wonder movie window (v1.52).

Also, the Bink settings didn't make much of a difference, except that "BinkInterlace = 1" improved performance a bit but (obviously) made the movie pretty ugly to watch. However, "BinkNoSkip = 1" made it more bearable to watch even though it slowed down the render speed. Better to wait longer to see it complete than have it jump around arbitrarily.

I didn't test lowering the general quality settings, because I don't care about the wonder movies that much. However, there is obviously a bug there and stopping rendering of the world while playing the movie will solve this problem immediately, so I'm content in just waiting a new patch.

 

[Sir Elric]

Great! Does that include the Wonder vids?? If so, what settings are you using in the ini file and in the game?

Plays wonder vids perfectly with settings on default.

SE

 

[Akhenaton]

Plays wonder vids perfectly with settings on default.

Which are? I'm not sure, but the default settings for graphics could be adjusted at install time to match the setup. It's the current state of the art in game design to do this configuration step automatically.

IIRC for me it offered 1024x768, 4xAA and high details when I installed it, but I changed it to native resolution. I didn't run the game between CD install and 1.52 patching though.

In any case, it's better to volunteer as accurate information as possible in these forum posts, because things often evolve over time. For example, if I state today that "I use default settings, the latest patch and the latest drivers", what does that tell you say 3 months from now when ForceWare is in 9x.xx, CivIV in 1.6x and "default" settings could be x.y.z whatever.

So please, instead of "they are default", give resolution, AA level, texture detail level and window mode. If you didn't change the settings, you can ofcourse add that they are default settings for your installation.

 

[Sir Elric]

Which are? I'm not sure, but the default settings for graphics could be adjusted at install time to match the setup. It's the current state of the art in game design to do this configuration step automatically.

IIRC for me it offered 1024x768, 4xAA and high details when I installed it, but I changed it to native resolution. I didn't run the game between CD install and 1.52 patching though.

In any case, it's better to volunteer as accurate information as possible in these forum posts, because things often evolve over time. For example, if I state today that "I use default settings, the latest patch and the latest drivers", what does that tell you say 3 months from now when ForceWare is in 9x.xx, CivIV in 1.6x and "default" settings could be x.y.z whatever.

So please, instead of "they are default", give resolution, AA level, texture detail level and window mode. If you didn't change the settings, you can ofcourse add that they are default settings for your installation.

I installed the game and changed nothing ie: default
1024x768
AA = 0
Graphics level = High
Render quality = High
Global quality = High
Full screen mode (default )

ini settings = default

(I changed AA = 4 and ran the Stonehenge movie and there was no noticable dif)


SE

P.s It tells me you had default settings at the time of posting

 

[Zanmato]

Great feedback! I got the Hollywood movie playing flawless in the game. I had changing nothing in the ini files or in the game settings. What I did change was the advanced settings for the graphic card. I used switched it to the 'FarCry' profile. At a wild guess, it's the AA settings, is it possible that when it re-renders the video it's adding antialising to it?? The profile setting switches it off rather than on or app-controlled. That would slow it down massively. I will play around with it some more. I don't believe the AA settings in the game affect the video playback just the 3D elements. Or it just could be I got lucky with that one movie. It's a step in the right direction anyway.

 

[Old Dood]

Mine plays the single player fine...except I cannot Alt-Tab out without crashing it. I have trouble with multi-player as well. I do not think it is my card though...just a game that has not been coded well. My card is a ATI X800XL PCIe 256Mb.

 

[Maestro_Innit]

Meh, I've got an ATI X800XT/PE and performance is fine. But once I get to the industrial era my machine regularly locks up - often only after one or two turns. most frustrating. Other times it can go all night without a hitch. No idea what causes it and I've never had a glitch from any other game. Typical: favourite game, worst reliability.

Playing at 1600x1200 with 2xAA and everything maxed.

 

[moonmonster]

I have an ATI X850XT/PE. Performance is great. But, as the previous poster also said, I have frequent crashes later on in the game. Basically, the screen will either go black for a while and then come back, or my PC will reboot. I was running at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and max settings. I tried reducing to 1280x1024, no AA, and it didn't help.

Recently I've started getting crashes earlier in the game too, but less frequent. By the time industrial comes around, I can *sometimes* make it to the next autosave before a crash.

 

[Maestro_Innit]

I have an ATI X850XT/PE. Performance is great. But, as the previous poster also said, I have frequent crashes later on in the game. Basically, the screen will either go black for a while and then come back, or my PC will reboot. I was running at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and max settings. I tried reducing to 1280x1024, no AA, and it didn't help.

Recently I've started getting crashes earlier in the game too, but less frequent. By the time industrial comes around, I can *sometimes* make it to the next autosave before a crash.

Yeah, that's precisely the problems I get. Sometimes it just goes black for 10 seconds or so, then comes back - often with ATI VPU recover floating in the background in Windows. It might then play for 15 minutes but I know at some point, my BIOS speaker will beep and everything freezes up.

Most annoying.

-EDIT-

Wow! Just downloaded and installed the latest Omega 6.1 Catalyst drivers and played my game through to completion without a crash! I played from the mid 1700s until domination victory 3 hours later in the late 1800s on Marathon speed. Not a single glitch! I am now a happy bunny and optimistic for this game

 

[Philips]

EVGA 6600GT 128mb PCIe.

CTD every 5-20 minutes.

 

[theram]

Other than the wonder movies stuttering, graphics are flawless. Game runs a lot better on my "below minimum specs" Win98 machine with 256MB than my XP machine with 512MB.

GeForce4 MX4000 128MB AGP4X
1.3 Duron
256MB System RAM
Win98SE