Win7 problems?!? Can't play Civ 4...

[toesky]

Hello,

I am trying to play Civilization 4 on Win 7, but when I start the game, it initializes and then the screen goes black and the computer freezes. Actually, from watching the bar during initialization, it makes it approximately 75% thru, then goes to black and freezes. I'm not sure if it is completing initialization 100% and then trying to launch the game before freezing, or if it is not fully initializing. From the troubleshooting performed (see below), it appears to be an OS compatibility issue.

My setup:
-Win 7 64 bit, Build 7100
-Geforce GTS 250 video card with DirectX 11 with Win 7 64 bit driver

Troubleshooting:
-verified video card had correct driver and is working properly
-uninstalled and reinstalled video card driver multiple times
-uninstalled and reinstalled games multiple times
-contacted game customer support (with little support due to Win 7 in beta)
-verified latest game updates (cust support said "Civ4 Complete Ed has all newest updates" is this correct?)
-started Civ4 in compatibility modes (XP SP2&3, Vista, Vista SP1&2)
-tried reinstalling with setup file in compatibility mode
-duplicated problem on multiple games (Civ4 and COD-WaW)
-installed Civ4 on my laptop (XP) and it works
-searched Civ4 forum to verify that there are users running the game on Win 7
-same problem occurs when running on integrated graphics card only
-posted on win 7 thread and haven't gotten any replies yet

Has anyone had similar problems? Are there any work arounds? Any suggestions for additional troubleshooting? Please provide detailed response as this is all somewhat new to me.

Thanks in advance,
T

 

[ori]

you are using civ4 complete edition? that does not have all the patches (it is missing BtS patch 3.19).

Welcome to CFC

 

[toesky]

I've updated to the 3.19 patch for BtS and the result is the same. However, I did discover that the computer was not actually freezing. It just takes exactly 16 minutes for the game to start. It also takes 16 minutes when I exit the game. Also, since I've never played, I would like to run the tutorial, but there seems to be a problem there. It wants to restart to enable the tutorial (16 minutes) but then nothing happens once it returns to desktop. It doesn't automatically start the tutorial, and when I start the game again, I'm back to the main menu with no tutorial (after 16 minutes).

Please, anyone with any ideas???

 

[toesky]

For anyone else out there that may find the same problem, it is a firewall issue. I was using comodo, and when disabled, the game loads properly.

 

[damunzy]

For anyone else out there that may find the same problem, it is a firewall issue. I was using comodo, and when disabled, the game loads properly.

I am running Windows 7 RTM 32-bit and I haven't had any issues with vanilla BtS. Glad to see you resolved your issue. It seems that Comodo is an issue for Civ4 and Windows 7. Here is another person that ran into the same problem: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=329570