Possible Fixes for "Failed to Initialize Renderer" Startup Error

[Disk Killer]

I posted earlier about maybe trying an older ATI driverset as a test for someone technical enough to fix anything that could go wrong.

Now a Civfanatics poster says he was running on his ATI, albeit slowly, and then updated to Catalyst 5.10; now he gets the render error and cannot play.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133336

Interesting.

[adarel]

ok goodnight everyone - i pray with all my heart that by 4:25pm tomorrow when i get home, i will be able to play. please, gods, please!

Ad

[Simpleton]

Originally posted by adarel


Non-civilization information??? No!!!!!!!!!

[BleckLord]

Sure, they can't patch if they don't know what's wrong. But I still have a whole laundry list of questions:

1. Why was this feature not discovered until wide release?

2. Approximately what portion of the ATI user base is reporting this problem?

3. Where is the official support page, and where is the official acknowledgement of this issue?

4. Has the support team been able to recreate the issue?
4a. If not, what info do you need from us, above and beyond complaints, to recreate this failure?

Added: 5. What do the errors reported in posted log files mean? What is flag 0x8 and such?

I'm cutting myself off here cause I don't want to sit here and flame about a developer I like and game that will hopefully be total awesome.

All that aside, I did get to play the game on my other computer, and I really like it so far. I feel bad for everyone who bought it today only to find out that it doesn't work.

[jadelith]

it seems highly unlikely that the beta's didn't notice this before. maybe they had to because the publishers forced them to? happens a lot.

though I find it outrageous that they can simply rely on our goodwill and release a game that doesn't work on some systems (inspiron 9100 / rad 9800 256mb ram here, and I have 8.18 and 9.0c).. also, there is no information about such a popular bug in the website; people shouldn't be forced to search their way through finding apolyton/civfanatics I thought it was about my computer and I formatted it just because of this :/

but then I love civ and I can wait for the hotfix/patch

keep up the good work debuggers

[Strapp1969]

Just popping in to say that I am having the same problem as so many others.

Tried everything that has been suggested and a few others but it still wont work.

Im having flash backs to MOO3... sigh

Not happy right now, but I will hold off on getting p***ed off for a day or two, give the guys time to fix it.

[warlordship]

Surprisingly enough, a demo works great as a mass market beta test. Aw well.

BTW, was running old 4.12 drivers, and still got the problem, even after updating the drivers.

[jadelith]

Originally posted by warlordship
Surprisingly enough, a demo works great as a mass market beta test. Aw well.

BTW, was running old 4.12 drivers, and still got the problem, even after updating the drivers.

As I've told you, they probably knew about these problems before retail they wouldn't risk giving out a demo under such circumstances ;p

[Simpleton]

Originally posted by jadelith
it seems highly unlikely that the beta's didn't notice this before. maybe they had to because the publishers forced them to? happens a lot.

though I find it outrageous that they can simply rely on our goodwill and release a game that doesn't work on some systems (inspiron 9100 / rad 9800 256mb ram here, and I have 8.18 and 9.0c).. also, there is no information about such a popular bug in the website; people shouldn't be forced to search their way through finding apolyton/civfanatics I thought it was about my computer and I formatted it just because of this :/

but then I love civ and I can wait for the hotfix/patch

keep up the good work debuggers

It is very difficult to believe that this problem was never encountered before considering how widespread it appears to be. The most disappointing aspect of this problem is that it's not as though ATI Radeon cards are some obscure backwater card maker, I think they're the biggest in the world are they not?
I really hate to be critical of Firaxis because it seems as they're working hard to get the problem fixed but I'd really like to know how this could have gotten missed.

[codechino]

ok INTERESTING, it installed and ran perfectly on my girlfriends computer, which is a vanilla ATI radeon 9800, but I didnt install the cd's directx, and was never prompted to.

hmm

too bad taking that 9800 outta her system would mean my other games would run crappy =X

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Simpleton
So sad. I Have the game but I'm also stuck with an 9550 ATI card!!! As with everyone else, it screws up during startup while rendering.

Perhaps it's for the best, I need to study......

Dawg!

Where did you get it?

[Simpleton]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Dawg!

Where did you get it?

I found it at EB games in Kingsway mall (Edmonton). That being said, that was their last copy of the special edition. The the rather rude/grumph girl working there told me they are getting another shipment of the normal (non special edition) in tommorrow (Oct 26). I don't know about any more special editions though. You might also try Best buy or Staples as they have Oct 26 listed as the date they are expecting it in.

Good luck!

[LongTom]

I have a 9800 Pro 128MB. When I initially installed, the game would not start, gave a DX-sounding error message (I had skipped the DX 9.0c install during civ install as I thought I already had that level of DX). I ran DXsetup of the Civ CD. Then game started up OK and played the opening movie. At the main menu I went to options, and selected to up resolution from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 which I usually use for my LCD screen. At this point, tried to start tutorial. There was a quick message about restarting to load tutorial, but it never came back. Tried a couple time to start after that, no joy. Tried setting to 1024x768 via INI file, no joy. Finally I gave up and erased the game, then reinstalled. Game started working properly again. Ran tutorial at 1024x768, worked fine (other than a few points in tutorial where Sid seems to get stuck and won't say what to do next, but got past those with some Esc keys and trying operation (e.g. double-click on city) again. Tried changing resolution in tutorial, got message that that isn't supported in tutorial (maybe that was problem, maybe tutorial can only play at 1024x768?

I then came here checking for info. My ATI drivers were 5.8 catalyst, 6.14.10.something, not quite the latest, so I did catalyst uninstall, reboot, install latest versions, started game again, worked fine, ran tutorial again at 1024x768, worked fine. I'm about to cross my fingers and try 1280x1024 again.

Bottom line - if you changed resolution from default, that may your problem...

[kverdon]

ATI 800 XL AGP here. Tried 5.10 and Omega 5.10 both give me the rendering error. I uninstalled the drivers, ran Drive Cleaner Pro and re-installed. Still No-Go.

ASUS P4P800E w/3.2 ghz Prescot
1gb 800mhz ram
ATI 800 XL AGP
SB Audigy 2 Platinum

[brill]

ATi Mobility Radeon 9200 64mb running on a 1.8 ghz pentium M HP pavilion zt3000 laptop. 1 ghz ddr, updated the drivers from HP's site today, no reason this shouldn't work.

And yet...

Run the game, the music and sound play, but all I've got to look at is a blue screen. Hit esc, and click the mouse, and the Civ 4 title screen comes up, except guess what: no menu to choose anything from. So I randomly click under the title, and hear a noise. After trying a whole bunch of things, I figure I should just press enter a whole bunch of times, as that will select whatever is the default on each subsequent menu that I can't see. Finally, the soothing voice of Leonard Nimoy, talking over a blank, black screen. This video finishes (or I esc out of it, it is mad long), and I get to see some litte indian kid's head for about half a second, and then the game just crashes to the desktop - as if it were never running at all. Just right out, no wait or nothing. I can click on **** right away and it runs like there has never been a single system process ever on this computer.

So, in short, WTF? How could the publishers release a game with so many screwups? I hope this company is public and they take a beating on the market for this. Seriously.