Announcement

**taybme** · October 30, 2005, 15:10

I thought I would add that I can play the tutorial for a little while before it crashes and i can also load the auto-saves from the tutorial. So it looks like the big problem is the crash during the the load of my personal game settings...

I have tried almost every possible combination of different settings but nothing has changed.

The crashes during actual gameplay seems to be much more common and will most likely be fixed in a patch sometime soon. I just dont know how long i can keep playing the tutorial. I do like the interface so far...

**taybme** · October 30, 2005, 23:29

Sunday
Ok... I just got a game to work. I dont know what I did but somehow it loaded up without the dialogue from Leonard Nimoy. I guess certain game settings allow you to load without his planet speech. I can also play any saved game because that doesnt require Nimoy's speech either.

Because the CTD always happens during Nimoy's dialogue, I have come to the conclusion that Spock is my problem.

-- Maybe there is a Pakbuilder that will put a muzzle on ol' Leonard.

Im being a little facetious, but seriously the game crashes consistently only during that specific period. (Then it crashes randomly throughout game play, but that is pretty consistant with what everybody else is seeing).

**Drachasor** · October 31, 2005, 00:29

I had this problem for a bit, but it seems to be gone now. I reinstalled my video drivers (nvidia card), downloaded all the updates for windows (2000), and downloaded and reinstalled directx. That seemed to fix it.

When my computer crashed during a game load, it would reboot the entire system though. Perhaps our problems were just similar, but different.

-Drachasor

**Bergoren** · October 31, 2005, 01:16

Same problem. Mine is a 50/50 shot between CTD and reboot. Tried all the above stuff. Hope the patch fixes it.

**taybme** · October 31, 2005, 20:01

For all the sympathizers who have been waiting patiently for me to play a game, I give you today's update...

Monday
Today I
- followed snoopy369's guide to solving video and crash problems.
-- updated my motherboard driver
-- updated my sound card driver
-- disabled AGP texture acceleration
-- turned off AntiAliasing
-- changed my virtual memory settings to 2500
-- installed directx 9c from the microsoft website
-- loaded the game up in windowed mode
-- uninstalled the game and restarted my computer
-- reinstalled Civ IV and then did a proper shutdown before ever running the game.

I still have the same problem, with the same crash during the play now load. I have a saved game that will actually run but the moment I meet another nation the game crashes.

-- Be sure to check back for more updates. If you are real quiet you can almost hear the seconds of my life waste away during each computer restart.

If I was smart I would have kept track of how many restarts I have done during the whole process... that could be interesting.

**reboot** · October 31, 2005, 20:56

After running through the many problems folks seem to be having with Civ IV, this is the one closest to the problem I seem to be having. I have a mobility radeon 9200 64 mb, drivers up to date. Everything is beautiful up to the "Play Now." However, once the Nimoy dialogue starts, the cursor freezes up and disappears, screen is black minus 4000 b.c. and a little circular photo of a warrior head. The one time I was able to actually play a game was when, as taybme reported, the nimoy dialogue did not appear - I started a custom game, but in subsequent attempts, Nimoy started talking even during this custom game. I wish I knew how to shut him off, as the start of his dialogue seems to correlate with the freeze requiring a power off of my computer. the only solace I take from this is that once someone figures out this bug, it seems that my computer and it's 64 mb card is capable of handling the game quite well. I'll keep watching for any insights you may have, taybme.

My free time now consists of trying to quickly hit play now before Nimoy starts talking... so far I've only been able to beat him once!

**netvandal** · October 31, 2005, 22:07

I was having the same problem as you reboot. I would get frozen with the 4000BC black screen with a warrior head. I switched to the Omega driver and now it seem crashes, but doesn't freeze the computer, during the loading but before I get to the blank screen. I don't have any advise, but at least you can know you're not the only one.

**taybme** · October 31, 2005, 23:08

Finally somebody to share my pain. Slowly the rest of the poor and disenfranchised will show up

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him.

And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both [intimate friends] and they won't take either of them.

And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization.

And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement."

**netvandal** · November 1, 2005, 20:49

OK, I've gotten it working (mostly). Its stable and playable up to a standard map size. It doesn't crash but is really slow on the large map size. On the huge map size, it didn't really lock up, but I got tired of waiting for it to load after 5 minutes so I killed it.

FYI, I have a Sony laptop with a Pentium M 1700, 512MB Ram, and ATI Radeon Mobility 9200 with 32MB Ram. Yes, it is working with less then the required video RAM.

Here's what finally got it working:

1. Followed the pakbuild solution.
2. Installed the latest beta Omega drivers 2.6.75a (http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati/win2k_xp.php)
3. Changes the following settings in the CivilizationIV.ini file:
AllowScreenShots = 0
FullScreen = 0
DynamicAnimPaging = 0
AutoSaveInterval = 20
ScreenHeight = 600
ScreenWidth = 800
LoggingEnabled = 1

And now it works, at least enough for me to play. Hope this helps. Good Luck.

**taybme** · November 1, 2005, 22:32

Well, I am getting closer... with netvandal's changes, I no longer crash to desktop. The game still freezes up while Nimoy is speaking but because the game doesnt crash, I get to hear his dialogue all the way through. I just cant do anything with my computer. I essentially have to restart.

Tuesday
Today I
- changed various settings in the Civilization.ini
- watched the latest episode of Rome

I am a bit demoralized about the whole game... I think I am going to wait for the patch before I invest large amounts of time to fixing everything.

**taybme** · November 2, 2005, 16:49

Yesterday I was convinced I wouldnt try to play until the first big patch came out, but I couldnt stay away and I had to try at least a quick attempt to get the game to work. I failed and am still waiting for something...

Wednesday
- I played with the civilization.ini file some more but havent been able to move past the same issues.
- I had some free time so I went to IGN.com and read their review and looked at the screenshots.

pathetic I know...

**Drachasor** · November 2, 2005, 19:10

If you can get him to start talking, hasn't the "play" button come up? Can you not hit that?

You could try disabling your audio card. If that doesn't fix it, then it isn't an audio problem.

You can also try older drivers for the video card. Sometimes older ones can work better for some applications.

-Drachasor

**taybme** · November 2, 2005, 20:47

Thanks for your comments but the audio isnt the problem. I tried uninstalling the audio driver back when I redid my motherboard drivers. Looking back at my previous posts I dont see it there, but I did try it.

I havent tried to roll back my driver though, but I dont think I am going to. Im done playing with the drivers. They are going to stay as they are. I have loaded and unloaded them so many times.

ohhh and no I never get to see the play button. Nimoy talks before the play button should appear and the load gets to "done" and then he keeps talking while the screen goes black.

**reboot** · November 2, 2005, 21:21

It varies for me. Sometimes I can get the play now button, sometimes I don't. When it's there, I think I can usually click it. But invariably, the black screen appears, the warrior head appears, there is notification that I have "joined the game," sometimes there is an autosaving, and then everything freezes up.

Unfortunately, I rely on my computer for too many important things to be playing with drivers. I'll just have to wait and play the few "autosaved" games that seemed to show up, and wait for an official patch. Have actually made it into the 1900's when playing saved games that don't require the Nimoy patch before things start bogging down too badly - did notice that after that point, when quitting, computer became very slow and necessitated a restart.

Announcement

Crash during "Play Now" load

Crash during "Play Now" load

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