Fixing Civ4 Problems: START HERE!

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Nikolai
I'm having problems with crashing saves, and thought I'd try the tips here. But it all stops with the motherboard/BIOS part. My Pentium M is not listed...

Well...? I've found out that my BIOS is a PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0, but the home page of that company gives me no updates anywhere as far as I can see. The motherboard thing still is where it was in the previous post. As for now, I can't continue any save, because of the crashes! Only a new game can be played, and while I use less time than some others as far as I can see, I don't use [ithat[/i] little time. I need the saves...

[swat-spas2]

Originally posted by Repairman_Jack
I'm not sure if this matters to anyone, or even if it's already been noted, but I've been playing this game since the day it came out with ZERO problems. But then I updated my video drivers (for my GeForce 6800) and now my map is garbage.

Maybe that information'll help someone.

I had only a food/resource display bug. Bought a newer card (just a 6200, but it has shader support to fix that problem), which did fix that problem. However, I now have game glitches; ie black terrain/cheshire cat, huge slowdowns/hangs immediately following diplo contacts (particularily late game) Presumably this is from updated drivers, but I have been unable even reverting to the older nvidia drivers i was using before to recover from this problem.

[Amicus]

Originally posted by Lord Diamond
. . . error I get half way through the installation before the second disk is requested:

Feature Transfer Error

Feature: Default Feature
Component: Civ4 Component
File: D;\data2.cab
Error: Data Error (cyclic redundancy check)

I too got this error at 80% installation of the first disc. I tried many fixes, which did not work. Eventually I was not even able to load the disc at all. I noticed a small scratch/defect in the back of the CD near the edge, which I suspected was causing the problem. I returned the game and got another. The new CD was clean, and the game installed perfectly.

I wondered if perhaps the scratch was caused by the packaging. The first game I bought was a "Special Edition", which tightly jammed the installation discs in a cardstock sleave. The second game was a normal edition, which packed the discs loosely in a soft-paper envelope.

[Illuminatus]

snoopy369, I also had trouble while attempting to run the game. The problem (besides getting the newest drivers)was in my antivirus software - when I turned it off I could see the game menu. Perhaps you should add this in your OP.

[Targonis]

An addition

During the initial checking of your hardware, where you have that bar that checks XML and sound and so forth before the main game loads, you may have the game suddenly drop to desktop. Turning on debug may indicate that crc.dat is missing as the reason.

Solution: have media player or another application play an audio file while this initial checking goes on. In many cases, the on-board sound drivers arn't working properly, but if sound is playing at the time you try to load the game, you will get past the checking XML stage and the game will load properly.


Problem: You have a laptop or integrated video and the latest video card drivers for your machine arn't compatable with the game.

Solution: You can find updated drivers over at http://www.omegadrivers.net. ATI for example has support for SOME laptops with a mobility Radeon, but not all. The Omega Drivers are tweaked versions of the original that will install for all machines. Note that these drivers may not support every feature of your video, but in most cases will support everything you want/need so it shouldn't be an issue. Make sure you have a copy of the official drivers for your video card available so you can install them again in case the Omega Drivers version doesn't work.

[Nikolai]

Do not install any Omega drivers, it made my computer, and some friends' too, totally unstable. But, I did a search, and found out that some drivers on the company page of ATi can be used on Mobility Radeon cards even though it stands on their pages they don't. I'm currently not near my own machine, so I can't find the link to the page where I read it, but try a search on google, that's what I did.

[marvinkosh]

With any drivers third-party or otherwise, your mileage may vary - if what you install doesn't work, well then you just go back to drivers which you know are good. This is why it's a good idea to have your old drivers handy on the hard disk, in case you can only boot into Safe mode.

By default most driver packages these days unpack onto hard disk so that isn't a worry.

[Ijuin]

I just installed CIV, and the first time I tried to run it, I got the error: "Error in file MSVCR71.DLL". What does this mean and how can I repair it?

[Another Poster]

weird tile resources display

Somebloke wrote:

When i select a settler as my active unit, its supposed to show what resources each tile produces on the map. Unfortunately it shows that almost every tile on the map produces 2 food, whether its a plain or hill (except mountains and desert) although when i pass my cursor over each tile, the tool tip will give me the correct resource ouput for the tile. This also happens when I'm in the city view and/or when I toggle yield dispaly. This is just a visual thing, my city still appears to be using the resources correctly.

I'm having the same problem as well? Anyone found out how this can be fixed yet?

[Moonbars]

Yes, me too - I havn't seen a solution posted anywhere yet.. I've tried unpacking with the unpak utilitiy, upgrading drivers on all manner of things, and playing with different graphics settings, full screen / windowed mode, etc... All I get is the food display.

I was wondering if my art was somehow corrupted, but I dont see how. I wonder if somebody could locate whatever file contains the art for the bread, hammers and coins and post it??

[Calm_Blue_Sea]

Well, If it's not a memory link then this program is certainly one hell of a resource hog! The game runs fine at first (large map, 10 civs), but by about halfway through the game it grinds to a total halt. If I check the task manager it tells me that the program is using nearly 700mb of memory, and this is while it is still playable! Now how can this not be a memory leak; the memory requirement is 256mb! I'm running it on the lowest possible graphics settings, anti-aliasing off, priority above normal, no other programs running, etc. If I keep trying to play it crashes...but not to desktop, it reboots my system! Sometimes the land will go completely black and then afterwards my desktop is screwed up. Last time it crashed/rebooted it removed my desktop wallpaper altogether (my screen is now black). I've played four games, but I'm never able to get more than halfway through.

My Specs:

Pentium4 2.8 GHz
ATI Radeon 9600XT 128mb
1012mb RAM
Windows XP (sp 2)
Creative Soundblaster 24-bit


all have the latest drivers

Love the game, but I'm rapidly losing interest. I actually saw infantry in the last game, it would be nice to finally see a tank!

[marvinkosh]

Try downgrading your (graphics) drivers rather than updating them to resolve crashing. I just visited the ATI site and with a bit of drilling into the menu at the side I found this page which has drivers from last year or so.

Of course this isn't an ideal solution since you may run into problems with other games by using older drivers, but *fingers crossed* haven't run into any trouble using the old 4.12 pack so far.

[Leepants]

ANOTHER closely related site to Firaxis and 2K and ANOTHER "no response" to CTD thread.

My specs are:-

3700+ Athlon 64 San Diego; 2GB matched pair Corsair CL3 RAM; 2 x 250Gb SATA HDDs (both about 80% empty); 1 x 80Gb IDE (?) HDD (about 60% empty); Nvidia 7800GTX graphics card and an AN8 SLi Mobo.

ALL drivers are up to date, as is my XP Pro.

The game gets VERY sluggish around 1950, played single player, Terran map, 6 opponents, 1900 x 1200 resolution (24" Dell TFTs optimum resolution), with a map that is 2nd from largest, then the game just crashes to desktop.

I don't understand much PC speak / tech stuff, so please be nice and keep it relativley simple. Also the virtual memory is as large as I can make it.

Can SOMEONE please help?

Yes, I know companies have to make money, so they WILL shout at all the great reviews the game gets, but PLEASE, its us, the games buying public that keep you in business, so can SOMEONE help us out, here?

Thanks.

[angel13]

Pentium 4 1.6 GHz 1Gbyte RAM NVidea graphics card (sorry don't recall the model).

I've experienced the sluggishness, the screen sometimes turning black and the crashes that everyone else has. I found that the game with the normal sized map was using almost immediately 1 GByte of RAM.

The only thing I found to work was to reduce the size of the world to "Tiny" and then I had no problem whatsoever.

[Calm_Blue_Sea]

I imagine I could get through a game if I set the world size to tiny and only had a few civs. However, I'm into playing epic games on large worlds (it annoyed me just to go from huge to large). I'm willing to endure slow load times, some sluggish play, and even having to downgrade my graphics to the bare minimum. However, I bought the game expecting to be able to play through a large map (or at least a normal sized map). I have a respectable system (see above); well above the requirements. I understand that a patch may take a little while to put together, I just hope it comes soon as the game definately needs one. I guess I'll try a game on a small map, but it's not really my cup of tea...and even then I'm not sure I will be able to finish it.