REAL FIX for Stuttering Wonder Movies!

[SirSebastian]

I was able to use those options to lessen the minor problems, but when there is severe skipping they don't do much. I can't stand the look of the interlace option though..

[Lithrim]

Sadly, I have never had the AA on anything else than 0. And Ive tried both restarting with 'shift' and completely re-installing the game but nothing seems to help. Still get the stuttering movies. Even though if the patch fixed the intro movie the wonder movies are stuttering.

I have a radeon 9200 with 128 MB. Im using the Omega drivers now, so Im gonna try going back to ATI's catalyst drivers tonight and see if that helps.

Is there any other place I can shut down AA? Been looking around a little but haven't found anything. Or any other setting should shut down. I have tried all the new options in the ini file.

[Mordrul]

I just wanted to report that I followed Xerxes' directions exactly, and it works perfectly for me now. The wonder movies kept stuttering for me, and updating all the Bink and Python and Miles stuff did help smooth it out a little, but not completely. However when I turned AA to 0, then restarted Civ 4 while holding shift (I held it down all the way until the stupid splash movies start), and then started a new game (I have no idea if that is necessary, but I wasn't taking any chances) I built Stonehenge and it went smooth as silk. So this can definitely work for at least some people. My guess is that it will probably only work for people like me, who experienced the skipping only in wonder movies and nowhere else. However that is only a guess, and should not discourage anyone else from trying it. You never know until you try. And if it doesn't work, well, I don't know what to say.



Windows XP Pro SP2
Athlon 64 3000+ on Asus A8N-E motherboard (nForce4)
GeForce 6600GT

[player1]

Changing this option:

; Sync input to smooth interface (may run slower)
SyncInput = 0

to 1 helped me with wonder movies to play smooth.
I guess it could help someone else too.

[SirOsis]

I cleared out my cache and set AA to 0 like described. The movies are smoooooooth. Even at 16x12. Yea!

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Lithrim
Sadly, I have never had the AA on anything else than 0. And Ive tried both restarting with 'shift' and completely re-installing the game but nothing seems to help. Still get the stuttering movies. Even though if the patch fixed the intro movie the wonder movies are stuttering.

I have a radeon 9200 with 128 MB. Im using the Omega drivers now, so Im gonna try going back to ATI's catalyst drivers tonight and see if that helps.

Is there any other place I can shut down AA? Been looking around a little but haven't found anything. Or any other setting should shut down. I have tried all the new options in the ini file.

Kill AA in your video driver settings (right click on desktop->properties->settings->advanced), then go to to (assuming WinXP):
X:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Application Data\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\cache
and delete everything in the folder. I'd recommend just using the Cat drivers...I've been less than impressed with Omegas lately

[Yogurt-in-BC]

Just another confirmation. This fixed the stuttering wonder movie problem for me too. As suggested, I turned off the in-game AA, cleared the cache, and then started using ATI's tools to apply AA.

Sapphire Radeon 9600. Windows XP. (2.6 GHz P4, Asus P4P, 1G RAM.)

Yogurt

[Urban Ranger]

Doesn't do it for me. In fact, I never had it turned on.

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Doesn't do it for me. In fact, I never had it turned on.

Try killing AA in your video driver settings anyway. That did it for me

[Raion]

Video drivers setting for Geforce are automatically off or -- really set to Application Controlled. If totally turning that off -- nothing of which I had to do before -- then it is still the game of Civ IV that is not quite correct. Either the game is not really turning off AA when it states it is at '0' or something else is going on -- and I play any other game - so far -- with using Application Control for AA and that means that AA is off to begin with!

I may try the thing for the stuttering movies of the Wonders now in the game - none of which I had before, but not always -- even though now the opening movie is playing the music fine - although seemingly a bit noisy!

I think I did uninstall the game and re-install the game before patching to 1.09 version, but then I am not sure, so I may try that also! (again)

But in the end -- not all those things work seemingly to me -- as they should within the game -- its self!

But I guess it is something to try!

Also for my Geforce FX5200 card -- using newer drivers not needed for my video card -- ain't gonna necessarily work any better than the other drivers that were playing the game better or the same -- and that was the 78.01 version of the drivers -- because I just do not need better video card drivers -- certainly right now -- I am using the 71.89 version of the drivers -- and I do not like them -- they are the only drivers that switch off and on during start-up of my computer -- three times - when the Main Windows Screen comes on -- other drivers I have used like the 56.72 version or the 78.01 version --- do not do that!

Although the 71.89 version of the drivers work okay -- I never had that happen with video drivers before -- unless it is Windows doing also something there are that point also -- like it does when the security items are done with the password screen -- and that only does it once!

So, perhaps the 81.95 drivers concern part of the OS problems with security also -- taken into account -- but I have not tried them yet, so I do not know!

But, at least during the Wonder movies -- one can click okay and turn it off!

[Garwoofoo]

On my GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, the wonder movies are SIGNIFICANTLY smoother using the 71.89 drivers as opposed to the 8x.xx series. No other changes made.

They're still not perfect, but they're almost watchable now.

[Orky]

I've got an FX5200 128MB, and haven't enabled AA (I've got all the graphics options on low because my computer isn't very fast), and I have severe stuttering in the splash, intro, and wonder movies. The religion establishment movies work fine.

So, I wonder, what exactly is the difference between the religion movies and the wonder movies?

[a couple of minutes pass while I browse the relevant directories]

I see the religion movies are *.dds files, and the wonder (and intro and victory) movies are *.bik files.

So the *.dds files play just fine, but the *.bik files stutter.

Now my question is, why didn't they make all of the movies *.dds files, since people seem to only have problems with the *.bik files?

[TheHateMale]

There are people with crashes on those as well...

Maybe the Bink files were made separately to the Wonder movies? The requirements for the intro/victory movies would have been known almost as soon as the design document was completed, while wonder films would have been settled when most of the game was done/finalised (knowing what films need to be made for, getting a look consistent with the in-game UI...).

Just conjecture, mind.

Plus, the dds files have information overlaid on them when clicked. That might be stored in a separate file though.

[Orky]

I don't get why they couldn't just have used some other method of showing those movies. I'm pretty sure that every computer capable of running Civ4 can play DivX/Xvid and DVD movies just fine. So why did they use Bink Video and its stuttering problems? I've seen this in other games too, I just cannot understand it.

[Kinjiru]

Not going to be applicable for most folks, but I just added an external sound card to my laptop and now all the movies play perfectly. Before I had pretty choppy sound pre-1.09 and very choppy sound/video post-1.09.