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Hi,
I'm a happy veteran of Civs 1 to 3 but having major problems getting Civ 4 running. I know my way round PCs and I've tried everything I can find here and over at Civ Fanatics that seems anywhere near relevant, but no success.
SYMPTOM:
The game freezes on the red and white 2K logo with stuttering sound, locking up the machine.
SYSTEM:
Asus motherboard, circa 2002.
AMD Athlon 2.0 GHz
1GB RAM.
150GB disk, 130GB free, checkdisked and defragged.
PNY Geforce 6200 256MB AGP graphics card.
Creative Audio PCI sound card, circa 1999 OR on-board sound
350W PSU
Win XP Pro, SP2, auto-update on.
I bought the graphics card to play Civ 4 - reading posts here it seems it wasn't the best I could have bought, but that it should work.
I put the sound card in (and disabled the on-board sound in BIOS) because I was concerned this might be the problem, but the symptom was the same. I also tried with no sound but the symptom was still the same - minus the stuttering sound
- but as someone pointed out somewhere, 'no sound' is outside the minimum hardware spec. Of course it could be that my onboard sound and the Creative Audio card are both too old. The game spec calls for a Direct X 7 compatible sound card - how do I check a card for that compatibility?
WHAT I'VE TRIED SO FAR
* Updated the Geforce 6200 to the 81.98 drivers (removing old drivers and disabling virus checking first)
* Tried to use card-specific drivers instead of Nvidia generic, but PNY don't have them, their site just links to NVidia.com
* Patched Civ 4 to 1.52
* Tried different sound card/no sound as described above
* Turned AGP texture acceleration off in dxdiag
* Turned hardware acceleration off in dxdiag
* Turned 'Disable all cursor and advanced drawing operations' off under hardware acceleration from the desktop properties (the game will not attempt to start on any lower setting than this)
* Turned 'enable write combining' off
* Turned anti-aliasing off
* Created a separate Windows user and attempted to run the game under it
* Uninstalled the game, rebooted and re-installed from scratch
My dxdiag is attached.
My init.log reads:
[324.750] DBG: FILE Cat Init
[334.796] DBG: Using XML cache
[334.812] DBG: Game Init
[334.812] DBG: Multiplayer Init
[335.062] DBG: Audio Init
[336.187] DBG: ArtFileMgr Init
[336.187] DBG: Python Init
[340.312] VERSION: CIV Version: 0
[340.312] VERSION: Save Version: 100
[340.312] DBG: Input Init
[340.312] DBG: Engine Init
[344.406] DBG: Engine: Axis Engine Initialized
[344.406] DBG: Engine: Scene Graph Initialized
[344.562] DBG: Engine: Shaders Initialized
[344.796] DBG: Engine: Scene Lights Initialized
[344.968] DBG: Music Start
[345.015] DBG: Font Init
[345.125] DBG: Total Frame MS: 21578.0 FPS: 000 Min:000 Max:000 Avg:000 SampleFilter:10.000000
Time : Ave : Min% : Max% : Num : Profile Name
-----------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
[345.125] DBG: Begin MenuManager
Any help would be very gratefully received!!
Thank you,
Steve
I'm a happy veteran of Civs 1 to 3 but having major problems getting Civ 4 running. I know my way round PCs and I've tried everything I can find here and over at Civ Fanatics that seems anywhere near relevant, but no success.
SYMPTOM:
The game freezes on the red and white 2K logo with stuttering sound, locking up the machine.
SYSTEM:
Asus motherboard, circa 2002.
AMD Athlon 2.0 GHz
1GB RAM.
150GB disk, 130GB free, checkdisked and defragged.
PNY Geforce 6200 256MB AGP graphics card.
Creative Audio PCI sound card, circa 1999 OR on-board sound
350W PSU
Win XP Pro, SP2, auto-update on.
I bought the graphics card to play Civ 4 - reading posts here it seems it wasn't the best I could have bought, but that it should work.
I put the sound card in (and disabled the on-board sound in BIOS) because I was concerned this might be the problem, but the symptom was the same. I also tried with no sound but the symptom was still the same - minus the stuttering sound
- but as someone pointed out somewhere, 'no sound' is outside the minimum hardware spec. Of course it could be that my onboard sound and the Creative Audio card are both too old. The game spec calls for a Direct X 7 compatible sound card - how do I check a card for that compatibility?WHAT I'VE TRIED SO FAR
* Updated the Geforce 6200 to the 81.98 drivers (removing old drivers and disabling virus checking first)
* Tried to use card-specific drivers instead of Nvidia generic, but PNY don't have them, their site just links to NVidia.com
* Patched Civ 4 to 1.52
* Tried different sound card/no sound as described above
* Turned AGP texture acceleration off in dxdiag
* Turned hardware acceleration off in dxdiag
* Turned 'Disable all cursor and advanced drawing operations' off under hardware acceleration from the desktop properties (the game will not attempt to start on any lower setting than this)
* Turned 'enable write combining' off
* Turned anti-aliasing off
* Created a separate Windows user and attempted to run the game under it
* Uninstalled the game, rebooted and re-installed from scratch
My dxdiag is attached.
My init.log reads:
[324.750] DBG: FILE Cat Init
[334.796] DBG: Using XML cache
[334.812] DBG: Game Init
[334.812] DBG: Multiplayer Init
[335.062] DBG: Audio Init
[336.187] DBG: ArtFileMgr Init
[336.187] DBG: Python Init
[340.312] VERSION: CIV Version: 0
[340.312] VERSION: Save Version: 100
[340.312] DBG: Input Init
[340.312] DBG: Engine Init
[344.406] DBG: Engine: Axis Engine Initialized
[344.406] DBG: Engine: Scene Graph Initialized
[344.562] DBG: Engine: Shaders Initialized
[344.796] DBG: Engine: Scene Lights Initialized
[344.968] DBG: Music Start
[345.015] DBG: Font Init
[345.125] DBG: Total Frame MS: 21578.0 FPS: 000 Min:000 Max:000 Avg:000 SampleFilter:10.000000
Time : Ave : Min% : Max% : Num : Profile Name
-----------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
[345.125] DBG: Begin MenuManager
Any help would be very gratefully received!!
Thank you,
Steve