I'm dumb. Help please

[Cyrus The Mike]

here's the problems

1. I can't see any ground. I can't see hills mountains or water. It's all black. I can see trees, rivers, towns, units, and the outline of the cost (of the sea)

2. (my computer sucks like crap so it all runs the same) after an hour a box comes up that says "Memory Allocation Error" (im 99% shure it says that). If you need details ask. (I don't know how to do screenshots)

this is just a complaint. 3 I can't run Greek World but can run any other mod. whats the prob???

help please I wan't a great gaming experiance, insted the poor one I have now.

[Petek]

We'll need more information before we can help you.

1. Which game do you have: the original Civ 4 or the Warlords expansion pack?

2. If you have the original Civ 4, have you installed the most recent patch (1.61)? If not, you should do so. You can download it here.

3. If installing the patch doesn't help (or you already installed it), please post your DXDIAGS file (which contains detailed information about your system). Here's how to do so:

* Click on the START menu, select RUN and type in DXDIAG and select OK.
* When the DirectX Diagnostic tool opens and finishes sorting (blue bar will disappear), click on the "SAVE ALL INFORMATION..." button on the lower right, next to the "EXIT" button.
* Save the DxDiag.txt to your desktop or other easily found location.
* Attach it using the Attach Files option when you reply.

[Cyrus The Mike]

ok I downloaded the patch and installed it to civ4. but the words when I load the game the menu looks like this .::::.::.....:.::.: Its all dots is there another patch??? because this one doesn't work.

[Petek]

Originally posted by Cyrus The Mike
ok I downloaded the patch and installed it to civ4. but the words when I load the game the menu looks like this .::::.::.....:.::.: Its all dots is there another patch??? because this one doesn't work.

Version 1.61 is the most recent patch and it works fine on most systems.

Please post your DXDIAG file. The instructions for doing this are in item #3 of my last post. Let me know if you need any help with this.

Petek

[Cyrus The Mike]

this is it. does it work?

[Petek]

Yes, that was the file I was looking for.

Unfortunately, your system does not meet the minimum requirements to run Civ 4. You have 352MB of system RAM (minimum is 512MB for Windows XP) and only 32MB of video RAM (minimum is 64MB). You might be able to get by with less system RAM, but your video card (S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR) is way underpowered. This is probably what is causing all your problems. Time for either a new system, or an upgrade of your current one.

Sorry I couldn't have better news.

Petek

[terminal1]

Do me!

I Can´t see the grounds either.
Is my system not powerfull enough too?
Maybe you won´t be able to read because it appears to be in portuguese... but that is okay...

[Kloreep]

Actually, looks like it's in English to me.

I'm no expert, but I can see you're a little short in some areas. Specifically, you have integrated intel video. From what I hear, Intel video is not nearly as supportive of games as they claim it is. That may well be your problem.

You also don't quite have the 512 MB system RAM required for XP, but you do have 478 MB so I'm not sure how big a problem that would be.

[Solver]

At terminal1:

The RAM is fine. 478 MB is okay to play. The problems are the CPU and the video card. An integrated Intel video won't run Civ4 - patches or not, although the very newest Intels can run it - somewhat. This one can't. And, a 1.3 GHz Celeron, while playable, will result in somewhat poor performance, late-game particularly.

[terminal1]

It works now!

I´ve installed the 1.61 patch. The game actually works. I can´t see the videos ( the intro or the ones when you create a wonder etc.) But the game runs fine.

Thanks anyway!

[Solver]

That's most weird. Even our list of supported video cards says that this card can't run Civ4:

852/855: Does not support T+L

[cakesy]

I run civ4 on a thinkpad T42, which has a ATI 7500 card with 32MB ram, not problems. I think this 64MB limit is a bit weird.

[Targonis]

There are several things that people need to understand when it comes to game compatibility.

First, you MUST have the version of DirectX(or OpenGL for games that use it) that is required. Even if you have the version required on the box(DirectX 9.0c), there are different versions of 9.0c. The version on the CD will always give you the version needed for the game.

Next, you need to have drivers for your video and sound "cards" that support what is needed by the game. In some cases, you will have the latest drivers and they will provide the support needed, even if your card doesn't have hardware support.

On that same topic, DirectX 9 support in hardware is very different from DirectX 9 compatability. In the case of DirectX 9 support in hardware, the card can handle the work itself, and the drivers don't need to do much. If the card doesn't support DirectX 9 in hardware(Radeon cards below 9500 or Geforce cards below 5200), then the drivers could theoretically provide enough support to allow games to run. It will be much slower than having the game handle DirectX on the video card, but it will work.

As an addition requirement, you will see games require a certain amount of video memory. What complicates the issue is that almost every video card(or chip) will have access to main system memory to compensate for any shortage of video memory. I've seen video cards with only 8 megs of memory on them run games that required 64 megs of video memory. As a part of the BIOS settings on every computer, there is normally a setting that shows how much main system memory can be used by your video card. So, a video card with only 32 megs of memory can be given access to an additional 256 megs of main system memory if you want it to. You obviously will need to have that much memory "go away" though, so if you have 512 megs of main system memory and your video card takes 64 megs, that will leave you with 448 megs of system memory. If your video card is set to take 128 megs of main system memory, then you have 384 megs of system memory.

Almost every system with integrated video provides NO dedicated memory for the video, so any video takes away from main system memory. In many cases, this will put you under the minimum amount of memory needed to run the game well.

So, on to the next place to get memory. Windows will automatically use your hard drive for additional memory. Hard drive space used for memory is refered to as virtual memory. You can tell Windows how much virtual memory it can or should use, but no matter what, if you run low on hard drive space, this mechanism can break down and your system may have problems.

So, generally, you want your video card to have 128 megs of it's own memory, then 512 megs of system memory as a bare minimum. Having more system memory will compensate, but many games want 1 gig(1024 megs) of memory in addition to the video memory, which is why you hear about people with 2 gigs of main system memory.

In the case of Intel video, the latest GPUs don't necessarily provide full hardware support for DirectX 9, but they partially compensate by having the drivers provide the support that the hardware lacks.

If something breaks in all of this, be it a lack of main system memory, or bad drivers, running out of hard drive space, or having Windows incorrectly set to limit virtual memory to a value that is too low, you can get the crash to desktop problem.

In general, laptop owners end up on the short end of the stick because as I mentioned, most integrated video has no dedicated video memory, and you have no option to add a new video card with it's own memory.

Desktop computers tend to provide either an AGP or PCI-Express slot, so if you have integrated video but have one of these slot types, you CAN upgrade your video. Before you try to upgrade, check that you have an appropriate slot since some computers don't provide an AGP or PCI-Express slot.


I know I rambled a bit here, it's been a long day, but this information may be useful.