Number of copies of game required for home network play

[Robert]

Originally posted by snoopy369
And when did you get Mod powers in here, Cybershy? I must have missed something

A long long time ago in a galaxy far away

@Keygen, I know that in the past it was forbidden to post that stuff. I've had several discussions about that as well, though try to do what the administration wants me to do. After all I'm just a puppet to the governament

I'm sorry.

[kisertn]

The game actually does play on my laptop. In fact, except for graphics that arise a little later in the game, it appears to play fine.

I have seen two kinds of graphics issues. The first is when I played the tutorial. Sid's face was all messed up. I can live with that

The second kind of anomally is in actual gameply where the screen goes black or I am scrolling around my map and parts of it are normal, but then other parts of the map develop what I can only describe as a 3-D kind of look and basically there's no way to see the map in these areas. It's unplayable because there could be something going on in that part of the map and I can't interact with any city or units in that area because I can't see the map to select them.

I first tried running the game on the latest drivers from Dell (which I had installed already). Then, after playing around with all of the graphics resolutions and options (with no luck), I found a utility that allowed me to go to ATI and install the latest drivers they offer on their site. The ATI site does not offer drivers for the Radeon Mobility 9000, they expect you to go to the manufacturer of your laptop and get them. But this utility overrides that check in their driver install software and i was able to install the latest drivers.

But it didn't help. Same problem.

So, in short, the game does work fine for awhile. I am not sure what triggers the problem, but as the map grows I begin to experience problems and it just gets worse and worse as time goes on.

I tried turning down the textures, resolution, lowering all graphics in general, etc etc. The only thing i have not done is change any settings on my video card because I have not come across any recommendations for that (and I have no idea what I would change).

That's the nub of it. One thign that just came to mind is I wonder what would happen if I just played on a small map with my daughter. Maybe it is the size of the map that leads to a problem. Worth a try I suppose.

Oh, and while I am not 100% positive on this, I do believe that my video card does not "share" main memory. I bought it with the understanding that it had 64Mb of RAM dedicated to the video card. I already checked to see if there was some way for me to upgrade the video card, but doesn;t appear so.

My system is a 1.8 GHz Pentium with 2Gb of RAM and this ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 with 64MB of RAM. The computer itself seems to handle the game just fine, it's just the graphics that go wacky after awhile.


-Neil

[Keygen]

Originally posted by CyberShy

@Keygen, I know that in the past it was forbidden to post that stuff. I've had several discussions about that as well, though try to do what the administration wants me to do. After all I'm just a puppet to the governament

I'm sorry.

CyberShy, I understand

Just have in mind that references like that can also prevent people with little knowledge about what is legal and what is not in computer industry, from doing something illegal without their knowledge as well

[Keygen]

kisertn, you probably have done it already but since I haven't seen it written in any of your posts yet I should ask you whether you have installed the latest patch for Civilization 4, version 1.61 that is.

[CanuckSoldier]

You also might want to try the Omega drivers, they are tweaked drivers not supported by ATI ofcourse but they often have better performance than the default company drivers.

Omega ATI drivers

CS

[kisertn]

Yes, I do have 1.61 installed. No improvemnet I am afraid.

And I did play my daughter using the "duel" map and it worked at the beginning, but then just became unplayable as time went on.

I'm headed now to try the Omega drivers!

Thank you all for your suggestions.

-Neil

[Keygen]

At this point, if not already, contacting Firaxis and 2kgames about your issue could be a good idea. They might come up with some better suggestions. They're the developers/distributors after all

[kisertn]

Thanks, I'll do that. I tried Omega drivers and the problem actually became more accute for me - the issues began the moment the game started.

Thanks again for everyone's help, I really appreciate it.

-Neil

[Keygen]

Always happy to help

If you get it fixed please let us know.

[CanuckSoldier]

If you want to send me your DXDiag txt file(I can explain if you don't understand) I can do some research on your system specs and offer suggestions if not solutions.

CS

[kisertn]

Thanks! I see lots of discussions out t here on my video card and Civ4 - but all of the discussion seem to lead nowhere and offer no suggestions that pan out.

-Neil

[CanuckSoldier]

Ok I now know what the issue is at least. Your Mobility Radeon 9000, does indeed support shader version 1(called SmartShader by ATI) however to be fair to Firaxis they state the minimum requirements as a DirectX 9c video card with Transform and lighting support. The 9000 meets the T&L part, but as you can see in the below link it was a DirectX 8.1 card when it was manufactured. So it won't support directX 9 in hardware even though you have diligently installed it in windows. And no doubt here lies your problem with Civ4 graphics. I have seen people use below standard graphics cards if there CPU can make up in software what the card isn't doing in hardware. But unfortunately your Pentium M 1.8 doesn't have the horsepower to do this while it's doing everything else.

ATI comparison chart

Unfortunately upgrade options for labtops are generally slim to none. So you'll likely have to wait until you are prepared to buy a new laptop to play Civ4 on one.

CS

[Beta]

Originally posted by kisertn
This is a strategy game, and it shouldn't be encumbered by such heavy graphics requirements (or they should be optional).

Can't say I disagree - that was my initial take over a year ago. But I have to say, you do get used to the nice graphics.

CanuckSoldier - nice catch.

[CanuckSoldier]

Unfortunately I spent a year with lots of people just like kisertn, thinking there cards were ok at first glance and that Firaxis was screwing them. Since I tested Civ4 for a full year before release and played C3C while doing so, I soon started thinking that Civ3 was archaic to still be using 2d graphics that really were not that much better than Civ2. And really Civ4 only needs a middle of the road 2005 video card.

CS

[kiky]

kisertn :
I play Civ4 on laptop, pentium 1.5Ghz, ATI radion 9000 32MB, 1 GB ram.
Able to play on huge map until around year 1900 (havent try longer than that

The problem I usually had is not enough memory on video card. But this can be solved easily by restart laptop fresh, run game on lowest graphic setting (it is still look good), run no other major application at same time.
I also use 'Static Leader Head mod' to avoid crash when the game shows LeaderHead animation.

Hope that helps.