1BC Civ Forums / Civilization IV Discussion / I Need Help! / CivIV Technical Issues

Please help: civ4 install error

Milpitano — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 14:39:44 GMT

Hi.

I'm new but this is old news. After loading I get this msg.

Error Code: -5004 : 0x80041f42

Error Information:

*C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\Professional\RunTime\12\00\Intel32\iKernel.dll

>inc\CoCreate.cpp (44)

>SetupDLL\SetupDLL.cpp (1390)

PAPP:Sid Meier's Civilization 4

PVENDOR:Firaxis Games (##IDS_PRODUCT_URL##)

PGUID:CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8

$11.0.0.28844

@Windows Service Pack 2 (6002) IE 7.0.6002.18005

Again, please help.

Civ IV Keeps Crashing

BryanAJParry — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 05:27:19 GMT

Hi there, guys,

I'm new here, but I've been a long-time fan of Civ. I went off games for a few years, but have recently got back into gaming. Hence I only just bought Civ IV.

Anyway, I have a problem.

Civ IV runs smooth, it starts up fine, and I can browse the civilopedia (before the start of a game) for hours on end with no trouble. However, [b]as soon as I start a game (including the tutorial), after a varying period of time -- never more than maybe 15 minutes -- the game crashes my PC, freezing the screen and requiring me to restart.[/b]

Now, I'm not sure why this is. I hope someone can help me out and let me know what I need to do to resolve this. I mean, if I couldn't play the game at all, ok, no problem, but actually playing it for a few turns and then having it crash-- the torment of tantalus, or what??
[b]
Anyway, my processor and video card specs are:

Intel Pentium Dual
ATI RadeonX1650 series, 512MB memory E2160 @ 1.8 GHz 3GHz 2GB of RAM[/b]

Now, bear in mine that I am a complete dunce when it comes to computers, so it could be something very basic I'm overlooking.

I hope someone can help me. I desperately want to play this game (for more than a quarter of an hour!).

:)

Vista conflicts

Contempofolk — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:06:10 GMT

I just bought a computer with Vista as the OS. I installed CivIV and the latest patch.

When I bring up CivIV it goes through the initiation files fine until the end. A blank screen appears where the startup icon is and when I click on it a message appears that the shader libraries could not be opened.

The shader libraries appear to be .fx files, which I could not find on Vista's list of file extensions. Does anyone know how to fix this problem?

Thanks

No servers?

Omaha — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:51:23 GMT

Please please please help me!

I recently bought the game and when i try to play online there are no servers, for beyond the sword or warlords. I have patched it please help me!

Now you see it, now you don't

kangell — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 21:20:51 GMT

I've been fortunate in that I haven't experienced the technical difficuties that many have. But one thing is driving me crazy!

I love the feature of hovering your pointer over an item and it displays information. Particularly when choosing something to build or a new area to research. But I'd say a third of the time, it doesn't work. For instance, when a city completes a building and asks what to build next, I can usually hover over each selection and it will tell me the benefits. But a part of the time....nothing.

Not only do I miss the convenience of this, the CIVPEDIA is almost useless. Anyone else experiencing this problem?

i have vista sp1

joshr162 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 11:43:26 GMT

when i try to run civilization for the first time i wont load i get a shade error and the program shutdown

Failed initializing Python

Iggidy — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:02:11 GMT

I just bought The Gold Edition. Right after installing I played through an entire eight hour warlords game without any problems. The next day I tried to play, and after clicking on Warlords the game begins to load before telling me there is a fatal error: failed initializing python. Interestingly enough I can still start and play Civ IV vanilla.

After looking through the forums it seems that Python is some kind of program I may need to download, but that doesn't explain why the game worked the first time and vanilla still works.

I'm flirting with reinstalling the game but decided to check for advice first. Any help will be appreciated.

Error with Feb GotM

DumbDaddy — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:00:37 GMT

Don't know what sort of problem I have.

Downloaded "A Czar is Born" and when i attempted to open the game, a popup told me "Cannot load verions 301; expected version 300 or lower"

Really rather confused by this ... it appeared to be looking for an EARLIER version?

Thought I might try downloading the most recent patch if I needed it ... and that opened a whole new can of worms:

1. when I tried search for updates, it said that I needed to download the latest patch. When I did so, I got no install popups. But the game froze, telling me that I had to wait for it to finish downloading the update. After a half hour, I gave up. I tried it again, and let it run for 3 hours; still said it was busy downloading the update.

2. Went directly to firaxis to download the patch. did so in less than a minute, installed it in five. Tried opening the saved game, I got the same popup.

3. Tried searching for updates again: See #1.

4. The game still plays fine, otherwise.

When I click on "About this Build" I get the following:

Civ version: 300

Save version: 300

Build Version: 3.0.0.86 (74099)

Date: June 28, 2007 (FINAL RELEASE)

Any thoughts?

Gold Edition In-Game Crashes

Hank — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:18:11 GMT

Got around to buying the Gold Edition (since my original Civ IV disk was damaged) and I've run into the same problem with in-game, random crashes as with the original IV. However, one of the solutions to the problem on Original IV is no longer available, or so it seems. I read on one of the forums to delete the cache folder before re-starting the game and playing a session. This worked like a charm. Tried to do it with this edition except I cannot find a cache folder in the 2K directory. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Civ4 Gold Ed game crashes

holdenfan18 — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:42:31 GMT

Hi there, I just recently brought the Civilization IV Gold Edition which includes the Warlord expansion. I have a problem with the game and I have ensured everything is updated, graphic driver, game patches, etc but the problem still persist.

The problem is everytime I play the game it sometime passes through the introduction graphic, sometime it freezes. Everytime when I play a single game, once I completed a wonder the wonder graphic come up and eventually freezes and crashes. After a few minutes, a error box appears titled Windows - Display Driver Stopped Responding. The error box states that "the nv4_disp display driver has stopped working normally. Save your work and reboot the system to restore full display functionality. The next time you reboot the machine a dialog will be displayed giving you a chance to upload data about this failure to Microsoft."

I checked to see if I meet the game requirements and I have met the requirements. My graphic driver is brand new: brand NVIDIA G-Force 6200 XFX AGPx8 128 MB Video Card. I have a pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz with 2GB RAM. Windows XP Home edition fully updated with Service pack 3. Latest DirectX 9.0 with 74.5 GB of space left.

Install errors on patch 1.74

MrMentallo — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:50:16 GMT

I've downloaded this one twice and I can't uninstall or re-install the game or patch. I get error 1704 saying No Valid Source can be found for Sid Meyer's Civilization 4. The Windows installer cannot continue. Can anyone help me out?

Can't Get 1.61 Patch to Work

Wonder — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:48:17 GMT

I downloaded it into the Civ IV folder, but when I try to execute it, it says, "The setup has detected that no version of Civ 4 is installed. This update requires that a previous version of the application be installed."

This makes no sense. The game is installed, I've been in it, but want the startup to run more smoothly and a Earth scenario that's normal, not huge.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Installing Direct2Drive Version

nakajo — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:43:11 GMT

I just bought the 3 pack on Direct2Drive, and installed the main game. It wont let me run the game because of an error involving msvcr71.dll. I am not super techie, does anyone know a step by step process to fix this error? Thanks.

Resolution change problem

ponury — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:01:36 GMT

I can't change resolution in the game, it's preset to 1024x768. Even changing the ini file does not help. Is there any way to solve this problem?

Install only in German

Ornlo — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:29:20 GMT

when I tried to install CIV 4 i got to the option that ask me which language I wanted to install it in. I selected English, and when i selected the folder i wanted to install it in and start the installation, the computer gave me a message that said somthing about Access Denied. I selected security in the properthies-box to check if any of the files were hocked 'deny' but none was. first atempt was straigt from the DVD, the second try I copyed all the files from the DVD to the Disk, but still gives me the same message. It worked before

any suggestions?

Ps: I found out that I can still install the german version of Civ 4, and that my limited german is enough to have fun.:)

I can't Run Civ IV anymore!

PreLynMax — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:56:09 GMT

Since I upgraded my Direct X driver yesterday, and when I try to launch Civ 4, the screen flickers, and I get this error:

[IMG]http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e313/prelynmax/ERROR.png[/IMG]

Now I can't run the stupid game anymore!

HELP!

P.S.., I tried reinstalling BTS, and it still does that!

Installation Error

OhNoYouSquidn't — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:57:11 GMT

Hi on my gold edition of Civilization IV I get this error when I'm installing Disc 3. Can anybody help me? Thanks in advance.

Can't Play

Guerilla surgeon — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:58:17 GMT

Some time ago Civilization 4 refused to play on my machine (after a month of happily working) telling me that "the handle is invalid". I never found a solution for this problem, particularly as it would not let me uninstall, and continued to play Civ. 3. However I have just had a clean reinstall of Windows XP professional. (Unfortunately because of a problem with Zone Alarm.) While reinstalling Civ. 3, upon insertion of disk 2 the computer locked up and I had to do a forced reboot. Now I have the contents of disk 1 on the computer and cannot uninstall them. The computer tells me it has uninstalled them but the files are still there. I would really appreciate it if anyone had an answer to this problem. However I do have Civilization 4 which I now dare not install for fear of another 'invalid handle' whatever that is. Is there anything I should download, or do before I try to install this program? Please keep it simple, I am old, I have a cold, I have just had to reinstall all my cherished programmes, and I am not up to complex at the moment, if ever.

i cant play more than 18civs(warlords) wtf help me out

gagemo — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:02:24 GMT

ya I just dowloaded a map called earth 24 civs for warlords I think it was made by a Rhye, if that helps any. well every time I try to play it with 24 civs it crashes I can play with 18 civs but thats it. Some one told me it was cause of some dll thing. Im not that tech smart so if any 1 can just explain to me how to fix it so I can play 24 civs on this map and be Japan I would realy love it.:D

Problem

Ralin Vorn — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:51:54 GMT

Civ 4 runs fine on my computer, but i'm having an issue with Beyond the Sword. It installs fine, but when i try to run it it closes with a windows error right after the engine launches. I meet all the recommended system requirements and everything. I thought the CD was corrupted but i returned it for a different one and it's still happening. Has anyone else had this problem, and if so, were you able to fix it?

CFG: Failed to initialise the primary control Theme

rat — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:06:28 GMT

Fully patched, all drivers fully updated. Using Vista. I get the following error when the game tries to start up (along with the loading bar during the Init phase looking odd, which it never finishes)

GFC: Failed to initialise the primary control Theme'

I know there are several threads on other forums regarding this but those sites seem to no longer be operating. Any help is appreciated.

Game crashes

Gen. white — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:15:16 GMT

Alright, well in short, I recently receive Civilization 4; Beyond the Sword, the first few games I played as some of the newer civs they introduced and then I went back to good ole' England. After this I went to Rome, this is where it gets interesting, I was moving an Attack Sub when the game crashed. It gave me two messages, one saying the game has asked Runtime to end the program in an unusual way, and the other telling me the graphics failed to load. I thought it might be just a glitch in the game, but when I went back I played a couple of turns and then the game crashes and I receive the same two messages. I then decided it would be best to start another game. I was Rome this time and I was doing fine until I hit the 100- Turns. At turn 94 the game crashes again. I am now saving every turn, and the game keeps on crashing. If there is a patch or a way to fix this please tell me. I will get a screen shot and the messages on this post later today.

P.S. Hey to everyone that I know!

Hall fo Fame not registering scores

Anne the Dane — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:23:21 GMT

Hi

I hav been playing CIV now for longer than I care to remember, all the versions, and many of the additions.

I have CIV 4 and now Beyond the Sword and they are both brilliant. I have the problem that when I finish a game, my score does not come up on the Hall of Fame, it remains empty. I check my replay files, and they are all of 0 kb. I cannot upload the file, as it is empty.

Does anyone else have that problem?

I can still enjoy the game, but it is more fun when you can compare scores.

I have Windows XP.

Thanks in advance
Anne the Dane

No End Game

Locus Coeruleus — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:27:58 GMT

I first mentioned the game hanging up on me in the Road to War thread, and now I notice it is happening in regular epic games too.

What will happen is that as the game reaches later and later stages, such as when the whole map is revealed and there is a lot going on, the game itself will start to sputter, there will be pauses, on the map view, everything will disappear for a second or two except the terrain, and then it will resume, and this will happen more and more frequently. And after several instances of this happening, the screen will just go black. It won't freeze or crash my computer, the game music is still playing in the background, but the video just goes kaput. What I have to do is bring up the Ctl-Alt-Delete and manually force-quit Civ4, reboot my system and so on.

So my question is this, it seems to be strictly a graphical issue that is caused by the game hogging up too much resources. Well, when I go to force-quit the game, I will see that Civ4 is using up 500Mb of Memory, well I have 1Gigabyte.

But what can I do to minimize the impact of the graphics to prevent this from happening? I have a hard enough time finishing games as it is, this only makes it worse. I am going to post some of the options menus (with current settings). If someone could kindly tell me what settings I should have, that would greatly help. On my last two attempted sessions, I couldn't even get in 10 turns before it would hang-up as I described.

[URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/1530/civ4screenshot0024bt7.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/8641/civ4screenshot0025li4.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Also, on my computer, I have one of these new monitors that is a flat screen, and everytime I turn the monitor on it says the recommended resolution is 1680 X 1050, 60 Hz, and that the current settings are 1024 x 768, 60 Hz. On the Display Properties settings it tells me that my color quality is 32 bit (Highest).

I have an nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card that I bought and installed last fall.

Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Cheers,

LC.

locate cd rom

skymonkey — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:26:55 GMT

hi peeps,
im having problems loading the game keeps telling me to

"please insert the correct cd-rom, select ok and restart application"

looked into it abit but people were saying its a problem with disc 1 and 2
but i only ever had the 1 disc which is the a dvd rom not a cd rom
but it has loaded up before and played with no problems,
just abit lost to why its starting this

if anyone could help would be much obliged

Question

Celtic Conquistador — Sat, 24 May 2008 01:46:52 GMT

Civ 3 and its expansions run flawlessly on my system as it is. It's the only game I have installed on it. It's an older model PC, about 4-6 years old, with NO upgrades. I have Windows XP. It is a Pentium 4. That's about all I can say about it, as I know very little about computers. I was just wondering, would a system like this, capable of running Civ 3 at peak performance, be able to handle Civ 4? I don't want to spend the money on Civ 4 and it turns out it doesn't even work.

Civ IV Lock up Issue Help

BJohnson — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:47:39 GMT

I have been having a major issue with my Civ IV game. It seems the more complicated the game, especially E-mail based games, the more likely it is to give me the Blue screen of death. (Locks up until I get the Blue Screen telling me to shut down and restart. )
I have the latest patch, re-installed the game, and upgraded my video drivers. It seems to do it at the very end of the turn, while the other 'nations' make their move. I play it via E-mail, and it's getting to the point where I can barely play the game if there is too much going on.
In another game, freshly started, where there is not much action, it seems fine....
I can generally play a normal game vs computer without issue, but play by e-mail, and it gives me fits.

I have turned down the graphics, shut down most every other background programs, I usually run a registry cleaner to make sure there is no errors, yet it continues to be a problem.
HELP!!!!!

Thanks all,

Oh, particulars,
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~1862 Mhz Dell Computer
Intel Core 2 CPU @ 1.83 GHz speed
1 GB Physical Memory
NVIDIA GeForce 7300LE with 512 meg memory...
Plenty of Hard drive space....

Help w/reinstallation

-M- — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:55:31 GMT

I was trying to install CIV but wizard froze on second disc. I restart the computer. I pop the second disk wizard douse not start. I pop the 1st disk it does not give me install option. It just says "play". I go looking for CIV folder on the comp but cannot find it, not does CIV show up in add/remove utility. Is there a solution? This is CIV w/out any expansions.

Windows Vista Issues

mumblez — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 22:03:51 GMT

I am currently running Windows Vista RC 1 Build 5600. I was running XP before and did not have any trouble playing Civ 4. My graphics card is an ATI Radeon 9250 256mb card, I ran the patch updates for Civ 4 and made sure my card has the latest drivers and none of this seemed to work.

When I try to run the game is crashes and I get a blue screen that only stays on for a second or two and then restarts the computer, I'll try to write down what it says exactly.

I'm basically wondering if anyone else has had this problem and if I'll have to upgrade to a retail copy of Windows Vista or if someone knows what to do to fix this problem. Thanks in advance.

Direct IP Connection

ozwego — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:38:49 GMT

I have my buddies IP address. He set up the room. I tried to join his match before lauch twice, then once after launch and we still could not get a game going through Direct IP Connection. Am I missing something? :hehe:

Installation Issue - Which Executable To Use

Bogz — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:29:10 GMT

Hello all. I finally decided to give this game a try. So, I went all out and bought the gold edition and the sword expansion. I had a problem right at the end of the installation for both games, some kind of windows firewall list update error. The games still appear to have installed fine, but I didn't get a folder in my start menu / program group list or a desktop short-cut. So, now I am confused because I am not sure which executable I should use to get the full content of all 3 games. There are executables for civ4, warlords, and sword in the various directories, and each one can launch. Which one should I be using to get the content of all 3 games when I start a new game? My guess would be the one for sword, but I just want to make sure.

saving problems plz help

aChiles24 — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:00:11 GMT

i got the exp pack warlords and install it . every time im tring to save the game i got error msg

the install open up a new dir C:\Users\my user name\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Saves\single

Help

33190142 — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:22:08 GMT

i have installed the game on my laptop which runs on windows vista home premium! it will not let me run the game though after installation is complete! how do i get it to work? and what is the problem? does anyone know?

Black Land revisited

dglewwe — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:17:08 GMT

I have re-installed CivIV and once again run into the black land issue, where the terrain is all in black. When I first had this problem I searched the net and found a solution (this was a couple of years ago) where someone suggested doing something in a file where the map was set at "1" or "0" or something to that effect. I am a pooter idiot and I don't remember if it was in a the map editor file or what. maybe bitmap? Can anyone help me with the black land issue? I have the regular Civ IV game from 2005. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I cannot Load a Saved Game

blackkdark — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:17:28 GMT

Okay, I played the game, and saved it. But later when I went to reopen the game I got this:
[IMG]http://i10.tinypic.com/87kke3r.jpg[/IMG]

Kind of at wit's end at trying to fix this. It's not the Driver, it's not the C++ thing we're using, since we checked that.

civ 4 wont patch

th3flyboy — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:48:28 GMT

hey i just got civ 4 complete today on dvd (currently its only available in europe or through import, i got it import), when i try to patch the game it says it cannot find the install and just quits, when i try to auto patch in game it says i have the latest version even though i know i don't, the directory is E:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete

and the system specs are

os: windows vista ultimate x86

cpu: intel core 2 quad q6600

mobo: xfx nforce 680i lt sli

vid card: geforce 8500 gt

can someone please help me, its still at rtm versions and i really got to patch.

Out of Sync Errors when playing on LAN

mystri — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:55:38 GMT

We bought Civ IV for our entire family and just recently updated everyone to Warlords, then Beyond the Sword, I have installed all the latest patches on all 5 of our games however we have been having a lot of trouble with sync issues while playing togther through our LAN.

Three of the computers can stay sync'ed up no problem, but if we add either of two of the computers to any game it throws sync errors. (It is very specific to my computer and our youngest sons computer; our two older sons and my SO can play together with no problems.) It does not matter who hosts the game either, the sync issues on the 2 systems persist. None of us have any trouble playing single player games at all. None of us play online games so I am not sure if that is working. I have never read about the Direct IP play so I don't know if that is working either.

We all have newer computers (within the last year or so) and all of the games were installed on the computers at the same time. All 10 of the expansion packs (Warlords & BTS) were downloaded purchase versions, the original Civ IV versions were retail box purchases, except mine which was a downloaded purchase. My SO is running Vista, everyone else is running XP. We have a home network and all 5 of the computers in question are connected via cable.

Prior to the latest patch 3.13 we did not have this problem with sync, so my thought is that it was the patch. However, since we have to download the patch everytime we want to play multiplayer, we seem to have no choice but to keep it installed.

Has anyone else had this problem or have any idea of how to fix it??

HELP!

Guyman — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 20:04:57 GMT

I cant get into civilization at ALL:crying:

Failed to allocate video memory

trekull — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:05:30 GMT

Hello all. I have been getting constant CTD with the message Failed to allocate video memory.

Failed to allocate video memory. Please try reducing your graphics settings.
File:\source\main\civilization4\SDKs\Gamembryo2_0\Corelibs\NiDX9Renderer\NiDX9VBManager.cpp, line 1019.

Quick specs:

2.8 Intel

XP SP2

1 gig RAM

128 ATI RADEON x600

Catylst 7.10

Driver 6.14.10.6727

Have Updated Version GOLD edition w/ Warlords

Contacted 2k.

Quits at different points during game. Have reduced all in game options to lowest settings. Re installed. Updated drivers. Updated Direct X. Any ideas???

* * *

OK so here's the FIX!

A video memory allocation error is in essense (for me) a RAM issue. Even on the lowest graphic settings and small maps I was indeed maxing out my memory. The Out Of RAM error should have popped up, but instead I would receive the Failed To Allocate Video Memory. Turning off this notification in the config settings would result in freezing or BSD or sometimes the CTD. The FIX? Upgraded to 4 gig of Ram from the 1 gig I had installed previously. No problems. Sometimes the simplest answer is the one that eludes you. Now playing BTS Large maps, full graphics no problems! Thanks to all who helped.

Matt

Can't Register an Online Account in game

Tinker — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:54:11 GMT

I just did a fresh install and patched so I could play online with a friend. I goto the online window's Create a new account section, input my info, and click create...and the game does nothing. I can't get it to go...pushing either "create account" or "next" won't work even though it works fine for my friend.

I even tried logging in with my standard gamespy account, and of course , no go. Also, I went to www.gamespyid.com where they tell you to go in order to manage your gamepy accounts and see nothing to add a game.

Can anybody offer some input?

Slightly frustrated,
Tinker