Disappearing text

[Mel]

I've looked, but haven't seen this problem posted anywhere else. Playing the demo (well into it--an hour or more) all the text disappeared. All of it! Everything else was still there and worked fine. My city was running great as far as I could tell, but I couldn't consult my advisors. I could go to their screen, but there were only empty boxes anywhere there should have been words.

On the main screen, my population, money levels, etc disappeared. I could click on menu options to build, etc, but I would get a list of empty blue boxes to choose from. If I held my mouse over building, I got empty boxes where there should have been building information. I could still build, turn trade on and off in a depot, etc. Everything worked fine. There just weren't any words. Even on the option screen to exit the game, I just had to choose the bottom button and cofirm with the right one, because that's always where quit and yes are. Interestingly once I got to the main menu screen, my words were back.

I wish I'd gotten some screen shots, but I exited the game before I thought of it. Has anyone else had this happen? If it was always like that I'd assume a video card problem, but I've played the demo a couple of times before with no problems and like I said I'd been playing for an hour or so this time? I found it more amusing than anything, but I am mildly curious.

[Mel]

Thanks for the suggestions. I wondered about my video drivers. I have a bad habit of not updating them until something doesn't work in a game. My game is on the "D" partition. "C" is unused at the moment waiting to be wiped and have a fresh windows install put on it.

I want to upgrade--the problem is I can't really upgrade anything until I can afford to upgrade a lot. I don't see the point in getting another AGP video card when I need a new processor/motherboard (which will have a PCI express slot). So I need to wait until I can afford a mb, processor, RAM (since mine will be obsolete of course), and videocard all at once.

I'll try updating the drivers and cleaning the registry and seeing if that helps. I'll let you know what happens.

Mel

[Manni]

Congratulation to Phil` analyse!

Mel..............before you rush out to get a new card or pc do try something else:

You have Memory: 1024MB RAM
and the Page File is set to: 417MB used, 1084MB available

I`d recommend to optimize page-file to: startsize 2000 MB and finalsize 2000 MB (yes same number!)
I bet page-file is situated on C, so once there do shift it from C to D, reboot and defrag both (important)......... C and D.......... please. :)

Additional chance:

Before you get a new card do change your Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (75Hz) to 16bit 60Hz

All best!

[Manni]

shame on me for that. :D
No reason for any shame! :) ;)

All that counts is that Mel can see some words. :D :)

[Manni]

@ Mel

In the Caesar4-Folder you will find the "languagetext.xml" (which I could open with WordPad-MFC) there are these used fonts listed:

<!-- fonts-->

<String id="FONT_0">Arial</String>

<String id="FONT_1">Times New Roman</String>

<String id="FONT_2">Tahoma</String>

<String id="FONT_3">Palatino Linotype</String>

Do compare if those are also in your C/Windows/Fonts-folder.

May be one missing in your font-folder......? ;)

[Mel]

Okay. I played again before making any changes. Again, about an hour in, I lost all text. This time, the mini-map also turned light pink and when I minimized the game, my computer was stuck at 4-bit? graphics very low resolution even when I C-alt-del out of the game. I also couldn't restart through the start menu, but had to hit the button on my computer.

So, I then downloaded and installed the new driver. I decided to play a while and see what that did. I don't know if I would have lost text, because I didn't get to an hour in. This time about 30 minutes in the game just went away. No error message, no warning, nothing. The game was there, running as smooth as it ever does on my computer (meaning lagging when I try to scroll and multiple mouse clicks to place a building, but basically working) and then it just wasn't. I was on my desktop. This time my computer was fine though.

I have now run regseeker, although I only deleted the green files, because I don't know enough to know which registry files are important. My paging files were already set on my D drive at 576 and 1152 as far as I can tell, so I've changed the numbers to 2000 each. I have no paging file set for C. Is that right? (I think the 576 and 1152 may have been set back when I had less RAM.) I haven't defragged yet, although it's only been a few days since my last one, so surely my drive can't be too bad. I'll run that later. I don't see how it could be a font issue since I have text for an hour+ and then it disappears. I haven't played since making these changes yet.

It's looking like I won't be getting C4. I was already concerned about the lags and mouse problems on my system, but if I'm consistently getting kicked out or experiencing game-stopping glitches (even if the problem is my system) there's no way. Oh well, somehow I missed COTN when it came out. I'm planning to buy that soon anyway. If I can't find it in a store (I've been looking)--I'll order it online or do the download purchase. That will keep me occupied for a while.

Thanks for the help Phil and Manni. Even if the suggestions you've made don't get the demo running smoothly, I'm sure they'll help my computer play games more smoothly overall.

Melissa

[Manni]

Mel :)

have you tried with 16bit 60Hz ?

[Mel]

This time I got a hard freeze and had to reboot using the reset button on my computer. I'm getting different problems each time, but I'm not really sure that counts as progress. . .

Is what you want the processes running in the background? I have a ton of crap running unfortunately. I used to shut it all down to run Sims2 (until I upgraded my RAM to a decent amount), so I could try that. What frustrates me is that none of my other games do this. The only other games I have stability problems with are really old games that I run in compatibility mode. (Colonization for Windows anyone? I think it was designed to run on Windows 3.1 machines.) It gives me problems like this, but none of my current day games do. I realize this game is more demanding than most, so I get that it would be slow, but why less stable for me? (I usually run games like Civ4, Pirates, Sims2+expansions, Tropico/Tropico2, Zoo Tycoon2.)

My Norton antivirus file is current as of 8/23/06. It updates automatically. I run ZoneAlarm (the version that comes for free with Earthlink, not the bells and whistles one). I haven't run Ad-aware or Spybot in way too long though, so I probably have spyware. I run IE and don't keep up with the security updates like I should.

Here's the absurdly long list. I'm only listing what's under my name, not the stuff listed under SYSTEM or LOCAL or NETWORK SERVICE. Let me know if you want that. (All or exe files.) I've highlighted the ones I'm not sure of.

wscntfy--Don't know
vptray--Don't know
explorer--Windows right?
iTunesHelper--iTunes something or other
qttask--QuickTime
jusched--Don't know, never hurts to close it
ViewMgr--Don't know, never hurts to close it
SOUNDMAN--Guess it has something to do with my sound, but I don't know
aolsoftware--had it since I started running AIM recently
zlclient--ZoneAlarm I think
rundll32--Don't know
TaskPanl--Earthlink toolbar
HOTSYNC--Palm software
WZQKPICK--Don't know
aim6--AIM
iexplore--IE
taskmgr--obviously task manager

Oh yes, I made the 16bit, 60Hz change before my last attempt.

Melissa

[mouse]

A pennies worth of a suggestion since the problems show up on a regular point in time it could be an overheating issue. Open your case and using compressed air blow out the dust bunnies (make sure to hold fan blades when cleaning to keep from overwinding).

[SillyDrizzy]

Hi all,

I experienced this too last night. It was a first for me after a few other longer playing times.

I continued playing after victory and was building up a patriarch region on the left side of the map, and most of them were up as high as we can get in the Demo and game was still running smoothly. About 2.5 hours on continuous play (once during a past time at about this point the game just chugged to an unbearable level.

When I went into the advisor screen and came out most of my buildings were gone and the map was white at first, but then went to as can be seen in the attached shots (hopefully ;) ) and I could still click on the buildings but of course no text. As can be seen in the mini map this area in the photo was full of my patriarchs. Weirdly enough the advisers and world map looked normal and when I exited the advisor screen everything was back to normal. :confused: (Darn should have taken one afterwards so you could see what is there.) I was able to keep playing fine, for another 20 mins before I quit

This may just be a one time thing, but thought I'd post anyway incase the steps I did lead to a solution.

The hovering rings are the tops of the 2 arenas I had here... not UFOs come to take all my greek letters :)

Attached should also be my dxdiag

[Manni]

Hello SillyDrizzy

it looks as though the Memory: 512MB RAM you have is not enough to keep it all running.

And then I noticed you have 4CD-Rom drives.......how comes?

[SillyDrizzy]

Hello SillyDrizzy

it looks as though the Memory: 512MB RAM you have is not enough to keep it all running.

And then I noticed you have 4CD-Rom drives.......how comes?

More RAM is the first thing I plan on upgrading in this this...now that it's 6 months old ;) matter of $$ though. I knew it was low when I bought the machine.

4 CD-ROMs?? that threw me at first, but drives H and I are virtual drives (mistakenly made two) and I never cleaned them off.

Drizzy

[Manni]

4 CD-ROMs?? that threw me at first, but drives H and I are virtual drives (mistakenly made two) and I never cleaned them off.

Make sure you do finish the virtuals as you don`t use them anyway. It "might" be the cause.
Ram is not too expensive..........

Did you defrag C lately? Could also help........

[mouse]

What both of you are experiencing is basicly systems resource overload due to either too little free space, too much running in the background like virus scanners, a fragmented drive causing windows to search more and more for files, page file not being large enough and last but not least unoptimized code in the demo;)

[SillyDrizzy]

Also Manni, not too expensive by WHO's Standards?! :D :p
Exactly Phil Walker...as it is I'll be charging C4...so given a choice between C4 or more RAM which would you take Manni? :p LOL

as it is the Demo still is playable by my standards with midrange graphics....earlier tonight I turned shadows off and it was even smoother...but ACK:eek: I missed the shadows...hehehe. I'll take a little jerkyness in rotating to have shadows.

Thanks for all the advice folks. My Comp is due for some general TLC which since I'm thinking of it I'll start running when I log off. :)


Edit: Sorry Phil W...this is what I get for speed reading and not proof reading :)


Drizzy

[Keith]

If it were my system and it was chugging along, I'd probably invest in the RAM first.

[Manni]

Also Manni, not too expensive by WHO's Standards?! :D :p

okay Phil, standards.....to & fro............512 extra added RAM is about the price of a pc-game nowadays(European/German prices)...........aprox
SillyDrizzy`s pc is in rather "good condition" as far as the rest of the hardware is concernend. I see a most possible "strain" in the lack of RAM, especially when you regard the common "fist-rule" that xp (prof!) would like to have 512 MB RAM for its own convinient run....so they say.

So I agree with Keith in that matter :D

PS
another thing I saw then: adjusting the page file up to 4225MB doesn`t do the trick

[Manni]

You`re right Phil, prizes seem to be quite different.
We haven`t discussed the subject of "may be" too many running progs with system-startup which could also be responsible for "lack of power".

As you remember......only the other day our other friend was able to stop 19 (nineteen) running progs and desired stuff on her laptop runs much smoother now. :p :) ;)

[Manni]

Very true Phil!
I must have missed that one........;)

[SillyDrizzy]

Phil and Manni,

Thanks for the advice. I don't think :confused: I have that much running other the normal Virus scanner (AGP) and highspeed connection. But I'll have to recheck things and I'm working on giving the machine some TLC but commitment of working 2 jobs plus being father to 2 active kids sucks alot of the comp time ;)

1-2 am nights are normal for me by the time I actually get any "free" time LOL

Drizzy - Ahh the dilemma of playing Demo with mid graphics or tweek system to see more...and where to spend my time lol

[Manni]

Thanks!
Nammi is happy again! :eek: :p :D

[mouse]

SillyDrizzy you can change your system from all the eye candy that XP loves to best performance (make that game run better) :D

[mouse]

Phil the eye candy is drop shadows which if they help you great but I do know SillyDrizzy and that isn't the issue. Best perfomance actually gets the best out of the video card too just gets rid of resource hogs (eye candy) :D

[mouse]

Phil I think we are quibbling about words (quailty and performance are not mutually exclusive) :D The best performance for a video card is the highest quality it will support. While the best performance for an operating system is what keeps the operating system overhead down to a bare minimum;)
Setting XP to best performance does not have a negative impact on video quality nor prevent the use of accessibility options for your visual problem just reduces the system resource drain of XP:rolleyes: