RBP17 IT and Tech Issues Thread

[zanth]

^
this

[2metraninja]

I have serious problem with installing Civ4 BTS.

Any ideas/suggestions will be appreciated.

What I did so far:

- Installed fresh Win7 Ultimate.
- Installed drivers as provided by MB disk.
- installed Civ4 vanilla from old disk
- installed Civ4 BTS (had to do it twice, as first time the whole PC froze at "checking your DirectX components and updating as necessary", but second time it went smooth. I gave it to my disks getting old and wearied and DVD having troubles reading it the first time)
- installed BTS 3.19 update
- ran the game and it said some d3dx9_33.dll was missing from my computer
- googled the mentioned .dll file and it suggested I download it and this to solve the problem.
- downloaded from the most popular google hit a small program that claimed to put the .dll file in the correct place, so I dont have to bother (yes, I know this might have been silly on my part, went later to extract the original d3dx9_33.dll from a Microsoft package and replace it in both locations where it was found on my hdd)
- ran the game, it passed the point where was giving "missing d3dx9_33.dll file" error, screen went black, but not with the typical civ4 mouse pointer and stayed like this. I clicked and the pointer changed to what it should be, the screen flickered some and then it gave "unable to load shaders" error and closed
- I though it might help if I uninstall Civ4 BTS and reinstall. Uninstalling went OK, but reinstalling did not. It started as normal, but crashed on "checking your DirectX components and updating as necessary". No message something went bad, no blue screens or something - just the installation screen disappears as if I closed it.
- tried installing whole new DirectX9c packages downloaded from Microsoft site and using their web wizard. both times it gave errors on different steps with explanation "xxxxxx.xxx file is not intended for windows or have some errors in it, installation unsuccesful". funny thing is it gave it on different files both ways.
- tried running at least civ4 vanilla and this time it gave error "missing d3dx9_32.dll file" - different than before, by 1 digit.

Now I am going to uninstall civ4 vanilla too and try starting the whole process again. Will try updating video drivers too (how more updated they could be from last night, but still).

So, any ideas to try will be appreciated.

[2metraninja]

More and more I think of it, it must be some DirectX problem. Anyone knows of a way to completely remove old version of DX on win7 so it can run what is to be a clean new install?

[zanth]

Well, I'm not sure, but I had installed in this order: Civ4 (vanilla) -> Warlords -> BtS

[Jowy]

Warlords is included in BTS.

It's a DirectX problem yeah. Did you download the correct packages? (I don't know which are correct btw, just speculating)

[2metraninja]

I did my turn on wifey's laptop. Will have to reinstall my civ pc again. Damn M$.

[Furungy]

I did my turn on wifey's laptop. Will have to reinstall my civ pc again. Damn M$.

I have zip archive with C4BTS (it doesn't require any kind of setup) and correct DirectX installer. I can share them if you will not have success with your distributives.

[2metraninja]

Thanks, I will have it in my mind if I need them. Problem is I have installed Civ4 so many times and on different computers, OSes, etc, that I just dont know what went wrong this time... Problem is I cant find a way to uninstall DirectX on win7. I will reinstall the whole OS and this time will be more careful.

BTW, isnt the game supposed to be paused? We are waiting for few more players.

[Gavagai]

We will finish our turn in a couple hours and then leave it paused.

[Gavagai]

Turn played, game paused.