Fan-Freaking-Tastic

So, I saved five bucks by getting the new Civilization IV Presell Edition from Amazon with free shipping, which meant that, yes, I got the cool spiral-bound manual and fold-out Tech Tree and keyboard shortcut map and neato box and all that. For only $44.99!

It took a while to get it, what with the free Super Saver shipping and all, so when it arrived, all my willpower to resist playing Civ 4 went straight out the window.

Then I tried to play it.

Dude, where’s my map? I can’t see anything! I thought at first that maybe I just hadn’t explored far enough, but once I started building cottages and roads and pastures and shit, and I *still* couldn’t see, I realized something was terribly wrong.

Dude, where’s your head?! This looks like the outtakes from Shrek — you know, where they accidentally rendered Donkey inside-out? And his teeth and eyeballs were on the outside, and his fur was all spiky? Yeah.

Updated my video drivers, no help there. Tried a Windows Update, but I’m good there, too. Finally, I found a forum off of the 2kgames website, where I learned all about the “T&L” graphics thingie I read about on the box:

Solver (forum staff member) says:

T&L is a requirement, and that Intel graphics craptroller doesn’t have it.

Yes, indeedy, my Dell Dimension 3000 has an integrated Intel graphics card.

*pauses for giant hissy fit*

OMG, Civ is one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE games. I never needed anything fancy with my graphics card before. I’m not a big PC gamer, really. I’m content with Civ and Starcraft and occasionally Warcraft.

I’m not sure who to be pissed at: the makers of Civ 4, who assumed that everyone who’s anyone would have a graphics card that supports T&L (which I’m honestly still not sure what it is which stands for Transform & Lighting, an apparent staple of 3D graphics), or the nice people at Dell and Intel, who didn’t integrate what seems to be a fairly normal and not at all cutting-edge technology into their graphics cards.

In either case, the game is currently fucking unplayable on my machine. I either have to a.) hope to God it plays on Aaron’s Dell Dimension 4600, and that he won’t mind if I bogart his computer while he’s gone at work, b.) spend X number of dollars on a new graphics card (does my computer even have another slot for a graphics card?), or c.) cry a lot and bang my head on my keyboard.

Fuckity fuck fuck goddamn mother fuck.

It looked like it was going to be so super fucking cool, too. I am severely pissed right now.

FUCK.

(And, yes, I know it’s just a game. But I’ve been super-geeked to play this game for over a month now, and this is really shitty.)

Update: Wish I would have known about this site before I blew $45 on Civ 4:

Oh, and FYI? I am not buying any of the fucking $300 video cards they recommend. Maybe I’ll dig up some reviews of the Diamond Stealth S80 or the GeForce4 MX 4000 or something. Effectively turning my cool $45 game into a $100 game.

*sigh* Just chalk another one up to me being a big stupid fuckhead sometimes.

One thought on “Fan-Freaking-Tastic

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  1. Of course you can play your game on my computer hon. I’m surprised you didn’t already install it. 🙂 My computer passed the minimum requirements, but not the recommended. My Geforce FX 5200 has all the specs, but they recommend the 5700. Right! 😛 Install, enjoy, and be happy. You are not a fuckhead, they should have made the game be able to scale back the graphics for lower end cards.