Quote Originally Posted by 71-hour Ahmed
JUST TRY INSTALLING THE PATCH FROM THE FIRAXIS OR CIV 4 WEBSITES FIRST BEFORE MUCKING AROUND WITH DRIVERS!!!

Its a noted fault in the boxed game, doesn't usually from what I've heard need new drivers or anything, does download the patch. Worked on my parents PC which had this error message, no faults since then. I believe it may be ATI type graphics cards that have this problem, as theirs was.
That's another point. I'm wondering how I missed that one.

The latest patch upgrades the game to v1.52.. Go get it..