This may have been posted, but with the search function disabled I want to be sure.

My question to the Beta Testers who may read this is (if you are allowed to answer, don't want you to break the NDA):

What version of the game are you all playing now? Most if not all of you seem to have few CTD issues - are you still playing the last beta build you recieved or are you playing the Retail release out of the box?

I am trying to determine if the copy protection software, i.e. the ~e0005.exe routine is somehow involved in the CTD issues a lot of us are having. Are you all getting good results with the retail version with cp - or are you running a version that the cp was not applied to?

It will save a lot of time if your experience shows this is not the case.

Any replies appreciated, TIA.

On EDIT: Harkonnen just posted independenly about this very issue in this related thread where he is working hard on a possible solution to memory issues:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137706

My guess is, even if they saw this post, they could not reply for confidentiality clauses in their contracts.

Later!

--The Clown to the Left

My guess is, even if they saw this post, they could not reply for confidentiality clauses in their contracts.

Later!

--The Clown to the Left
Hey, its worth a shot anyway....;) Can't say I'm not trying...

Hey, I don't blame you for trying to get any information that might tell us when a Band-Aid might be coming... just saying it ain't likely, is all...

Later!

--The Clown to the Left

I think they can mention it. I've seen a couple mention it in succession game threads and such. "Waiting for my copy to arrive", that sort of thing. So far, everyone I've seen mention it one way or the other has been playing the release version.

~e0005.exe you think is the reason for the CTD? so what if I block this thing with my firewall and not allow it to run?

for ATI solutions go to
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=139539

~e0005.exe you think is the reason for the CTD? so what if I block this thing with my firewall and not allow it to run?

I am not quite sure, but Macrovision told something about memory-fill in their most recent safedisk version. I don't know how it works, but there are two observations:

1) With 1Gb the whole game eats twice as much mem as with 512Mb (though with 256Mb this is not less either).
2) I faced numerous memory-related problems when I checked what allocates what... Something strange is going on there.

You can't easily stop it. Firewall deals with the network. And if you kill it with task managed, civ4 will die too.

on my pc i tried to block it, civ4 doesnt crash, well, i dont see it crashing, but it freezes using 100% sys performance..strange thing this e0005.exe :)

1) With 1Gb the whole game eats twice as much mem as with 512Mb (though with 256Mb this is not less either).
That's probably due to XP assigning more virtual memory when there's more RAM - it assigns more than you really need with 1Gb RAM installed.

Since I went out and bought it the first day, 1.0. I haven't had a single crash nor a major slowdown on any map size less than Huge. Huge admittedly is choppy, but my machine is not state of the art.

I have also bought the game, and haven't experienced a single crash in the week I've owned it.

Edit: Oh and since it's mentioned in this thread, I should add I'm also an ATI Radeon user.

That's probably due to XP assigning more virtual memory when there's more RAM - it assigns more than you really need with 1Gb RAM installed.

I hope for that... If it's not, all my efforts to write custom memory manager will die in vain just because the better it works, the more allocations will take place.

BTW, my very first "bright idea" was to report less RAM via GlobalAllocEx. It didn't help anyone, so either civ4 uses some undocumented or driver-related RAM size evaluation (I doubt) or it is XP which definitely doesn't use this function.

Thanks All for the answers so far...:goodjob:

As Harkonnen said, I do not know if this ~e0005.exe has anything to do with the CTD issues...it was just an inquiry to see if perhaps any testers noticed anything different with the retail version with copy protection. Standard troubleshooting technique.

So far, it looks like no from the two testers who have replied.

This does not rule out the ~e0005.exe, but it does lend weight to the fact that the copy protection software is not the culprit...sigh.

I hope to have some free time this weekend to test some more ...unless the patch comes out tomorrow (fingers crossed)....but thanks again for the answers, and those of you who can I wish you great Civ4'ing...hope to join you all someday soon...

I had serious CTD with my catalist 5.10 drivers(ATI) then i went back to the 2004 drivers 4.10 an no single CTD anymore!! so i doubt its the e0005.exe, i'd rather say in the newer drivers there are some options of graphical chipsets enabled which are causing the problems...that's my bet on it :)

mrgenie
Just 5.10 drivers don't expect the application to virtual-allocate so much memory, and it does as my memory manager shows. Also it does so deliberately. Initially there were 300Mb of total game data (which resulted in 600Mb due to careless fragmentation). Overall virtual memory usage was at about 600-700Mb, so game custom virtual-allocs was low.

After writing my own memory manager with only 5-7% fragmentation, virtual-alloced memory grew up to 300Mb (with any driver). This is either D3D resource manager problem, or game does something or whatever... I was blaming that darn ~e0005 because constantly calls VirtualAlloc on one and the same region, probably swapping data with civ4.exe. I am about to check this out and state the final point if it is to blame or not.

All in all, now I've come to fact that memory usage grows proportionally to RAM installed not due to XP management, but due to some improper game code, either from Firaxis, or from side components.

mrgenieAll in all, now I've come to fact that memory usage grows proportionally to RAM installed not due to XP management, but due to some improper game code, either from Firaxis, or from side components.
Not being a programmer, I found this little treatise I found from a google search to be of great value explaining some things about how Python and memory allocation works. Fairly easy to read and understand.

http://evanjones.ca/memoryallocator/

this http://evanjones.ca/memoryallocator/ link basically says..if I come to a point where civ4 uses all of my memory..or at least so much that it slows down my system performance..i would experience performance increase the moment i install a bigger RAM? because more Mem will be there for the OS to run? IF fixaris did use the original implementation and does not know of the existance of a solution to free memory to the OS. ...im not familiar with memory management..but tell me, why does the game crash with the new drivers and works perfect with the older? if it's because of pythons memory allocation...it shouldnt make any difference which graphic driver i'm using right?

Python uses only 22Mb of RAM in entire huge game (at least allocations coming from python24.dll). I've redirected its memory manager towards mine, and it page-fragmented at 50% which I accept as long as it stays at those 22Mb. Also, I didn't yet peform some important step with small-objects fragmentation.

Fortunately, python is open-sourced, so I could redirect it to my manager. Unfortunately I can't say this about about civ4.exe which consumes at least one half of 700Mb. If it does consume another half (not sure yet), we're dead buddy :(

and Harkonnen, does your own memory alloc utility reduce the memory used by civ4? do you experience performance increase? i'd happy to test anything you made..at this moment i don't have any performance issues anymore on my huge maps...but taking into account i experience a slight latency on scrolling over the map..i bet on it that on a bigger map i WILL face performance issues..so maybe i can use your own util to check if it helps

oh, guess that answers my question already :)

(just read your 2nd post). I didn't find any evidence of python allocating more RAM in case of more physical RAM, it just won't clean up if at some spark it will eat, say, 200Mb. With my manager it does clean, but the problem is still the same... those 22mb remaining from it are not a reason to worry.

Probably what I have now will help all of 1GB people. With 256Mb memory use didn't decrease, so I think it grows with 768Mb+ systems which I can't test - have I overcome this or not yet.

mrgenie
What I am facing now tells me that most probably Firaxis won't be able to fix it on itself (too system-affine things); probably I am wrong or just too scared to see my efforts dead in vain with their own update. For the whole week I only sleep and code it... (~6-6-6-6 hours day timeline). So I'd like not to make it for free for Firaxis. This has just gone too far. 3k likes of very very system code and a lot of profiling are not a thing to throw aways just for good word :)

For community - yes, I will give it away, but I will need to add something, so that Firaxis won't want to use it without letting me know. Nothing formatting discs, but probably some messages like "This is not original executable", etc... , especially occuring past December 25th :) This will hurt noone except the company in case it will silently put it into their update, so I need insurance it won't happen.

This needs time to code and well-protect from removal, and my head is so busy with the path of solving primary goal of making it playable with 512Mb, so I delay my release which's probably ready to run under 1GB for 3 or 4 days...

As compared to python, they didn't face another problem - address space fragmentation. With consuming of about 700Mb this becomes an issue... And consuming 1.3Gb of just reserved pages (not swapped, but neither usable until signaled) inevitably leads to CTD.

I've been reading all of your posts that I can find. You have that rare combination of intelligence and respect for other human beings that outweighs vanity.

I hope to see an unofficial patch from you soon, as the game is unplayable to me on my gaming rig (1gig RAM, GeForce 3 128mb), my Tablet PC and my wife's PC (well, that's because of the GeForce 2 in it).

DavidBeoulve
Thank you! :)