Memory-fix by Harkonnen is out!

Just wanted to post some info, now that my finals are done =), not sure if it will be of use. I'm kinda skipping over some of the past couple days' developments, sorry!

I am an nVidia GF 4 Ti 4200 user. I haven't been experiencing any of the bugs with the intermediate release. D3D9Query = 1, the dynamic paging anim thing is 0. vid_mem set to 128 and insane mode to 0.

In my experience, having Blue Marble installed or not installed appears to make no appreciable difference in memory consumption. With my big honking civ save, mem consumption (VM size now ) went down from 764224 to 669460 without Blue Marble and from 764084 to 660196 with Blue Marble. So about 10 MB difference at the worst?

Anyhow, games run great. I've been going at it for a few hours at a time and no crashes, nothing. Insane mode obviously gives me the black when I alt-tab, so I've been running without it.

Good luck with your patch Harky, and please don't ruin your holidays if it ain't out by Christmas... I can wait

The last release before installer. I will come back in ~3 days and finish with the installer then. Check the attachment for new 'PatchByHarkonnen.dll'. If are new to this fix, please check Post #1 versiton.

This version is somewhat similar to post #1 version. That said, set 'vid_mem_usage' to whatever you used before. Recommendations are:

64mb video memory - 100 (mostly AGP usage)
128Mb video memory - 80
256Mb video memory - 160

These can be adjusted in game anyway (read on).

The pattern for game performance is such:

swap-swap-slow-slow-slow-avg-avg-best-avg-avg-slow-slow-slow-slow

Values shown above are average locations of best spot estimated from amount of your video memory.

Changes:

1. Safe 'insane mode' with full-screen. I'm not 100% sure it works, but this time alt-tabbing with 'insane_mode = 1' in full-screen should work without corrupted graphics when back in game.

2. Protection from inability to allocate video memory. That is, overestimated 'vid_mem_usage' still might be slow, but it won't crash anymore.

3. In-game 'vid_mem_usage' adjustment. Click 'Ctrl+Alt+Left / Ctrl+Alt+Right' to adjust it in 8Mb increments. Sometimes staying high will move geometry data into AGP memory and it remains there after decreasing. I recommend clicking 'Ctrl+Alt+Down' after readjusting 'vid_mem_usage' in-game to reset video memory, so that everything is recerated in video memory. 'Harkonnen.ini' is dynamically updated with every change.

4. In-game video memory reseting. Click 'Ctrl+Alt+Down' to do that. Effects are similar to switching resolution or anti-aliasing via game options back and forth. If you face a gray leader box or black terrain, just click 'Ctrl+Alt+Down' to bring it back. If it happens too oftenly, decrease 'vid_mem_usage' (in-game as said in (3) or via 'Harkonnen.ini').

5. Shows more details about memory savings.
VB_CACHE_SIZE - amount of vertex buffers in video memory / max-allowed (vid_mem_usage)
IB_CACHE_SIZE - amount of index buffers in video memory / max-allowed (fixed to 8Mb)

6. Shows details about amount of geometry in each frame (vertices-drawn / vertices-processed / triangles).

I will get back here in about 3 days and will finish installer by then. I hope to see some feedback since this is the closest version to what we are going to face as the final one...

Thanks in advance to everyone!

JorenCombs
Well, just released the thing which might allow playing with 'insane_mode = 1' again It's a little rushy, so it might be worse than post #1 solution again

staggerbite
I suspect your IGP is actually the Xpress 200 chipset IGP. I'm using that for Civ 4 (2 GB of RAM, 256 MB allocated to graphics). Pre-Hark-patch, I had to unpack the file to get it to run. It ran, but it was a bit sluggish. Fullscreen is much better -- windowed was impossibly slow.

I'm using 1.09+Hark now. It runs well enough on my computer. I think Civ 4 ran a tad bit better on my 9600XT, both being playable, but slow. When I run below the native resolution for my LCD, I getting around 20-30 FPS with everything on high. I think I got 20 at 1280x1024 and 30 at 1024x768. Of course I drop down to single digits at native 1920x1200, but I like my widescreen gaming. I've completed a couple of games on the huge map too.

Harkonen
The beta seems stable enough. I was pretty stable with all your versions though. If I'm not seeing any errors, is there any benefit to resizing the vid_mem_usage? Should I target just over the actual used size or something?

Loopy
At least you may give it a try. If it gets slower at some point in the game, that means what the game went AGP allocatinos and they crippled everything up (not the case for 64Mb videos). In this case you should decrease 'vid_mem_usage' back one or two clicks (8-16 mb).

If everything is fine, you may live with what you have I am primarily interested in very major issues, so that those 3 days which I'll be out from here won't be wasted just because noone will be able to run it... So far so good.

I was on the scenario map "World," and had gotten all the way to 1980, but literally could not keep playing because every other turn the game would lag, then crash (taking 10 minutes to restart every time). I dropped in your fix, and voila! Problem solved! It was still a little slow, but I could actually finish playing... I was getting so frustrated spending so much time in one game, and not being able to finish it.

It's amazing that this was not fixed in the latest patch... I don't have a slow system (2.8 ghz P4, 1gb PC3200, 128mb Radeon 9600 Pro, plenty of HDD space, defragmented, etc)... I couldnt' believe that the game was lagging so badly and kept crashing because of memory strain!

Anyway, I took the time to register just to say great job - we appreciate it!

Hello Harkonnen. Alow me to also express my gratitude for all your hard work to make a good game perfect. I have only downloaded your patch but I'm sure it will be everything I hope it to be. Anyways, I would like to pick your brain a bit since we have almost the same gfx card. I have a ATI 9800 SE and ever since I had the card it has this annyoing blur in any scrolling game when scrolling. Even in fps games there is a slight blurring effect as the background is updated. This effect is very noticeble in Civ4 as well. I have tried many things from playing with Hyper Z to Verticle sych and nothing has solved it thus far. The interesting thing is that when I play SimCity 4 I can get rid of this problem by disabling shadows. Then it scrolls very smooth. Apparently earlier ATI cards had a rovlem with partial depth buffer copies that were supposedly resolved in later drivers. I'm just wondering if you have any insight into this that might help resolve the issue?

Thank you in advance.

Aikanaro
Well, if this is not some specific SmartShader setting in control panel, this might be some hardware issue like these:

1) In case you are on analog output (CRT monitor), vendor is of big importance since noname cards have bad output circuits. I have 17'' CRT, but native ATi by ATi. This can be solved by reducing resolution and reducing vertical refresh.

2) This can be LCD monitor inertia...

Video card treats each frame on its own unless special motion blur effect is applied (like in NFS:Underground). Though, there are no such with civ4 and most shooters in usual case (without "slow time, demon mode", etc...).

Some games also post-process the frame to add glowing. FarCry in "paradise" rendering mode for example, also "Battle out of Hell" add-on for PainKiller has a lot of this effect. I mean this is done deliberately there, but again - not with civ4, neither by video card with default settings...

Harkonnen. Thanks for your reply. I have a Powercolour 9800SE and a Mecer 17" crt monitor. I'm running at 1280x768, 32bpp. I think it might be bad output as it does this in every game I play but it's most obvious in scrolling games. It's not a motion blur effect but more lke a very fast flickering when scrolling. How can I reduce my vertical refresh?

Aikanaro
It is hard to tune vertical refresh with games, usually tools are needed (at me games are usualyl running at 60Hz, but monitor supports 85Hz in 1024x768). You may try windowed mode though... Go to display settings in control panel and there in "Adapter" tab you'll see refersh rate. It mgiht be set to "Adapter Default", "Optimal" or some value starting with 60Hz and up.

I will try this tonight. Thank you for your kindness.

Harkonnen said:

Aikanaro
It is hard to tune vertical refresh with games, usually tools are needed (at me games are usualyl running at 60Hz

Click to expand...

One of those tools is RivaTuner, it was mainly for nVidia cards, but now it works with ATI cards too. It has a "refresh overrider" that can be used to force minimun refresh rates for each resolution (so games don't run at just 60Hz).

I think you can download it from here http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner&menu=8

I don't get it. I adjust the vid_mem_usage from 32mb to 512mb and can't tell any difference in framerate at all. Exactly what does this setting suppose to do?

arioch99 said:

I can confirm that MxxPwr, I've turned low res textures off and now all my graphic problem seem to be solved. I Can see the graph in info screen and I can see the leader correctly in the diplomacy. This change don't seem to have any effect on my performance, my game is still more fast than before patch.

thanks MxxPwr for this tips Now I've a Fully funtionnal Civilization IV.

Click to expand...

Finally the graphic problem is back, I've changed low Resolution Texture to OFF and my graphic was perfect during a time, but now I've again gray box problem, leaders face missing and graph missing in info screen.

Though my game is very faster, then for the moment I keep it with graphic probleme and play with that.

Ah the new release (final beta) works fine again with my pc! Thx !!!

Harkonnen said:

My nickname comes from Dune2 by Westwood.

Click to expand...

I think first was the Dune book then the movie then the computer games but i might be wrong.

now the game runs great!!

only ~260MB RAM usage!
fast scrolling and so far no graphic glitches!

merry christmas to all of you and a good new year!

So far the final beta, release 3 works fine with my system:
Dell 8250 3.0 Ghz 512 MB Geforce 4 MX420 64 MB.

FPS runs about 10-15 during scrolling. FPS gets down to about 1 at other times like clicking next turn. It all seems about the same as patch 1, until I did a mem reset.

The Mem saving was about 109 before I did a reset ctl,alt,Down. The screen print is just after the reset. Resetting appears to slow the scrolling down a little(slight pausing) with FPS staying about the same. Does this make any sense ? This is on a standard size map with about 50 moves left to play in the game and graphics set high.

Thanks again.

Thought it was 109, but looks like 123 instead.

Screen print before the memory reset. Sorry to be Axxbackwards.

I think they should offer Harkonnen a buy out and incorporate the thing into the next patch. Money being the sincerest form of flattery. Or a consultancy, as it appears he could teach a thing or two.

This has improved my game play immensley. Excellent work!