1.52 Patch Available

[Harkonnen]

Efexeye
As a note about minority... I don't know how views are counted here for non-registered users (per-IP I guess), but 130K views of memory-fix thread shows that much more people had this problem (otherwise they wouldn't follow).

Not to mention many forums which mirrored memory fix locally with translated instructions, so most downloaders didn't even get in here and were not accounted... I mean - this problem struck more than just a minority... I didn't put any counters or reports in my fix, but I think that at least ~150k users tried to use it, and that's only among those who read some forums... and nature of the fix implies that a user faces a problem. Would you download "3rd party wheel bug improvement for NFS:MW" when you don't see any bug with your wheels?

 

[blue3c]

I tried that unfortunetly ... And no luck yet.

- the first time I patched from outside the game
- After re-installing i did it from inside the game and still the same problem

ok this may sound like a stupid question, but did you have the cd in the drive when you installed the patch. I am not sure if that makes a diff or not.



EDIT: He never suggested that number. He said he was unsure. But he did say how many people apporx DLed his patch. He ref that number in response to your un warrented view that only a few people are having problems. No one can say an exact number, No one can say this many people are having problems or this many don't. No one can say this percentage of the people get it to work. You can say people I talk to are not having issues. Or I can say people I talk are having issues. The point being you keep saying it is a slim percentage that are having problems. And again you are assuming this. Maybe a slim percentage of the people you hang with or what ever are having issues. But that does not reflect the overall total of the people who bought the game.
In the same breath I can only say of the people I game with (about 20 in total), and the people I have had conversations with in here. A majority of those are having issues. Of the 20 I game with only three can play with no problem. 5 more can play with little problem. The rest, either can not play or are having real issues with completing a game. Thats 12 of 20 who are having serious issues.
Does that reflect everyone who bought the game, NO. That reflects my experiance. Based on that experiance I feel the game needs fixing.

 

[SLM]

Civ4 was written specifically with modders in mind, so it's much easier to write a mod that doesn't mean trouble. Also, you can install them in a way that the normal game installation isn't changed at all. Every mod has its own folder, and if you don't specifically load it from the game menu, it won't influence your game at all.

I'm not sure what you mean with "very soon", but Firaxis won't provide new leaders or countries with patches. This is expansion material. They may try to make a first expansion for christmas 2006, but certainly not earlier. So I wouldn't expect an official Dutch civilization earlier - it may even take longer, because the expansion might appear later, or the Dutch might not be included in the first expansion.

I'm very sorry to hear that because I didn't buy the game with modders in mind... As for installing them in a way the normal game installation isn't modified, I seriously doubt that it's that fullproof. Especially since I saw a few posts in this thread going on about not removing certain kinds of files. Anyway, you might be right and you might be wrong but that doesn't change the fact that it seems to me to be rather threadbare.

You guys with problems are posting here as if you represent the majority of people that bought cIV.

Who says they aren't?

Fact is, the game runs properly for an overwhelming majority of people that bought it, despite the quite vocal minority on these forums that insists on coming here and complaining over and over and over and over.

I couldn't play it right out of the box because I have an ATI card. Couldn't update the game because it's an in-game updater. Didn't even know there was a patch until I visited this forum. I didn't complain, just read all the posts. So where's your majority? And how did you calculate it? What's the basis of your assumption here?

As far as "having to be a programmer to install the game"- uh, I put the discs in and installed it. Used the autopatch to install the patches. All of these other steps, as far as I can tell, are to deal with unintended effects of the third party patch. PLEASE stop making it sound as if a majority of people are going through these ridiculous steps to get their game working- they aren't.

Again, you assume things, making them sound like facts. I can only speak for myself and so can a lot of other people here. If one buys an expensive game and can't even play it because of a rather commonly used videocard, it at least says something about their testing period, their testing efforts and their testing scope and it doesn't sound very good.
Sometimes you DO have to know a lot of things about PC hardware/software to be able to either install or play a PC game nowadays. For example: I bought the new FIFA game for my son for X-mas. Couldn't install it until I upgraded the CD Rom flash. A few months ago, I bought Sid's Pirates. Couldn't play it until I downloaded a patch, couldn't get support because the support number in Belgium (Dutchman living in Belgium) didn't work (anymore?). The site that was advertised on the DVD cover was gone or not working. etc etc. Now, I can download and most of all FIND a patch on the Internet. There are however, a lot of people who can't because they still don't have an internet connection or because they can't because they wouldn't know a patch from a rag or what button they should push to make that work. Next to that, updating videocard, cdrom and other hardware drivers is a lot more farfetched for some than for others.

I realize that people can't get the game to run, I sympathize- I really, honestly do. I'd be pissed, too, and I was more than a bit irked that the minimum specs on the box don't match the minimum specs in the readme. But posting over and over and over and over about how Firaxis are a bunch of con artists, they just want your money, etc. is just...I want to say stupid, but how about "pointless"? It doesn't help the game get fixed any faster, it only serves to aggravate EVERYONE.

I always tell my wife that the day I stop complaining is the day I drop dead. Why stop complaining when you have the right to (still) complain? Too make it easier on the game manufacturers? I don't think so.

As for your complaining about not installing third party mods/patches: I thought I read somewhere that this game was made for that sort of thing /sarcasm. No, I'm not eager to install a third party patch or mod, but if you can't play the game with the material at hand, and one such as Harkonnen offers you a solution, I'd take it with both hands.

 

[blue3c]

SLM

Well said.

 

[Psyringe]

I'm very sorry to hear that because I didn't buy the game with modders in mind... As for installing them in a way the normal game installation isn't modified, I seriously doubt that it's that fullproof. Especially since I saw a few posts in this thread going on about not removing certain kinds of files. Anyway, you might be right and you might be wrong but that doesn't change the fact that it seems to me to be rather threadbare.

Hm, I don't get your point. Firaxis does its fan community a service by designing the game with unprecedented modability features. And it offers a very simple method for installing mods in a way that they cannot influence the game in any way unless you specifically load this mod. And you're complaining about this without having at least tried it because you think it's not "foolproof"?

Which posts are you referring to? You don't have to remove any files for modding.

What exactly is your complaint? *scratches head*

 

[Psyringe]

I didn't put any counters or reports in my fix, but I think that at least ~150k users tried to use it, and that's only among those who read some forums... and nature of the fix implies that a user faces a problem. Would you download "3rd party wheel bug improvement for NFS:MW" when you don't see any bug with your wheels?

Hark, I think you're too intelligent for these kinds of arguments.

130k thread users don't equal 130k people with problems. I followed the thread myself for a while just because I wanted to be informed. And I didn't have problems. And there will be many people who just had a look at the thread in order to find out what this patch had to offer, and - after finding out that it was meant to solve problems that they didn't have - never returned to it. And there will be people who, just like me, open every thread in the forum once in a while because they don't want to have a thread in fat proint that they don't want to read (fat print signals attention). I even downloaded your mod just to have it in my collection.

I don't want to get into an argument here (probably wouldn't lead to anything constructive), and I certainly don't claim that I know ghow many people had problems. But the way you're interpreting these numbers isn't really justified imho.

 

[Psyringe]

I couldn't play it right out of the box because I have an ATI card. Couldn't update the game because it's an in-game updater. Didn't even know there was a patch until I visited this forum. I didn't complain, just read all the posts. So where's your majority? And how did you calculate it? What's the basis of your assumption here?

I think Efexeye's basis of his assumption is that every poll done on this subject shows that the majority of people had no, or only minor problems. We have gone through this several times already.

That said, I've repeatedly said that the number of people with technical problems was too far for comfort (first polls estimated it at about 20%), and that Firaxis is obliged to fix them. Which is what they did, and continue to do. Naturally they won't solve the problems for all people, because sometimes the problem is unstable hardware, or too much confidence in the abilities of one's sub-spec system. But they already fixed the game for many people, and will continue doing that.

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action:
Thread cleaned-up (somewhat indiscriminately, although without prejudice) and re-opened.

Please limit this thread to:
* Discussions about the patch (including changes).
* Problems downloading / installing it.
* Any technical issues solved by it, caused by it, or not fixed by it.

Please DO NOT:
* Discuss attitudes of individual posters.
* Insult other people.
* Troll other people.
* Post unconstructive complaints or counter complaints.

We will have very little tolerance for anyone who tries to continue with the individual bickering that was going on before.

Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[BCLG100]

My game didnt work before this patch and now it does is very slowely, just wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem and any ideas on how to fix it?

 

[Ratt]

I'm kinda dissapointed with the patch, I thought the game would run much better.. the scrooling seems a little faster or less sluggish but still every turn takes forever and it runs really slow in late games

 

[Depravo]

Under 1.52, the game-killing problem - random, unheralded reboots every half hour or so - is still there for me.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=150637

Love what I've seen of Civ4, but I've mounting anger over this.

 

[Roxinante]

Now thats more like it. Admittedly, I had the worst game of CivIV so far....but that wasnt the patches fault. I was stuck alone on a continent, and didnt make contact with other civs until the 17th century - and no luxuries.
I did see that the cost of cities is higher - my usual amorphous blob of a civilization cost me dearly in city costs, to the point that I was happy when I could afford 20% science. And this was with Tokugawa, who is Organized.

No change in graphics - which was my complaint about 1.09, that it would demand that I had insufficent memory and lock the graphics settings to low. So no change in my case is a good thing - it means I get to enjoy all the little details that the patch gives. I'm very happy with these changes - just putting the historical background of a unit type in its own box recaptures the feeling of the older versions of the game, and there are so many of these little changes that make the game so much more playable.

So, if I were to recommend this game to someone, I'd say buy it but a. still pay close attention to the system requirements - far closer than you would with other games and b. get access to a high speed internet connection - this game is playable without the patch, but you only really get your money's worth with it.

 

[BirraImperial]

I would really recommend everyone to have at least 1GB of RAM to run the game. My specs are on my signature. I can run the game with very few slowdowns, even on huge maps, only perhaps when trading world maps the game might hang for 20 seconds or so, but that's it. I have patch 1.52, and it kind of speeds up the game a lot, specially loading times, just like Hark's patch did on version 1.09.

 

[Roxinante]

I would really recommend everyone to have at least 1GB of RAM to run the game.

You know, I wouldnt. I have 512M, which in practical terms is more like 507. I have the Intel Chipset, which everyone sneers at (must be nice to have a lot of income to blow on graphics cards instead of boring things like food, rent, diapers, etc.), but I have no problem playing this game on large or huge maps, at higher than normal time limits.

 

[Efexeye]

Hey, I'm running the game with XP and 384 megs of RAM, on a 4-year-old Vaio, with no problems at all (on standard maps, with 8 total civs). I don't expect to be able to run huge maps with 18 civs until I get my new XPS 400, in a couple of weeks.

(I know, it's a Dell, but it is a suhweet deal through my wife's employee purchase program at work).

 

[Roxinante]

Yeah, I've got XP too - which I'm told sucks up a lot of memory, but Civ runs as cleanly as the other games I've got on it.

 

[Chesster]

I will be getting Civ 4 in a day or two and I have a question. I currently have McAfee running on my PC and I want to know if I can keep it up while I auto-patch the game or should I take it down before auto-patching?

 

[Siggy19]

I play single player only so I have anti-virus etc software disabled while playing. These are potentially huge performance killers, depending upon how they are configured. This is not necessarily practical for multiplayer users, but for people who cannot run the game in Single User mode even, try disabling this and any other background processes that are not needed.

 

[Efexeye]

I will be getting Civ 4 in a day or two and I have a question. I currently have McAfee running on my PC and I want to know if I can keep it up while I auto-patch the game or should I take it down before auto-patching?

When you install cIV you should get a prompt asking if it's okay to let it access the Internet. Tell it it is, and it shouldn't be a problem after that. I think that's what you're asking, correct?

 

[Chesster]

Okay thanks.

I just wanted to make sure that having McAfee enabled wasn't going to screw something up while I install the patch.