141.9 Mb game update downloaded

[Civsassin]

There was a post on the 2K games forums site about a 400+ Mb CiV game download initiated by Steam. I checked my account, and it showed a 141.9 Mb download that was initiated at 8:34 EST today. Several poster reported the same thing. Does anyone have any ideas what it might be?

Moderator Action: This is actually a missunderstanding! 141.9 KB, not MB!

 

[fat_tonle]

It was a figment of your imagination....

Seriously, I think they are done with hard core patches. It will just be 5-6 bullet points worth of tweaks every 3 months or so, along with a DLC civ. I think we are pretty much stuck with what we have.

 

[RonMar]

I guess all of us that have received that download (not all of them reporting that large a download, however) are just imagining things.

 

[spider1]

1.0.1.383 is my version number. It looks like the download, which I recieved as well, is that advertisement to check out civ online world or something.

 

[PieceOfMind]

When I started up Steam today I got a message that civ5 had finished downloading. Steam says the update was 0 bytes. Weird.

EDIT
Ok, I too see the CivWorld advertisement. It opens up the website in the Steam browser in-game. They're encouraging you to play civworld while you wait in between turns playing civ5.

 

[autumnmist]

Presumably the update must have downloaded on my computer today... I can no longer play Civ 5 because the main menu never shows up!!! (I just see the background image of Atlas holding the globe). Win7, ATI Radeon 4700. Happens both in DirectX9 and DirectX 10/11 modes.

Edit: Solution:

I had Steam verify all files and it reported back that verification failed for 1 file... Steam redownloaded the file and now the menu is back.

 

[Civsassin]

It was a figment of your imagination....

Seriously, I think they are done with hard core patches. It will just be 5-6 bullet points worth of tweaks every 3 months or so, along with a DLC civ. I think we are pretty much stuck with what we have.

I didn't think it was a patch; I was just curious if anyone knew what it was. Near 150 Mbs is a pretty large download to come unannounced.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Maybe someone will come along to inform us what files have changed.

It's possible, until someone else confirms they had a 150MB download, that your Steam was downloading some files it thought needed fixing but weren't part of the patch, Civsassin.

I mean, the guy in this thread downloaded more than 400MB. (EDIT... Oops, that was probably the one you were talking about.)

Also a guy saying a 141.9KB download. Sure it wasn't 141.9KB?

 

[Civsassin]

Thanks PieceOfMind. I have seen Steam do some odd and unexplained things like redownload things that were already downloaded.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Here's some relevant information...


PlayCivWorldNow_Background_New.dds
126KB
Date last modified was the time of the Steam download.

A couple of other small files, including MainMenu.lua and MainMenu.xml, have a 'last modified' date around the same, and add up to about another 25KB.

This is confirmation enough for me that this update was just adding the advertisement to the main menu.

 

[joncnunn]

Thanks; I was wondering how within 2 minutes of tethering my cell steam could possibly download a full patch.

 

[anandus]

There was a post on the 2K games forums site about a 400+ Mb CiV game download initiated by Steam. I checked my account, and it showed a 141.9 Mb download that was initiated at 8:34 EST today. Several poster reported the same thing. Does anyone have any ideas what it might be?

You've got your Mb's and Kb's mixed up

---------------------------
Edit:
So it only was a Civworld ad.

Here's how to remove the ad:

Go to [steam folder]\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\assets\UI\FrontEnd

Open MainMenu.lua and look for this section:

[Controls.CivWorldButton] = {
start = {
month = 10,
day = 19,
year = 2011,
hour = 7,
},

stop = {
year = 2011,
month = 11,
day = 19,
hour = 17,
},

customurl = "http://www.2kgames.com/civworld/playnow/steam/",
},

Change the latter month into 10, save, and it'll be gone.
... you're welcome

--------------------------------------
On a different note: Can we be expecting something on the 19th of november?
My memory is vague about the last time there was a Civworld ad, when that timer ran out (12th of august?) was it succeeded by something? A DLC or patch?

 

[grandad1982]

Presumably the update must have downloaded on my computer today... I can no longer play Civ 5 because the main menu never shows up!!! (I just see the background image of Atlas holding the globe). Win7, ATI Radeon 4700. Happens both in DirectX9 and DirectX 10/11 modes.

Edit: Solution:

I had Steam verify all files and it reported back that verification failed for 1 file... Steam redownloaded the file and now the menu is back.

Well that woukld explain my problem then. Firaxis sort your .... out.

 

[Evilsooty]

You've got your Mb's and Kb's mixed up

---------------------------
Edit:
So it only was a Civworld ad.

Here's how to remove the ad:

Go to [steam folder]\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\assets\UI\FrontEnd

Open MainMenu.lua and look for this section:

Change the latter month into 10, save, and it'll be gone.
... you're welcome

--------------------------------------
On a different note: Can we be expecting something on the 19th of november?
My memory is vague about the last time there was a Civworld ad, when that timer ran out (12th of august?) was it succeeded by something? A DLC or patch?

Thank you, my good man. I hate adverts in games that I have paid for! I'll have to have a look through the Napoleon Total War files as well to get rid of their DLC ads now.

 

[Maximo the Xth]

So it only was a Civworld ad.

Well, I´m not sure.

Mine was also around 150 kilo-bytes. I don't own any DLC.

Looks like it modified the Mongols/Ghengis Khan DLC? I see one file updated

c:\program files\steam\steamapps\sid meier's civilization v civ and scenario pack - mongols, ghengi khan.ncf

130kb which is about right interms of the download size and has a time stamp of Oct 20

Actaully it edited a bunch of other files too

civilizationv-base2.ncf
civilizationv-exe.ncf
civiizationvbasecontent.ncf

Again not sure what these do though....

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?115373-461MB-patch-released-today-no-change-log-present
Can anyone open these files?

But yes, I also think there will be something "new" in late November/early December.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Well, I´m not sure.



http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?115373-461MB-patch-released-today-no-change-log-present
Can anyone open these files?

Apart from the added dds file and some minor changes in other files, I don't think there was anything more.

Steam is notorious for giving misleading info about how it updates or patches games. I made a post in the linked thread but I'll quickly say a similar thing here...

Basically it'd be a good idea to stop trusting the Steam interface as the only source of information and assuming it's 100% accurate for what it does. When Steam does an update 400MB or so, it might have only been checking some of those files rather than downloading them, but a user might report they had a 400MB download, making assumptions about what they are shown.

I once cross-checked the Steam figures for a game update I did, and from another app I measured something like 500MB download used, while Steam reported 4GB or so.

Also, for this update, for me it said Civ5 downloaded 0 bytes. Obviously that's wrong. However it might have done something odd like download the update last time I was logged on but not finalise it.

EDIT
I don't have all DLC so it's entirely possible it was a DLC-related update and that's why I'm not seeing the same files changed. The files that Satoru reckon got updated don't look updated at all in my Civ5 folder.

 

[anandus]

I've got all the DLC, but I'm not sure where to look for these ncf-files, actually.
Are they in assets\DLC? Because I can't find them there (or maybe I'm not looking right?)

Edit:
Oh, I was looking at the Civ-folder (which hasn't had any major changed files).
But it's in the Steamapps-folder itself. The ncf-files ('no cache file'). It doesn't have any data, only information about the downlaod-progress of a game and the folder it's installed in. (That's what a quick Google-search gave me )

 

[Maximo the Xth]

Just go to SteamApps, and under the folders common and sourcemods there are some files, and these ncf-files, too.

 

[anandus]

Just go to SteamApps, and under the folders common and sourcemods there are some files, and these ncf-files, too.

Yeah, I found them.
A quote about those files:

Steam-integrated games are stored as single non-compressed archive files with the extension .gcf (an acronym for Game Cache File). Steam allocates space on the user's hard disk for .gcf files before downloading in order to reduce fragmentation which may occur when downloading large files and performing disk access. Game Cache Files help to make games more portable, stop users from accidentally overwriting important files, allow for easy modification of resources, and allows for validation of content for errors. For games that do not integrate, a 'No Cache File' system is provided. Here, a .ncf index file points to a directory of loose files somewhere else on the system.

An NCF (No Cache File) file is similar to a GCF file but does not include information about internal data storage.

It is allegedly the format .vpk is based on.

 

[qemist]

Presumably the update must have downloaded on my computer today... I can no longer play Civ 5 because the main menu never shows up!!! (I just see the background image of Atlas holding the globe). Win7, ATI Radeon 4700. Happens both in DirectX9 and DirectX 10/11 modes.

Edit: Solution:

I had Steam verify all files and it reported back that verification failed for 1 file... Steam redownloaded the file and now the menu is back.

Thanks! I had the same problem and solved it the same way: verify all local files. Maybe that CivWorld ad broke something.