RemoWilliams
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2006
- Messages
- 183
I've built many computers in my time, and I've had lots of stability problems. I've looked around in the forums, and I don't see people offering what I consider to be the best advice to diagnose these kinds of problems.
Of course, it is possible that civ4 is the problem and your system is fine. I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying this, but it's also quite possible your hardware is to blame. For what it's worth, I've run the game for probably about 100 hours now with only a minor crash problem, it's mentioned in another thread but basically it only happens when I switch to the desktop and back to the game. While slightly annoying, it is a common problem with directx games so I'm not even gonna point the finger at firaxis for that problem.
Within the game itself, I have never crashed, or experienced slowdown, or any major bugs of the kind you guys are flaming about (but I've only been playing since *after* the 1.52 patch).
This is my advice: try out the following programs. If they crash your system or report errors, you have a memory problem. In the past I have had weird stability problems with some games (Diablo II, World of Warcraft, Quake 3, Doom3), and every single time it has been a problem related to my RAM. Maybe I've just been unlucky in my RAM selection, but I think not. I have friends who've had the same experience.
So, without further ado, try out:
Memtest86 at http://www.memtest86.com/
and
Prime95:
http://www.mersenne.org/
(Explanation of the "torture test")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime95
If your system passes those tests, there is a very high likelyhood that your hardware is fine, and civ4, if crashing, is the problem. Prime95, especially, will crash your system in minutes if there are stability problems with your CPU or memory.
On the other hand, if you fail, there is a 99.9999% chance that your hardware, specifically your memory, is at fault.
From what I've read here, I'm sure that some of you are experiencing problems with civ4 that are unrelated to faulty hardware. I am equally sure that some of you do have faulty hardware, and for whatever reason, civ4 just brings it to the forefront. I've run systems where a lot of games work just fine, all the time, but one game in particular crashes it or locks it up, and it still turned out to be my own hardware.
Finally, please cut these guys some slack! I'm a software engineer myself, and I know how hard it is to develop something that works with everyone's setup! There are, _literally_, billions of different hardware configurations that you can have, and it is quite simply impossible for them to try them all. That's the nature of the x86 architecture, its greatest strength (lowers cost), and its greatest weakness (hardware device X is incompatible with device Y, when running software Z).
Hopefully the next patch will do the trick for most of you, but there's no way it's gonna work for everyone. It is an impossible feat, unless you are working with a closed system, like the xBox or PlayStation. I don't like it any more than you do, but I know that it is the price of admission when you play with Intel/AMD/Microsoft. You pays your money and you takes your chances.
Of course, it is possible that civ4 is the problem and your system is fine. I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying this, but it's also quite possible your hardware is to blame. For what it's worth, I've run the game for probably about 100 hours now with only a minor crash problem, it's mentioned in another thread but basically it only happens when I switch to the desktop and back to the game. While slightly annoying, it is a common problem with directx games so I'm not even gonna point the finger at firaxis for that problem.
Within the game itself, I have never crashed, or experienced slowdown, or any major bugs of the kind you guys are flaming about (but I've only been playing since *after* the 1.52 patch).
This is my advice: try out the following programs. If they crash your system or report errors, you have a memory problem. In the past I have had weird stability problems with some games (Diablo II, World of Warcraft, Quake 3, Doom3), and every single time it has been a problem related to my RAM. Maybe I've just been unlucky in my RAM selection, but I think not. I have friends who've had the same experience.
So, without further ado, try out:
Memtest86 at http://www.memtest86.com/
and
Prime95:
http://www.mersenne.org/
(Explanation of the "torture test")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime95
If your system passes those tests, there is a very high likelyhood that your hardware is fine, and civ4, if crashing, is the problem. Prime95, especially, will crash your system in minutes if there are stability problems with your CPU or memory.
On the other hand, if you fail, there is a 99.9999% chance that your hardware, specifically your memory, is at fault.
From what I've read here, I'm sure that some of you are experiencing problems with civ4 that are unrelated to faulty hardware. I am equally sure that some of you do have faulty hardware, and for whatever reason, civ4 just brings it to the forefront. I've run systems where a lot of games work just fine, all the time, but one game in particular crashes it or locks it up, and it still turned out to be my own hardware.
Finally, please cut these guys some slack! I'm a software engineer myself, and I know how hard it is to develop something that works with everyone's setup! There are, _literally_, billions of different hardware configurations that you can have, and it is quite simply impossible for them to try them all. That's the nature of the x86 architecture, its greatest strength (lowers cost), and its greatest weakness (hardware device X is incompatible with device Y, when running software Z).
Hopefully the next patch will do the trick for most of you, but there's no way it's gonna work for everyone. It is an impossible feat, unless you are working with a closed system, like the xBox or PlayStation. I don't like it any more than you do, but I know that it is the price of admission when you play with Intel/AMD/Microsoft. You pays your money and you takes your chances.
