A pattern in repeated CTD's

[Harkonnen]

As I've noticed:

1) Game preloads all textures no matter map size or tech level

2) With small-to-standard maps game preloads all geometry, so any in-game HDD activility is only swapping, it creates nothing new.

3) With large/huge maps the game initially creates geometry data for visible part of the map (I mean visible, not opened). When you scroll, it allocates more geometry data for new tiles you previously didn't look it.

So, allocation strategy is a little different for large/huge maps - game continues to allocate something during gameplay. What is strange:

a) It never frees what it additionally allocates
b) With initial load of about 650Mb, after scrolling through entire map it gets to around 700Mb, so there is no need in this "lazy preallocation".

In 'memory leak' thread Kangaroo offered a solution "SyncInput=1" in 'ini file', and it helped a lot for people with CTD. I think this eliminates some threading problems with those dynamic allocations on large/huge worlds.

I'd also recommend to set 'DynamicAnimationPaging=0' (or something like this - search .ini file for "dyn"). I haven't noticed any effect on performance, but it might reduce amount of in-game allocations (as its name states), thus it can only improve stability being set to '0'.

 

[Avance]

Thank you for advices, I try it.

Just for the fun, I had a new CTD and the following error message :
App Name : civilization4.exe Appl Ver 1.0.9.1722 Mod name d3d9.dll
Mod Ver 5.3.2600.2180 Offset:0009efca.

 

[Emerentius]

my last crash:
AppName: civilization4.exe AppVer: 1.0.9.1722 ModName: cvgamecoredll.dll
ModVer: 0.0.0.0 Offset: 000874fe

 

[Avance]

In 'memory leak' thread Kangaroo offered a solution "SyncInput=1" in 'ini file', and it helped a lot for people with CTD. I think this eliminates some threading problems with those dynamic allocations on large/huge worlds.

I'd also recommend to set 'DynamicAnimationPaging=0' (or something like this - search .ini file for "dyn"). I haven't noticed any effect on performance, but it might reduce amount of in-game allocations (as its name states), thus it can only improve stability being set to '0'.

This doesn't work !
I've also increased my Ram from 1024 to 2048 mb and, oddly enough it's even worse since then (CTDs) !

 

[gunnergoz]

It seems that one of the problems is related to camera jumping. You can disable camera jumping by going into your civilization folder and going to Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml. Find the block that defines CAMERA_MAX_TRAVEL_DISTANCE as 3000. If you change this number to 1000000 (a million) it should make camera jumping practically impossible. We do not expect that this will fix the crashing, but we are interested in the behavior of the game after this change.
LL Cool Jay

OK! OK! OK! Way to go! I did that and have been playing a very stable large terra map up to 1940 with no CTD's. My video has been able to be ramped up to medium settings. My wonder movies still stutter but apart from that the game has settled down to be absolutely playable. Very nice detective work! Thank you!

 

[Avance]

...... (cf # 24)

As my problems got worse after I increased the Ram, I'll test the new memory modules before going further.

 

[crciv]

Do not seem to have this problem as much with 'quick game speed', but at normal speed end of game is impossible...severe game freezing with big wars at the end.

System:

Dual P4xeon 2.4 GH
1 gig RAM
6600 GT Geforce, 128MB
Windows Cache is separate from the system drive on a SATA 10K RPM digital raptor drive. Game is run from yet another SATA 10K RPM digital raptor drive..again not on the system disk...read/write lag should NOT be a problem.

Changing the Geforce performance settings do not seem to help.

Besides missing actually being able to play the late-stage game without saving every time I move a stack of units, I really miss the ability I had in CivIII to tab out to my other life and then tab back in...

Maybe I'll wait for the next patch or two...when it works it is pretty...

 

[Woody]

Originally Posted by jaywinyeah
It seems that one of the problems is related to camera jumping. You can disable camera jumping by going into your civilization folder and going to Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml. Find the block that defines CAMERA_MAX_TRAVEL_DISTANCE as 3000. If you change this number to 1000000 (a million) it should make camera jumping practically impossible. We do not expect that this will fix the crashing, but we are interested in the behavior of the game after this change.
LL Cool Jay

OK! OK! OK! Way to go! I did that and have been playing a very stable large terra map up to 1940 with no CTD's. My video has been able to be ramped up to medium settings. My wonder movies still stutter but apart from that the game has settled down to be absolutely playable. Very nice detective work! Thank you!

In my case this "fix" made things much worse. On the first turn I tried to rebase a stealth bomber to the other side of the map. When I tried to scroll to the city that I wanted to send it too there were many graphics problems and the game did a CTD after about 15 secs. Graphics problems were things like culture boundaries not being shown, some cites not being drawn, some cities being drawn but with no name or productions listed.

I reloaded and tried moving a modern armor with the goto command instead of airlifting and when I tried to scroll a long way across the map to where I wanted it to end up in a few turns the same thing happened again. (Bad graphics followed by a CTD in a few seconds.

 

[gunnergoz]

-Woody

Did you send them one of your game saves? Sounds like they'd like that particular one if the fix didn't work on it.

 

[Woody]

-Woody

Did you send them one of your game saves? Sounds like they'd like that particular one if the fix didn't work on it.

I have not sent them a save, the first game I was talking about I no longer have and even since making my last post I have solved my problems. I tweaked my ini file and so far I have been able to play on a huge map with no serious errors. (I still get stuttering wonder movies and some slow downs late in the game but no CTD).

I changed my ini file after I read a couple of posts here.

First I did what was suggested here on post 260
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137706&page=26

Enter your C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\ folder and open "_Civ4Config" (.ini file)

Changing the following settings to the ones below solved my problem, hope it works for others also.

AllowScreenShots = 0
SyncInput = 1
D3D9Query = 1
LoggingEnabled = 1

That helped but I would still get CTDs but not nearly as many. Then I read this post
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3408614

1. I turned off screen shots, but honestly I don't know if this does anything. I also have Wonder Movies off and I have yet to test the game with them turned back on.

2. In the INI I changed "Set max frame rate clamp (0 means none)" from 0 to a fixed number (20 at first, but later I moved to 30 without a problem).

3. In the INI I changed "Set to 1 for dynamic animation paging" from 1 to 0. (Note that the last two changes produce small effects by themselves, but a quite large difference together....I do not know why, animation paging should help the game go faster, one would think).

The above two, together, help increase unit responsiveness and reduce freeze times.

4. I unpacked all of the art files into the custom directory. Then I deleted the Interface folder (keeping it inexplicably made the game crash on any load or new game--I also deleted the camera folder, though I am not sure if it was causing a problem).

5. In the INI I changed "Disable PAK memory mapping (May affect performance)" from 0 to 1. Please note that this must be done with 3 otherwise there is a large performance degredation (at least with me).

These two helped reduce any odd memory effects that were going on and, perhaps requiring the initial two steps, also got rid of the slowing over time effect. I believe the game somehow is mismanaging its memory when it is in charge of what is going on.

6. In the INI I turned on "Sync Input to Smooth Interface".

7. I also have some debugging features on, but I do not believe they have any positive effect on performance (including the D3D9 queries, which I have turned on).

I didnt unpak my art files but I did make the other changes to my ini and I was able to play a huge map game to completion with no CTDs.

 

[Avance]

(cf # 26)

It would seem that I solved my problems : one memory module was defective.

I also reinstalled Civ IV and the patch 1.09 entirely. The CivilizationIV.ini used in its original state.

Now, with 1.5 Mb Ram, I was able to finish one game without any CDT (standard parameters, 1280*1024, videos movies on).

Other games are needed to confirm.

P4 3Ghz, 1.5 Mb Ram, NVidia PNY 6600 GT 128, XP SP2, 81.95 Forceware.

 

[Wolfwood]

It seems that one of the problems is related to camera jumping.

Indeed, the game crashes on me either when the computer scrolls the map to show me cities with various events (build completitions/changes) or when I myself scroll the map around.

I'll try the camera travel distance trick that you adviced!

Thanks again for this help!

 

[Harkonnen]

This might solve memory usage problems, at least particularly.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146309

 

[Avance]

cf # 31...

Just to let you know : since I increased my Ram from 1 to 1.5 Mb, I have no more crashes !

P4 3Ghz, 1.5 Mb Ram, NVidia PNY 6600 GT 128, XP SP2, 81.95 Forceware.