Anything on the patch we was supposed to get three weeks ago?

[kabouki]

Is everyone busy playing with the patch?


I've installed Civ4 on 17 computers with various configurations and none gave me a single problem. With the original game... and with modded files, some rewritten python files, reworked art files, never had a problem. Maybe I'm lucky...

BTW I only had trouble (serious problems) with a game (Black and White) in a machine (I own around 100 games) and of course back in DOS days, I had some trouble getting enough conventional memory for some games (I needed to load different keyboard drivers for localised hardware, different codepage, etc..)

CIV4 rocks...

PS: If I were a Firaxian I'd never post again in a place where I'm not welcome... but since we cannot take these flames as the thoughts of the great majority of the users here... maybe they think twice...

 

[n0xie]

I've installed Civ4 on 17 computers with various configurations and none gave me a single problem.

That doesn't say anything.

 

[kabouki]

Well 0 out of 17 is something to me. People are playing on these computers... I mean I installed the game and people are playing for countless hours without a single problem...

Of course that 17 computers is nothing compared to several thousands, but I can see when a game is unstable, CIV4 is not an unstable game. It's a bit demanding, it's VERY demanding for a turnbased game, but I've seen much worse...

 

[Philips]

Well 0 out of 17 is something to me. People are playing on these computers... I mean I installed the game and people are playing for countless hours without a single problem...

Of course that 17 computers is nothing compared to several thousands, but I can see when a game is unstable, CIV4 is not an unstable game. It's a bit demanding, it's VERY demanding for a turnbased game, but I've seen much worse...

It certainly was until recently. This patch seems to have fixed my problem, but it was something like five months from the release date.

I am not as pissed as I was, but I am going to wait until any future Take2 product is stable before I buy it. I know that people will say that I should do that anyway, but I have had good luck with release versions (from major publishers at least).

On the other hand, if they had not fixed Civ IV I would probably never have bought from them again.

 

[n0xie]

Well 0 out of 17 is something to me. People are playing on these computers... I mean I installed the game and people are playing for countless hours without a single problem...

Of course that 17 computers is nothing compared to several thousands, but I can see when a game is unstable, CIV4 is not an unstable game. It's a bit demanding, it's VERY demanding for a turnbased game, but I've seen much worse...

I've installed the game on numerous pc's (more than the 17 you mention) and I can say it is an unstable game. Yet my point was that personal experience is in no way an argument in any rhetorical debate. Just because 'in your case' the 17 pc's worked alright, does not make it a stable game. People often start arguments on fora (or in any debate really) with the phrase 'in my case', as if their case is anything special: it's a basic flaw in reasoning. A scientific approach would be to run the experiment a minimum of a 1000 times before anything remotely consequental can be said 'from personal experience'.

If you want to make any claims about the stability of the game, you start looking at mathematical models of the number of people with problems compared to the relative knowledge of those people (i.e. user errors) and compare that to the amount of games sold. Obviously you need to add some elements to the equation but that's basically it.

Several polls were made of which the general consensus was that about 1 out of 5 people had problems with the game, and 1 out of 10 were so severe that they couldnt get the game to work/play properly/play for more than several turns. Although these polls are obviously in no way representative it does give a bit more accurate estimate than simply saying 'in my experience'.

 

[Solver]

See, there's exactly the big problem. "Stability" is not something you can easily gauge. I, personally, have never had a single technical issue with any official version of Civ4. That means it's a stable game for me. Other people have had lots of issues. That means it's an unstable game for them. What does it mean overall? Nothing.

The only possible way to determine the stability would be to take the number of copies sold (installations made), and look at how many of those are having problems. That's not really possible, not even for the publisher. Polls that are made here, or on Apolyton, or elsewhere, are not really representative, either. They indeed showed ~20% of people experiencing average to very serious problems, but judging by my experience in software, it seems completely implausible that 20% of all buyers would suffer the problems. Simply put, there are many reasons why such polls are not representative of the real situation, whether they show a positive or a negative result.

 

[Raider62]

Is everyone busy playing with the patch?


I've installed Civ4 on 17 computers with various configurations and none gave me a single problem. With the original game... and with modded files, some rewritten python files, reworked art files, never had a problem. Maybe I'm lucky...

BTW I only had trouble (serious problems) with a game (Black and White) in a machine (I own around 100 games) and of course back in DOS days, I had some trouble getting enough conventional memory for some games (I needed to load different keyboard drivers for localised hardware, different codepage, etc..)

CIV4 rocks...

PS: If I were a Firaxian I'd never post again in a place where I'm not welcome... but since we cannot take these flames as the thoughts of the great majority of the users here... maybe they think twice...

Out of 4 machines I have now put CIV4 on 3 crash and only 1 works at all and it has it's own issues.

As for your little fire-axian comment, Perhaps if they had their own forum where they actually provided tech support, people wouldnt tend to flame them when they stick their heads out of their holes... They have the worst Customer support/tech support I have ever seen.

 

[Depravo]

STILL bloody crashing. See signature.

 

[danielcg]

I got Version 1.61 patch and it worked flawless. It is appeared to fixed tooltop pop-up bug when I set graphics quality to high. Now I can keep graphics quality to high. It also fixed tutorial bugs, too. I am very happy! I had to rebuild my custom mod to match updated XML files from Version 1.61 patch.

Note: if you have HP printer software installed OR older Nvidia Driver installed (Earlier than 61.90?) AND installed Windows Explorer Update (April Release) then you will not able to launch Civilization IV because the bug between two softwares (not Civilization IV related) prevented access to "My Document" folder. Reason: Certain software are not compatible with new shell extension class verifier program that new Windows Explorer uses.

That bug will be fixed by another Windows Explorer Update on Tuesday, April 25. I will NOT receive another Windows Explorer update because I did not meet required conditions and I do not have any problems launching Civilization IV or access to "My Document" folder.

 

[juha_pellikaine]

I got version 1.61 patch and it didn't fix anything. Game still crashes at the beginnig of the game, after autosave. I just wondering if there is any patches coming...

 

[Ljdjr]

juha_pellikaine
Probably just me but when I first updated I still had jerky movies.

Then I did a fresh reinstall, then the ingame update option, and the stutters seem to have left.

Now I've done a full rewinstall and am expecting the moon.