best RTS ever....??

[narsil]

sorry for title guys but by RTS i mean ........RETURN TO SHOP!!

seriously i bought this game early yesterday eagerly anticipating another spellbinding episode of sid's latest creation

everything looked good, the review was 92% (pcgamer) gfx and new combat/game ideas seemed very appealing

i updated the game then BANG!! ....random CTDs, monitor being occasionly turned off, strange corrupt gfx, freezes with music playing ..etc ,etc

anyway i spent all night reading various forums trying out countless drivers and different setups; updated everything, disabled everything except civ4, huge pagefile...think u can see were i am heading

all have had no effect and the most i can play for is about 20mins

maybe i should have took more note of the reviewer when he said it was not very stable LOL.. he gets my vote for understatemant of the year for that one

guess this is a kind of rant but after my experiance totally warranted so please bear my moans

i understand many have the same probs and for those who can play then i envy you

my conclusion is this game is nowhere near ready for release so an RTS is called for and repurchase later when probs are fixed and the price has dropped

just for info here is my specs

amd64 3500+
ati 9800pro
asus a8v delux
1 GB kingmax 3200 ddr
sata 74GB raptor
audigy 2 zs

anyone can run with these specs please tell me how and I will RTS and try again

tnx

 

[VimesUK]

If you have returned it to the shop already how can anyone help you to resolve your issues...?

 

[scarl]

Runs Perfect on:
Athlon 3200+
Ati 9800 Pro
1 Gb of Kingston HyperX DDR (Dual)
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Sata Raptor 36 Gb
(quite a close config, except for the 64 bit part )

Runs also nicely on:
Dell Inspiron 8600
Pentium D 1.5 Ghz
Ati 9600 Pro
768 mb Ram
80 Gb IDE

You might have a heat problem. But I guess we'll never know, as YOU RETURNED THE GAME AFTER JUST 1 NIGHT OF TRYING.

Boy, If only Napoleon gave up so easily...

 

[narsil]

yes i agree one night doesnt seem long but i purchased early am one day and went to bed almost 24hrs later

how long does it take to change drivers etc if you know wot your doing?
i self built my pc so have an idea. also i have other games that rely on newer drivers but i tried everything suggested and anything i could think of to try and get the game reasonably playable

i admire you guys perceverance (sp?) and basically all i wanted to do was play this game because i do love the civ series. however i dont see why i should accept sub standard products when i part with my bucks. maybe if more people shared my views then companies may try harder to release games with less issues

that said i can easily go and rebuy the game when another patch is released and i will watch progress with interest

i exchanged for Rome Barbarian Invasion so it looks like i be playing that for now

edit.. yes i thought of heat and monitored it with asus probe and everything was normal, but with 5 fans in my box i would expect it to be

 

[spyder77777]

I agree with you Narsil. The "normal" behavior should NOT be to beta test this thing for days hoping to solve the issues. It should work fine out of the box, for the most part. It sounds like you spent a fair amount of time checking forums and trying different things anyway...you're just lucky to get away without further damage (hint: see my thread).

We'll let you know when it's out of beta!

 

[VimesUK]

In the many years of having a PC I would suggest that the 'norm' for PC games, for some people getting them to run, has not improved much over the years. With the diversity of the hardware that is now on the market and some peoples lack of understanding coupled with bugged software that is released you are really up against it.

I used to think that at least console owners were lucky, in that they didn't have to wait for patches to fix their games, with a level playing field of hardware. But now I have read that they too can expect to need patches for future games.

 

[southjerseyrisi]

my conclusion is this game is nowhere near ready for release so an RTS is called for and repurchase later when probs are fixed and the price has dropped

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

It runs fine for me, it's stable, I have no CTDs, no monitor being occasionly turned off, no strange corrupt gfx, and no freezes with music playing.

I have a Dell Dimension 8400 with Windows XP Service Pack 2; 3.2ghz Pentium4 with HT; 1GB of RAM; 256MB nVidia GeForce 6800.

There's no way I would return my game to the store, it's awesome!

 

[DeyofAlgiers]

Also... because of a new law on copywrites for pc games you CANT return the product to the store even if it is faulty... they only give u another copy which still gives you the same problem. So a RTS isnt possible... in other words you just blew 50 on a bad game.

 

[narsil]

well pcworld in charlton, london has exchanged it for wot i mentioned earlier, i stated it had ati issues etc but the assistant was very helpful and didnt even argue

anyway i wish the game had worked without rebooting every few mins cos i really was looking forward to playing it.

goodluck to you who have it working but for me there was no joy (one of the few i havent got stable) so returning asap while they would accept it was my only option IMHO

no more from me on this. i wrote it after hard nite and was very frustrated; as i said goodluck to those that can play as for others then its up to you wot you do

 

[BirraImperial]

Civ 4 is not a RTS game.