Firaxis: Patch coming next week

[sweKangaroo]

When is the patch actually coming out?...

I have heard nothing official about any patch yet... If a patch is on its way, shouldnt it be found here then: http://2kgames.com/civ4/home.htm ?

 

[EvilGuy]

Though i haven't followed this entire thread, I think a few things are obvious;

-Take2/Firaxis know pertinently that the game has many performance and stability issues to must be resolved and fixed.

-They are working on a patch. Even though they haven't officially communicated it, it makes sense to assume that with the sheer amount of people with problems, it has forced them to take action quickly.

-This patch will make or break their reputation, meaning if the patch comes out and fixes 99% of the problems out there, they'll have undone a big wrong. But if the patch comes out either not helping much OR creating new problems, Take2/Firaxis will be in trouble.

-Therefore, I'm positive their position right now is one of patience, hard work, and flawlessness (and huge amounts of testing) Too much is at stake for them.

Better late than sorry.

I'm personnally looking forward to the patch, my game is running 95% correctly, a few rare crashes to desktop, but that's it. My friend on the other hand, with who I can't wait to play online with, cannot play the game... so it's more for his sake that i'm anxious.

 

[BlueLikeYou]

2GB standard?!? What world are *you* living in?

It might be standard for top-line gaming rigs, but most machines I see are still 256-512M. 1G is starting to become more common. I'd like to get my personal machine up to 1G, but I'll be sitting with 512M for quite a while yet.

Yeah, 2GB is far from standard. Look at valve's steam survey:

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Last updated Sept. 15 and with 836,099 samples this is a pretty good indication of the kinds of computers people are gaming with.

Under RAM, "256 Mb to 511 Mb" and "512 Mb to 999 Mb" account for over 80% of the results. The next biggest is "128 Mb to 255 Mb" with 10%. Less than 6% have 1GB or more.

 

[BlueLikeYou]

I would also like to add that if you are having problems with the game, wait for the patch. Don't update the BIOS. If you don't know what you are doing, you can really screw things up. You almost never need to do this, especially not for a game.

Also, updating to the newest nvidia drivers actually seems to cause more bugs (at least for me, anyway). So I'm not sure that's very good advice either.

 

[civspain]

I would have to agree with the Mods on this one...too many patch threads.....

your right i put a thread like this out also a few days ago it got cloesed so they should cloes this one to

 

[Snackwell]

I'm still exchanging emails with someone at Firaxis, and he won't commit to a date. ("Next week" in a previous post might have been referring to something else) He does say that their dual priorities are 1) get as much fixed in the patch as possible and 2) get it out as soon as possible.

Not that that gives any hard info, but at least it's reassuring that they know there are significant problems and are working hard to fix them.

BTW my nVidia graphic bugs were drastically reduced by simply uninstalling and reinstalling the game. They still show up after a while, but a lot less often.

 

[Padma]

For those concerned that there has been no *official* confirmation of a patch, don't worry; that's as it should be.

The developers are not *allowed* to talk about wht is in development. And the marketers are not about to say anything until they know exactly what is in the patch, and exactly when it will be available. If they say anything, and it proves wrong, people here will be all over them for "promising one thing, and delivering another". Be glad they even leaked that they expect to have one this week.

 

[maartena]

They only three official answers I have heard and seen so far regarding a patch were:

- expect a patch to be released very soon.
- possibly next week. (said last week)
- before the end of this month.

The first two would suggest it would be before the weekend hits, the last one would be before its Thanksgiving.

I currently have only one problem with the game, and that is its unresponsiveness in the endgame, especially after developing satellites and the whole map is visible.

 

[Greek Plunder]

*Waits patiently*

 

[Padma]

Moderator Action: Merged another "The Patch" thread with this one.

 

[blue3c]

Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh. So when is next week. Has next week passed or is next week really next week. Or could next week mean next month. I am so freaking confused right now.

 

[pvzh]

I am 99% sure that we will not have patch THIS week. I seem remember that Civ3, PTW, and C3C patches were usually announced on Wed to release on Fri (end of the day EST). Since today is Thur, it is safe to say we are getting patch next Fri (Nov. 18) at the earliest.

 

[Padma]

It is currently "Next Week". So, maybe tomorrow.

Then again, I read somewhere somebody said "by Thanksgiving", so, who knows?

 

[little_cyclone]

It is currently "Next Week". So, maybe tomorrow.

Then again, I read somewhere somebody said "by Thanksgiving", so, who knows?

Lets just hope before Christmas and work our way up from there..

 

[Roland Johansen]

I build computers and while that doesn't make me an expert, I can't come up with any reason that the running of CIV IV could be effected by the settings in your BIOS. IF you can run Windows without problem and if you can run other 3D games without a problem (they can be effected by the AGP or now the PCI Express settings in your bios) then updating the BIOS will be of no help and doing so could cause your computer to cease to operate.

I had all kinds of graphical problems with Civ4 and the game was so slow that it crashed after 15 minutes of play in the beginning of the game. I tried a lot of the things suggested in the technical support forum to get the game playable, but nothing helped. Untill I changed one setting in the BIOS (that was also suggested in that forum in the FIX IT LIST thread) which lowered the AGP aperture from *4 to *2 and now everything works pretty well (except that the terrain only shows food when a settler is selected and in city view, but that is relatively minor compared to my earlier problems).

You seem to know something about this, so do you have any idea why this AGP *4 -> AGP*2 could help so much?

Bye the way, a graphically demanding game as Rome Total War didn't have any problems.

 

[Zhahz]

You know, I wasn't fully satisfied with Civ3 until the 'f' patch.

I'm quite happy with Civ IV now. Anything they patch will be gravy. Seems way better than I remember Civ3 being at release.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Yeah, 2GB is far from standard. Look at valve's steam survey:

That survey makes me sad. For the last 10 years, it's been a constant refrain whenever anyone asks me for advice about a new PC. I always tell folks, "Bump your CPU speed down a notch and use the money saved to double your RAM". That extra 10% speed from a faster CPU doesn't mean jacksquat as soon as you start swapping to disk because you don't have enough memory. Same situation with upgrades. Max out your memory first, then upgrade the graphics, and only upgrade the CPU as a last resort.

(I'm running on a 2GB box. Currently debating adding another 1GB or 2GB of RAM to it.)

As for the patch situation... almost every game developer gets told "this patch will make or break your reputation". While true to an extent, after you hear it the Nth time it does start to seem a bit silly.

 

[DisruptiveIdiot]

That survey makes me sad. For the last 10 years, it's been a constant refrain whenever anyone asks me for advice about a new PC. I always tell folks, "Bump your CPU speed down a notch and use the money saved to double your RAM". That extra 10% speed from a faster CPU doesn't mean jacksquat as soon as you start swapping to disk because you don't have enough memory. Same situation with upgrades. Max out your memory first, then upgrade the graphics, and only upgrade the CPU as a last resort.

(I'm running on a 2GB box. Currently debating adding another 1GB or 2GB of RAM to it.)

As for the patch situation... almost every game developer gets told "this patch will make or break your reputation". While true to an extent, after you hear it the Nth time it does start to seem a bit silly.

No one needs 2GB of memory if they're just a gamer.

 

[Sorceresss]

RAM prices are relatively low :

it is then strange that gamers using WinXP would accept to run with less than 1 GB of RAM.

 

[EdCase]

No one needs 2GB of memory if they're just a gamer.

Gamer or not more RAM (especially if your below 1GB) will give you more bang for your buck than a new CPU