Firaxis: Patch coming next week

[pygbe]

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

Quite strange... AGP aperture is a quantity of MB, usually half of graphic card's memory.
So you could have a number between 32 and 128, usually.

I don't understand what's your AGP*2; maybe a multiplier?

 

[Venger]

Quite strange... AGP aperture is a quantity of MB, usually half of graphic card's memory.
So you could have a number between 32 and 128, usually.

I don't understand what's your AGP*2; maybe a multiplier?

Two things...

First, it is normally recommended that you make your AGP aperture TWICE your (EDIT:video card, this was unclear) memory, not half...

Second, AGP4x, 2x, 8x, refer to the AGP transfer rate, which in later AGP revisions was allowed to scale - hence, an AGP 4x card can trasnfer data at 4 times the original AGP spec rate (66MB/sec??). Anyways...

Early on there were issues with stability in some cards and BIOS's using the fastest rates, or write combining, fast writes, sideband addressing, etc. Most recent board tend to run 4x just fine, but your individual implementation may vary...

Venger

 

[JakeCourtney]

Well, It's friday so the patch better be coming soon.

 

[King Flevance]

Well, It's friday so the patch better be coming soon.

Anyone know the 'official date' yet? Or if there is one. Or where you would look besides civIV.com?

 

[Elegantly]

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

Before buying it, make sure that your OS actually supports up to 4GB of RAM.

For the average private household, I highly doubt the benefits of going for more than 2GB of RAM. This includes the typical gamer. More often than not, even the actual application you want to speed up is not able to gain significantly from such a huge amount of memory.

I know a similar discussion in the context of World of Warcraft: targetting for 1GB was highly recommended but having more than that was just icing on the cake, and both synthetical benchmarks as subjective impressions did not justify paying the price for additional RAM. The general consensus was to save the money for paying the monthly subscription.

 

[Trooper4985]

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

People exhibit A - BF2.

NEXT.

BF2 is just the beginning. I seem to remember a certain computer geek/worlds richest man saying "640K ought to be enough for anybody" Bill Gates refering to system memory. Using your harddisk as virtual memory when you system memory is full shreds computer performance.

 

[BearMan]

oh... I feel sorry for myself reading this dicussion...... I have 512 Mb....
I so need a new computer

Anyway, where is the patch ? I would like to see the movies run smooth.

 

[Mazruk]

For all those waiting for the patch.....maybe they are struggling to find anything to put into it as all the problems are user errors? ::runs::

Seriously though, I dont know how they (Firaxis) can fix individual PC configuration/driver/bios problems in their patch, other than avoiding certain calls to drivers which will make the game worse for those with currently working systems...

Oh, I know, the "patch" will be a sticky label you can put on the min/rec specs part of the box, correcting it to show only those systems that were built this millenium?

Sorry guys couldnt resist . Hope it fixes (when it comes) everything that stops people enjoying this brilliant game.

 

[balearicrazy]

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

All though true in some cases, that is a very broad statement. You add an extra 512 to a system running anything much less than a 2.0Ghz Proccessor and it's not going to make a fantasic amount of difference.

Also there are a lot of conditions involved, capabilities of your motherboard, space on your hard drive for virtual memory, speed of your hard drive connection (i.e is it 7200) and then on a software level computer performance can be effected by the fragmation of your hard drive, background programs running, spyware, you know the list goes on, sticking more RAM in isn't always the answer.

 

[DaLagga]

For pretty much any game out there, anything over 1gig is pointless. I've used 1gig and 1.5gig when playing BF2, and i notice no difference. Not to say there isn't...its just so slight it doesn't matter (heard someone saying you can get around 10% greater fps, but on that good a system, we're talking about the difference between 80 and 88-90fps...in which case you could never tell so it matters not). So, i'd say anything more than 1 gig is worthless right now...maybe in a year or so, but not right now. Also consider the fact that that same memory will be much cheaper in a year, and you're best off waiting. Don't make the same mistake i did and say to yourself "i'm going to buy an awesome system now so i can run games that come out 3 years from now"...because its just a waste of money, trust me. And i can pretty much promise you, no matter what game you're running or how weak your processor is, anything over 1.5gig is 100% worthless.

 

[Kwyjibo]

If you let windows decide on your paging file (VM swapping), the more physical memory you have, the more virtual memory it tends to assign (adhering to the 2-2.5 times physical memory rule), so more memory will not garantee (hope that is spelled right...) less harddisk swapping. To really benefit from more RAM, you need to install a more RAM efficient OS (probably moving on to 64bits is a good start)

 

[liam1om]

DaLagga,

Thats not completely true. I was running CIV4 for about 5 days on 1GB of memory. When I got to around 1800AD the game really started to slow down with continuos crashing to desktop etc.

I put in another 500gb and it now runs fine, no crashing and completely smooth!

 

[Kwyjibo]

DaLagga,

Thats not completely true. I was running CIV4 for about 5 days on 1GB of memory. When I got to around 1800AD the game really started to slow down with continuos crashing to desktop etc.

I put in another 500gb and it now runs fine, no crashing and completely smooth!

This in my opinion is due to the 'memory leak' bug that has been reported by many people. Adding another 512mb (I assume that is what you mean, otherwise you have got to tell me where you get those 500GB sticks!!!!) will only delay the slowdown and crash, as it takes a bit longer (another 1.5gb) for the memory to fill up, so if you're lucky it will take you all the way to the end of the game without crashing.

 

[liam1om]

LOL yes I meant 512mb, dont know what I was thinking.

Yes I think its definetly a memory problem, so hopefully for people with lower memory this might be addressed in the patch.

It still takes literally 10 minutes to load up a game though.

 

[RedRum4Fun]

This in my opinion is due to the 'memory leak' bug that has been reported by many people. Adding another 512mb (I assume that is what you mean, otherwise you have got to tell me where you get those 500GB sticks!!!!) will only delay the slowdown and crash, as it takes a bit longer (another 1.5gb) for the memory to fill up, so if you're lucky it will take you all the way to the end of the game without crashing.

This is true. unless you were simply looking for a reason to cram RAM save your money for your next game. I to have the same CTD after running up into the early 1900's and have 1 GB of ram... yes I will buy another 1GB stick or two but my gaming station seconds as a cad station for heavy 3D Modeling..so I could use it in the longer run.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

CIvIV completely thrashing your Documents and Settings after several MP games

 

[Mercade]

oh... I feel sorry for myself reading this dicussion...... I have 512 Mb....
I so need a new computer

Anyway, where is the patch ? I would like to see the movies run smooth.

Last week it was said that the patch would be out "next week", and since today is the last day of last week's next week, by the original statement it should be out today. Of course, that's the theory ...

You know which day is the most popular for starting diets? No, it's not Monday. It's tomorrow.

 

[Pratputajao]

It still takes literally 10 minutes to load up a game though.

This is what puzzles me- 10 minutes to load with over 1 gig of mem??

I have 512 and have never had a load time over 3 minutes! Even what I load a huge map with 9+ opponents ( It just plays tooooo slow on huge maps, I have to stick with standard...)

I believe this game was just rushed without going in and "polishing" it up. To those of you who become angered whenever someone complains about the game-- Its not the game; the game rocks! Its all the problems for those of us without the mysterious configuration to get it to run right all the time.

 

[Kwyjibo]

I would say all my games (even on huge maps with 11 opponents) take about 30sec to 1 min to load.

 

[warpstorm]

One thing to consider is that a work week in the games industry ends when your boss gets in on Monday morning.