Firaxis: Patch coming next week

[logical_psycho]

This is a growing trend with new games not just CIV4.

Is that bad? There isn't a better tester than a customer. I rather get a game now and see it patched within a month, than having to wait for 6 months and still see the game getting pushed back. Even with a huge testing programme a program this huge can't be completely bug free.

 

[doggiedaddy]

Yeah, I see the 1-888 number to call Windows. But is there any point in calling if I can't find the package/booklet that came with the disc when I purchased it? Or is all I need my serial key? It is so much more complicate now than it once was. I have also been told the techs on Microsoft's end aren't very pleasant to talk to - prone to accusing you of being a software pirate.

Wow...so... you didn't even TRY to call?

I've had to activate that way as well, and it was very easy. I think they assume when you call that you don't have the serial number in front of you. He that does not genuinely try should not throw stones!


Wow..

 

[MeteorPunch]

And do not tell me it becase I got an ATI video card. This is ATI for God's sake - they are a pretty big video card manufacturer. it isn't like I have a ZimbabweCorp 3300 XTreme VideoCard.

Why do people always make fun of my video card!




p.s. Zimbabwecorp rules!!!

 

[Dark Helmet]

Wow...so... you didn't even TRY to call?

I've had to activate that way as well, and it was very easy. I think they assume when you call that you don't have the serial number in front of you. He that does not genuinely try should not throw stones!


Wow..

Yes, I think someone else already alluded to the fact that I was dumbass over this. But I am sure more will follow. I brought it on myself really.

Up until a few minutes ago I wasn't even sure what kind of information I would have to provide when I called, so I was desperately trying to get all the WindowsXP package info from when I bought it, alternating in cursing Firaxis and Microsoft all the while. Once again, yes my fault - I will call Microsoft (though I shouldn't have to - but that is a rant for another forum and another day).

 

[Willem]

Good job with the quick patch, Firaxis. My issues were fixed by turning the AGP speed from x8 to off, so I hope after the patch I'll be able to turn it back up again.

I've read that if you turn it back up to 1, reboot then turn it up to two, reboot again, you can get some of that speed back. Anything over 2 though brings back the black terrain. And don't ask me why you have to reboot each time, it's just something I read. I don't even know for sure if that works.

 

[H4ck3rPr0j3c7]

i just hope they fix everything in the patch.. i had just gotten my pre order yesterday and i had played it for maybe 2 hours and i ended up getting a low VM warning and i have 2gigs of Virtual memory.. i checked how much ram Civ 4 was using within that time and within an hour or so it was using a lil over 600mbs of ram! now thats rediculous! im running a 2.60ghz pent 4 with HT Tech 1gig ram and a 256mb Nvidia 6600 thats tweaked with a fully tweaked computer. i dont even recall doom 3 taking up that much ram! but aside from the major slow down within playing over an hour, yeah the wonder movies skip also. as long as the patch fixes the memory leak i'll be happy, dont really care for the movies.

 

[doggiedaddy]

Yes, I think someone else already alluded to the fact that I was dumbass over this. But I am sure more will follow. I brought it on myself really.

Up until a few minutes ago I wasn't even sure what kind of information I would have to provide when I called, so I was desperately trying to get all the WindowsXP package info from when I bought it, alternating in cursing Firaxis and Microsoft all the while. Once again, yes my fault - I will call Microsoft (though I shouldn't have to - but that is a rant for another forum and another day).

Well, you did mention having your eyes bug out when Civ 4 caused so many problems. I think we all blew a gasket. We just didn't run into the major problem that you did. I hope your XP is easy to reactivate, and more importantly I hope you didn't lose anything vital. With no web access, you'd be in a tough spot.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I've read that if you turn it back up to 1, reboot then turn it up to two, reboot again, you can get some of that speed back. Anything over 2 though brings back the black terrain. And don't ask me why you have to reboot each time, it's just something I read. I don't even know for sure if that works.

My problem wasn't the black terrain, but horrid flickering during wonder movies, in the civilopedia, and advisor screens. Also the cloud texture would totally obscure the ground in Globe view, and the minimap would occasionally break.

Runs like a dream with AGP turned off. DOOM3 suffers a bit, though.


Another thing I hope they fix (or add, actually, since I guess it's not technically broken) is the ability to make mixed offers in diplomacy. Why can't I trade techs for resources, or ask for both a lump sum AND gold per turn? It's just a bit sloppy. I'd like the ability to request resources I already have, too, so I can form trade monopolies.

 

[H4ck3rPr0j3c7]

as previously stated the only problems im having are just major memory leaks which of course slow everything down.. but all i do is just close out of Civ and start playin again and its good for another hour or 2.. i dont see how they could have missed a memory leak that takes up basically all the ram that you have and only leaves you with a few hundred mbs remaining.. 1st time i played i played for like 2 hours str8 with lag here n there but it really didnt bother me all that much.. well i ended up opening my process manager and i had a low VM memory warning and when i looked at the Civ4 process it said that Civ4 was using 630mbs of ram, now when you have a gig of ram not including the 256mbs of ram for the video card thats pretty damn bad. i've never seen a game use that much ram before, Doom3 doesnt even use that much. but anyway aside from all that the game works great.. i also noticed something... if you zoom in some the lag pretty much goes away when you move, but with it zoomed out the lag increases..
but anyway with how Civ4 looks and everything im startin to wonder what kind of expansions they'll be coming out with for it

 

[franlato]

don't want to sound negative H4ck3rPr0j3c7 but it could be that Python is very uneffective... and no memory leak... so the fact that your computer slow down after 3 hours would be due to python and other techniques they use, that's it!

And i don't see them change entirely the way they did the game just for a patch..

 

[Willem]

.. i dont see how they could have missed a memory leak that takes up basically all the ram that you have and only leaves you with a few hundred mbs remaining..

It's not affecting every system, many people don't have any problems with it at all. It's just one of those things that can slip through a beta test. I'm sure it will be fixed in the patch.

 

[franlato]

It's not affecting every system, many people don't have any problems with it at all. It's just one of those things that can slip through a beta test. I'm sure it will be fixed in the patch.

is someone played a game on a huge map, epic speed and did no suffer any slowdown at all?

My computer is way better then the setting they recommend and still i'm getting 15 fps late in the game on a huge map...

 

[Zombieboy]

is someone played a game on a huge map, epic speed and did no suffer any slowdown at all?

My computer is way better then the setting they recommend and still i'm getting 15 fps late in the game on a huge map...

Frankly, huge maps were a laggy mess in Civ3 too...Hopefully they can clear some of that up with the patch.

 

[H4ck3rPr0j3c7]

yeah i know what you both mean.. i just wasnt expecting it to have an impact on my comp like this cuz of the way that i have my comp setup. when it comes to my comps i tweak them to the max to perform the best.. but apparently in this case it doesnt matter.. but as i said earlier i just hope the patch fixes the memory leak, as far as i've seen thats the only problem im having.. and im glad they actually put a sort of a cheat device within the game (World Builder), comes in handy when you just wanna have a lil fun

Edit..
and yes im playing on a huge map with epic setting.
and as far as the huge maps go on Civ3 i didnt have any problem with them at all, but then again they were 2d not 3d

 

[Venger]

Did I single you out in that comment? Obviously there's some issues, no game that's just been put out on the market these days doesn't. But many people are complaining bitterly even though their machines clearly aren't up to the task.

No, chum, they ain't - the VAST MAJORITY of complaints are from people who CLEARLY MEET or EXCEED the requirements. In my case, I EXCEED the requirements, in spades. Anyone who doesn't meet the minimum requirements answers their own question.

There was even one person carrying on about how it didn't run smoothly on a P3 900 mhz system, which is clearly below what is stated as required.

One person? This is what you have, one person?

Many people think that just because they ran Civ 3 just fine on a system they bought 5 years ago, that Civ 4 should run just as well. Well it's not going to happen, Civ 4 is a more demanding game resource wise, and a bottom end system that hasn't been looked after for years is just not going to cut it.

Let's deal with reality here, sir. Reality is that people who MEET or EXCEED the requirements are having REAL issues. This apocryphal P2-400 with 128MB RAM bit is a total strawman - the problem is with Civ4, NOT THE HARDWARE.

As for the whole T&L issue, it was clearly stated as a requirement and if someone's video card doesn't support it, they have to expect issues. And it doesn't take a genius to see the link between the black terrain/cheshire cat leaders and the lack of T&L support.

DUDE ALMOST EVERY CARD MADE IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS HAS T&L. A GF2-Pro has T&L - and that's what, 5 generations old? You CLEARLY don't understand the problem - I have seen the black terrain, I have seen the scrambled graphics, in fact I WAS LIKELY THE FIRST PERSON to post buggy graphics in here - and guess what? 5900XT. You should stop trying to prescribe cures when you clearly do not understand the symptoms or nature of the problem.

It just requires a little bit of logic. All video cards that don't have T&L support show these symptoms, and only some of the ones that do support the technology are having these problems.

This makes so little sense it's uncanny - all those with T&L have problems, and some with T&L have problems, therefore... what? NOTHING. Are those with T&L somehow MISSING their T&L? Why do people with the SAME card have different results? You have no answer, just garbage lines about crappy hardware - your ill-considered conclusion is meritless on it's face.

It's a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned.

Shyeah, you can bet on that...

Yet another person to add to my ignore list. I don't have time for thimble-brains who feel justified in insulting people for no reason.

Your absence from participation will be a welcome refreshment.

Venger

 

[oldStatesman]

yeah i know what you both mean.. i just wasnt expecting it to have an impact on my comp like this cuz of the way that i have my comp setup. when it comes to my comps i tweak them to the max to perform the best.. but apparently in this case it doesnt matter.. but as i said earlier i just hope the patch fixes the memory leak, as far as i've seen thats the only problem im having.. and im glad they actually put a sort of a cheat device within the game (World Builder), comes in handy when you just wanna have a lil fun

Edit..
and yes im playing on a huge map with epic setting.
and as far as the huge maps go on Civ3 i didnt have any problem with them at all, but then again they were 2d not 3d

Doesn't seem to be a memory 'leak'... Civ4 just uses a LOT of resources. I ran a perfmon on it ... and it reserves a huge amount of the page memory for itself.

It also uses the CPU intensely. 94.5% average CPU utilization over the hour and 1/2 I monitored. This is the BIG performance bottleneck I'm seeing ... not memory usage which XP seems to be managing well.

I have not had a CTD or BSOD during this test...I will continue to run perfmon over the weekend and I hope I get some of these issues to evaluate.

Aslo, it seems that my one BSOD was a failure at the atidvag.dll. This dll holds shader data for the ati card....evidently the game made a shader call that was bad and led to a Kernel mode exception. (BSOD code 0x0000008e at memory space BFBoA4e4 which was identified as being used by the atidvag.dll). I have thought that shader issues were the real culprit since my original card, the Radeon 7500 would not run the game correctly even though it is technically t&l compliant...it does not have shader support however. This would also explain the cross-card issues we are seeing. Python, XML and directX are playing in ways that the developers didn't expect...and that the graphics drivers are having a hard time dealing with.

On Edit: my specs Athlon 2400 Barton CPU/1GB System RAM/Radeon 950 AGP 256MB Video card 5.10 CCP drivers/WinXP sp2 with all recent hotfixes

 

[Shadowlord]

When has that ever been in contention? I'd say the ATI fix would pretty much refute anyone claiming otherwise.



Nope, I don't think that at all. Nobody here has said anything suggesting that.

Saying the patch won't fix the problems with crappy hardware isn't assuming that is where everone's problems stem from.

Maybe I got the wrong impression from some posts, but it sure looked like people were saying "If you don't have an uber graphics card, well you should get a better one, your card sucks!" to people with cards which met the recommended specs. But there seemed to be more of that directed at people whose cards met the required specs who still had severe problems (particularly the visual bugs on cards without shader support which DO have T&L). I've seen very few people saying "The patch will probably fix the game for low-end cards which meet the requirements" and plenty saying that it wouldn't.

But part of my confusion might have come from early posts along the lines of "Everything was black or super-bright? Your card doesn't support T&L, the patch won't ever fix that, go buy a new card." - directed at people whose cards DID support T&L, but lacked shaders.

Of course I'm just paraphrasing from memory, so maybe I got the wrong impression and that wasn't what people were trying to say at all.

 

[H4ck3rPr0j3c7]

speaking from experience i sho as hell dont fall in the "crappy" hardware/computer category so on a certain extent Venger has a point...


and thanx for clearing that up oldStatesman, but it still doesnt explain the fact that i got a low VM warning while playing for 2 hours, if that doesnt mean theres a memory leak i dunno what does.. since i've had this computer even before the ram and vid card upgrade i have NEVER gotten a low VM warning before. so either way you look at it thats still pretty bad in itself.. and No game should take up that many resources, if current games took that many resources either alot of ppl would be doing Tons of PC upgrades and tweaking, or no1 would be buying the games at all, if a game causes a Low Virtual Memory warning on a system with 1gig ram a 256mb video card and 2gig virtual memory not to mention all the other things i've done to my comp then the game isnt fit to run on my comp let alone anyone elses with equal or same stats.. but then again maybe thats just my view on things.. shrugs.

 

[rd_syringe]

Civilization has always ran on low-end hardware. With the move to 3D, the minimum specs have gone up dramatically from Civ III.

I disagree. I never played the original, but Civilization II required 16MB of RAM just to display those animated advisors. Civ III didn't run on my computer at the time without chopping up the 2D unit movement animations. I think Civilization has always pushed the computers of its time like most other games.

 

[rd_syringe]

Not at all. He followed the instructions on their website and it killed his computer. That is totally unacceptable. He could probably sue them for the cost of buying Windows XP and win.

It didn't "kill" his computer, and it's not Firaxis' fault. It's Microsoft's. And you can activate Windows over the phone.

Non...issue.