[FIXED] Crashing on Huge Map Size - What's the Limiting Factor?

[Magc8Ball]

During the game creation process (the loading screen with the civ/leader description) of a game with a Huge map, my game crashes to desktop. This does not occur on Large or smaller maps.

My first assumption is that that my RAM is probably causing this crash (4GB on Vista32) since I can't think of anything else offhand.I'm posting this here for further discussion should anyone else have the issue or if another cause or solution presents itself.

Please post especially if you're seeing this crash with MORE than 4GB RAM. I'd like to figure out where the "Sweet Spot" is on this one.

Additional info:
-I've only tried this with all other game settings at default or "larger" (Continents, default or max City States, 12-14 civs)
-I've had no issues running the actual gameplay
-I can't imagine that the CPU or GPU are causing this, but I'm running an Intel E8400 and a nVidia 8800GT.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Moved to bug reports.

 

[Hustapha Thool]

I got BSOD on first try of huge map, second try the game froze. I did not try again.

Win7/64
I7 920
5850 vid
6 gig ram

 

[The_J]

Did you try it with smaller maps? If yes, do these work?

 

[TheLopez]

Oh good, I'm not the only one... I think I'll head back to modding Civ4 now for a while...

 

[WuphonsReach]

Possibly related to # of civs or # of city-states.

My first custom play was an attempt to run huge, continents, marathon with only 8 AI civs but a full 28 city-states. After thinking for a while as it generated the map, Civ5 crashed before I could click the "start play" button after the intro.

 

[Omega17]

Hey all,

When I try to run a "huge map" game, I get the leader cinematic narative... but then it will crash, every time without fail.

Here are my Specs:

Dell XPS 420
4 GB RAM
Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit
Nvidia Geforce 8800GT 512MB
Intel Core 2 Q6600 Quad Core (2.4 GHz)

 

[ainwood]

Does it work OK on smaller maps? All leaders, or just a certain one? Any other info you can provide?

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action: Threads merged.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Possibly a bug with huge maps? I'm having no luck on WinXP with 3.3GB of RAM (useable, 4GB installed) getting a huge map to load. Large maps are working fine.

Starting to think that it's a memory limitation if you have 3GB or less or are running in 32-bit Windows.

 

[bergrar]

Same crash here with huge maps.
not with large or small

 

[Omega17]

Does it work OK on smaller maps? All leaders, or just a certain one? Any other info you can provide?

Sorry, I can provide more info yes.

With default number of civs and city states on the huge map, it freezes, and any other number that is exceeded from the default also.

It sounds silly that it would freeze up on huge, I think my system is ok enough to do it??

......Theres the red patch thing also, but thats for another thread (annoying bug)

SMALLER MAP SIZES WORK mind -edit-

 

[ainwood]

Your video card exceeds the "Minimum" specs, although doesn't meet the "recommended" specs. I wonder if there is not enough video RAM for a huge map?

 

[Omega17]

Your video card exceeds the "Minimum" specs, although doesn't meet the "recommended" specs. I wonder if there is not enough video RAM for a huge map?

Well, RAM "Recommended" level is 4GB, I only have 3.2GB.

I mean, the game is quite buggy right now, so i'm not sure if its the game, or Nvidia needs to bring out a driver update, do you think its software based ainwood?

 

[ainwood]

I'm not really sure. I was wondering whether the issue was video RAM, not system RAM.

You have 512 MB of video RAM, which is actually what the "recommended" spec is, although your video card is a generation between the "minimum" and the "recommended". I am not sure if "recommended" is enough to play the game on huge maps.

 

[Pyrion]

The memory limitation in 32-bit Windows is actually 2GB per process, not 3.whatever total if you have 4GB of memory, and in my experience (running in Windowed mode with an always-on-top Process Explorer info window loaded) Civ5 uses a good 1.6GB-1.8GB creating the map before you get to start playing.

Huge maps load fine here (although obviously they take quite some time to generate) but I can never get beyond the start of the Renaissance Age on Marathon pacing before the game crashes from something else. Doesn't seem to be a memory issue though, the game hasn't gone beyond using 3.3GB on the Huge Marathon games I've started.

Intel Core i7 920, 12GB DDR3-1066, XFX Radeon 4890 1GB, 2TB total HD, Vista Ultimate x64 SP2

 

[BLiTZWiNG]

I've had several crashes with patch 1.0.0.17, and I just got a BSOD.

I started a stock game (didn't change any options).

I've got a Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.4 GHz), 2GB RAM, nvidia GTX 275.

I haven't had a BSOD on this machine in 3 years (I've had it 4, though I originally had a GT7900).

 

[Biz_]

try all low settings for graphics to see if that's the problem

 

[Omega17]

I'm not really sure. I was wondering whether the issue was video RAM, not system RAM.

You have 512 MB of video RAM, which is actually what the "recommended" spec is, although your video card is a generation between the "minimum" and the "recommended". I am not sure if "recommended" is enough to play the game on huge maps.

I think it is system related.

I turned down shadows to low, did some other little tweeks without totally downgrading the graphic quality...and it loaded a map with 10 civs and 20 city states.

It MUST be my system not being good enough, but would you ainwood, recommend more RAM, or a totally new GPU?

 

[BLiTZWiNG]

I got the BSOD and freeze after turning shadows down. I've been playing in DX9 mode for a while now fairly incident free but quite laggy.