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

I get a crash on huge maps with default number of civs and city states. I have 8GB under Windows 7 64-bit. Video card is ATI Radeon HD 4350 with 512 MB. Turning all video options down does not affect it; neither does playing the DX9 version. Reducing the number to 6 civs / 6 city states seems to work, though I haven't played beyond classical era yet.
I think the problem is the limited RAM available to 32-bit applications. They need to make a 64-bit version available or many people won't be able to play huge maps or the more elaborate mods.
 
So, I've done a little more exploration of this issue as follows.

I posted the original thread on this subject, so my issue and PC is listed on the initial post (4GB RAM, Intel E8400 (dual core 3ghz), nVidia 8800GT, Vista 32bit.

I wanted to check the theory as posted that the Civ V process was exceeding some sort of RAM usage limit for 32-bit applications. When I first tried it, I launched the game and set it to windowed mode and lowered the resolution to make it easier to see both the game and Task Manager.

With my luck, of course, the game did NOT crash and successfully launched a Huge map game (all other settings standard). I gradually increased and decreased resolutions to try and find a functional slot, and found the following (numbers are horizontal resolution; I didn't see a variance between vertical resolution):

Apparently always functional: Up to 1280(including the widescreen variations)
Sometimes functional: the 13xx and 1440 resolutions
Never functional: 1600, 1920

Incidentally, all game loads ranged between 1.2GB and 1.6GB used by the process.

The theory that it might be video memory might be holding some water, strangely enough. Maybe it's something to do with textures?
 
One last update: on a whim, I just set my Fog of War detail to Medium, from High, and I was able to load a Huge Map game at 1920x1200, fullscreen. I'll let folks know later if I can isolate this a little more, but for now I have a Huge Marathon game to occupy my attention. ;)
 
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?

I think you have enough RAM. I would suggest a new Graphics card, but I would actually wait a week (or so) and see if there are any new patches or video drivers. You could actually try NVIDIA Beta Drivers.
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/win7-winvista-32bit-260.63-beta-driver-uk.html
 
I wanted to check the theory as posted that the Civ V process was exceeding some sort of RAM usage limit for 32-bit applications. When I first tried it, I launched the game and set it to windowed mode and lowered the resolution to make it easier to see both the game and Task Manager.

May I suggest using Sysinternals Process Explorer in place of Task Manager? It's far more informative on a per-process basis as you can track damn near everything including thread and disk I/O activity.

Cuz yeah, I did the same thing you did, only in Process Explorer, and the game seems fine up until it starts scratching the 3GB mark (around early Renaissance Age in Marathon Huge games), and then it crashes out. Mind you, I've not had a single problem getting new games to load at 1920x1200 with everything set to High.

Incidentally, I get the same behavior in Large maps.
 
One last update: on a whim, I just set my Fog of War detail to Medium, from High, and I was able to load a Huge Map game at 1920x1200, fullscreen. I'll let folks know later if I can isolate this a little more, but for now I have a Huge Marathon game to occupy my attention. ;)

I'm thinking that's the deciding factor due to the way that fog-of-war is drawn.

I have a Large/Fractal map at 1600x900 and I can't load the map if I set fog-of-war above Medium. Loads fine if I use Low/Medium, but always crashes if set to High.
 
Hi,

I am running Civ5 on WinXP, Core2Quad (9300), GT8800, 4GB RAM

Whenever I try to set up a game on a large or huge map, the game crashes to desktop during the load screen (the one with the spoken intro). Loading a standard map works, however.
 
Moderator Action: Threads merged.

Could you please confirm the observation from post #22?
Thank you for merging (didn't see there was a thread about this already).

I can confirm that the FoW setting seems to be a deciding factor. I set it to low and could start a huge map on 1900x1200 resolution.

Kudos to Magc8Ball for doing the detective work!
 
Dropping fog of war settings hasn't however affected my inability to load saves (on huge maps, or large maps for that matter) that crash on load.
 
Dropping fog of war settings hasn't however affected my inability to load saves (on huge maps, or large maps for that matter) that crash on load.

Maybe this is related to the file size bloat bug: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381428

I experienced crashes always accompanied by a memory access violation - as has been stated before, this hints toward a problem with memory allocation in 32-Bit systems.
 
I have a similar problem with starting new games as well as loading some others. It may be dependent on map size, but I noticed crashing on other map sizes as well (I have only really tested with normal and small).

I didn't think I had any problems prier to the patch pushed by Steam.
 
I haven't seen this, but I get a crash if I every time if I setup a game with Terra map, huge, and seemingly, if I remove one or more other civs (reduce from 12 to 8, for instance). It only happens on Terra, and the one time I setup a huge map with all 12 civs, it worked. I suppose I should have experimented a bit more, but it definitely crashes for me under those first settings I mentioned. It always crashes about a 1/3 way through the civ narrative while loading the map.
 
To my dissapointment i had the same issue. Trying to start a huge map, marathon with civ and CS numbers standard.

During the intro the screen went black as it shifted from the intro to loading the map on screen and it crashed.

After testing with different map sizes it ran fine, so then i went back to Huge but lowered Fog of War to medium and w00t it loaded.

Played a couple of thousand years then saved, woke up next day to continue and crash... set Fog of war to minimum and w00t! loaded again.

I have experienced a couple of crashes mid game and, after lowering settings (especially shadow, terrain etc) i have managed to keep the game running THUS far.... Have just broken into the Medieval era so it will get very interesting as the game progresses to the Industrial and Modern eras.. im expecting more crashes as that time approaches.

I had a very simmilar issue with the Rise and Fall of Civilization (or was it Rise of Mankind i forget) mod for Civ IV where as the game got into the later stages it would crash every 2nd turn.
 
Not sure if this helps at all, but this may be the issue; I can predict exactly when CiV is going to crash for me on a huge map... It's the turn on which I get a GP (almost any type) from a city due to GP points earned (GP's 'bonused' from wonders, etc, don't crash the system, it's only when the pop-up saying a Great Scientist/Artist/Engineer would trigger - as I've lead a blameless and boring life this game, I have yet to earn a Great General, so I can't verify if the GG triggers a crash too). The game runs fine for me at all other times; after re-loading the game on the turn I get the GP, it will *usually* carry on and allow me to get to the next GP, but it will then crash again. Every. Single. Goddam. Time. Trouble shooting, I've tried turning all detail down to minimum. At the time of crash, I'm usually using about 50-60% CPU, 30-40% RAM (including the resources used to run the system monitor) and I'm running CiV in DX9 mode. I'm playing as Ghandi, OCC, No Barbarians or Goody Huts, Huge Earth so it's been fairly easy to identify the problem... But other than the GP spawn, my rig seems fairly happy to play...
Spoiler :
I'm currently running a fairly old custom rig, but I'm pretty sure it's happy with the min spec, just shy of the rec spec:
Windows Vista (Updated today, as are all my drivers)
Intel Dual Core 2@2.66 GHz
4 Gb RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX

I've not got masses of units (one city, one worker, one combat unit) or tons of units on screen. Absolute maximum of half a dozen of other civ's units traversing my territory, and I have yet to go to war, so I'm not exactly running a terribly taxing (for the hardware) game.

@Krustoph: Could you reload one of your old saves before you crash out then see if it could be a GP spawn from any city or a GG spawn crashing your game?
 
I'm getting crashes when i try setting up a new game too, huge maps, marathon, default settings everywhere else. Same with setting up a game through the mod section, and sellecting small islands, or any other map type.

Now to clarify system specs and people wondering if itll do it for their system, heres mine (which i just purchased a week ago)
-Intel i5 CPU, 750@ 2.67GHz
- 8GB ram
- Windows 7 64 bit.
- ATI Radeon HD5500 series.
-terabyte.
HDMI cords running monitor to tower.
i dunno what else to say.
But yea, i've tried most of the solutions here but nothing seems to work, hopefully a patch comes out soon addressing this.
 
I had issues with Huge maps as well initially, but I eventually determined Leader graphics settings as the (or at least, a) cause. With that set at low, I have no regular crashes on huge maps, just one or two random ones when the camera swooshes between two distant tile locations. I could play small maps with higher settings.

Since I'm at work (shame on me), I can't give exact video card specs, but I barely pass minimum requirements (Nvidea dual processor, I think 1 GB mem). I use XP with 4 GB memory installed, but only 2.75 is usuable. Also, DX9. I have a lot of lag issues, but otherwise few, random crashes now that the leader video is set to low. Most other graphics tweaking seemed to have little effect for me.
 
with the video specs that have been posted, we've seen p[eople with 1gb, to 8gb, with min. requirements to blowing them out of the water systems. Byt the sounds of it, its a game issue, nothing to do with actual system performance.
If someone with some good detective skillls, or computer skills, maybe think of any other solutions?
I really want to play small islands on a huge map lol.
 
I'm having same issue with Custom Huge Map...Win XP 4gb ram...loads game (though incredibly slow. However around turn 45 when I run into another civ it crashes.
 
I'm having same issue with Custom Huge Map...Win XP 4gb ram...loads game (though incredibly slow. However around turn 45 when I run into another civ it crashes.

That's exactly what wa shappening to me, but once I put the leader setting on low, no more crashes when meeting Civs. You may want to try that if you haven't already.

Also, there appears to be a bug when you hit 70 cities, not really a large map issue, but one you're not likely to encounter except on larger maps.
 
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