Harkonnen's Memory Fix and GOTM

[Kemel]

Because playing GOTMs requires you to have a pure and unmodified version of cIV, I am wondering if you are allowed to submit games that use the community-patch from Harkonnen:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146309

 

[Stilgar08]

I want to install it as well, so info would be appreciated... I'll p.m. AlanH about this (works almost done: I wanna get home and check it our with my GOTM-save... )

 

[AlanH]

I've passed the buck on this to ainwood, as there's no way I can verify the impact of the mod myself. Pending ainwood's response, I recommend you don't use it to play this GOTM.

It seems to be mainly targeted at large maps. This one isn't, and we don't plan to go there just yet. Also, from a very brief read, there seem to be mixed results from using it, so I'm not sure what benefit you'd gain from it.

When we get mod protection fully operational in GOTM saves you will be constrained on which mods you will be able (or required) to use for future games, so it would probably be best not to get too addicted to any right now.

 

[ainwood]

I haven't tested it, but AFAIK, it sits between the .exe and the directx dlls and simply hashes the memory allocation. As such, gameplay (from a game outcome view) isn't affected at all. If it makes the game more stable (as some have reported) then I have no problems with people using it.

However, if anyone finds that it does change the game mechanics, then please let us know.

 

[Harkonnen]

All
Just spotted this thread suddenly... My fix does not care about game mechanics at all. It works like ATi Tray Tools or RivaTuner would work.

Some coder (as I can't be objective) may prove that memory images of Civilization4.exe, cvGameCore.dll, python24.dll (and any other non-system32-folder DLL) are not affected at all.

When I release an update, it will contain a loader which will allow trying my fix with other games (Pirates! for example, but can be Doom3 or anything else). Just to show again that it does not care about civ4 being civ4 at all... (unless "civ4" becomes a stock phrase for a product with technical problems like it has now).

 

[ainwood]

Some coder (as I can't be objective) may prove that memory images of Civilization4.exe, cvGameCore.dll, python24.dll (and any other non-system32-folder DLL) are not affected at all.

Thanks, Harkonnen.

BTW - good move on loading the DLL via zlib1.dll - if you'd retained it in python24.dll, whilst it wouldn't have actually affected game mechanics, it <may> have caused problems with the admin password checks that verify that the game assets haven't changed (although I'm not 100% sure whether the python DLLs are checked - perhaps not...)