Lemon's Civ/Vista Guide

[turjan]

About the 3.19 installation problem:

Just wanted to post my experience for anyone else who, like myself, was somewhat baffled while searching around these forums.

Vista 64 home edition
Civ IV complete edition, PC DVD. Installed it but did not patch it.
BTS fell into an infinite loop in a game I was playing.
Read forums, downloaded 3.19 patch
3.19 installer asked me to sign a EULA and agree to register. Then crashed immediately to desktop.
Checked build info on BTS: 317, 301, 3.1.3.1
Nevertheless, based on this thread, downloaded 3.17 patch and tried to install it. It failed, claiming another installer was already in operation. (Probably the 3.19 installer had left something lying around)
Reboot system
3.17 now installs successfully.
Checked build info. Still 317,301,3.1.3.1
Attempt to install 3.19 patch. Installer now behaves completely differently. No eula. No registration request. Checks for DirectX components. And installs successfully.

Freaky.

 

[deanej]

Sometimes patches will require other patches on some systems. It's completly random; while for most each patch does not require any others, sometimes it happens.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Just FYI to all:

I'm currently working out the kinks of Windows 7, and I will be adding some Civ/Win 7 specific details to the guide shortly.

Zylornck and I are waiting until all of our machines are upgraded so that we can compare installation issues and goofiness on 32 and 64 bit versions, and how it might be different than Vista.

Stay tuned!

-LM

 

[kiwitt]

I am installing Win 7 Ultimate 64 today ... Wish me luck.

System: Core i7, ASUS P6T MB, 6Gb of RAM, 4870 HD 512, 160 GB WD 10,000 rpm HDD - It should fly.

Install Win 7
Update Drivers to the latest

"Run" all as Administrator"
Install Civ 4 to "custom" C:\GAMES\CIV4\
Install Civ 4 Patches
Install Warlords
Install Warlords Patches
Install BTS
Install BTS patches

Hopefully it should all go well. "fingers-crossed"

BtW: I only play and Mod Civ

Edit: It works

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Well, I guess the good luck wishes are redundant now.

As soon as I finally get my copy, mad, I will try it out, and update the guide.

On the topic of the guide, Zylornck will no longer be contributing to it. Though I'm sure that all of us appreciate the contribution that he has made to the guide, I will be looking after it myself from now on.

 

[kiwitt]

I believe the "key" was that I ran all the patches as "administrator".

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Guide update:

Due to some r/l commitments and a complete lack of interest on my part, I will not be updating the guide with any Windows 7 information in the near future as I originally stated elsewhere. There are a number of good threads about Windows 7 on the tech forum, I suggest that you try some of those.

If you're still using Vista, then this thread stands as a good resource (IMHO), otherwise, good luck with Seven.

-LM

 

[danieladler]

"failed to load xml-file" Tried to follow the advices and re-install the whole thing in order to get patch 3.19 to work. But now i cant even install vanilla. I have the oldest version of civ 4 vanilla. Just mentioned that because i remember that there was some kind of special problem with those first discs. Its really frustrating that i cant recall how the heck i managed to install it on my vista computer in the first place, quite a long time ago. It would be super if the guide mentioned this xml loading problem cause it seems its kinda common for us poor vista users. Anyone recognizes my problem?

 

[bwcbwc]

One comment: My Vista installation of Vanilla Civ 4 went into the normal C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\... folder. This was a download copy from Direct2Drive, so that may have been the difference. Or it could be what happens when you Choose "Run as Administrator" rather than actually login as an Admin user. I don't even have a Firaxis folder under AppData, whether local, roaming or whatever.

Could the install directories have been changed as of the latest patch levels?

 

[MarkJohnson]

First great guide and thanks for taking the time to write this.

a few things I noticed.

The patches don't seem to require running as admin anymore to auto update patches through the game. Windows update fixed it I believe, so games can update themselves properly.

also, you may want to remove the vista from the title. It is misleading as this guide covers a whole lot more than just vista and most vista specific issues have been resolved my MS. It reads more of a setup guide in general.

I would also suggest a little index in the first post to give people a general overview with quick links to the sections they need help with.

Thanks again for a wonderful post
-=Mark=-

 

[Lemon Merchant]

First great guide and thanks for taking the time to write this.

a few things I noticed.

The patches don't seem to require running as admin anymore to auto update patches through the game. Windows update fixed it I believe, so games can update themselves properly.

also, you may want to remove the vista from the title. It is misleading as this guide covers a whole lot more than just vista and most vista specific issues have been resolved my MS. It reads more of a setup guide in general.

I would also suggest a little index in the first post to give people a general overview with quick links to the sections they need help with.

Thanks again for a wonderful post
-=Mark=-

Thank you for the kind words. I believe that you missed the following at the end of the guide:

Please note that due to time constraints and personal issues, this guide is no longer being maintained. I can't speak for Zylornck, but I no longer frequent the Tech forum. Thank you for reading, and I hope that you were able to solve your issue. -LM

The suggestions are good ones, but I am no longer doing anything with the guide. Due to my commitment with the BAT Mod, I no longer have the time to edit the guide and bring it up to date with Windows 7. I also no longer have the valuable input of Zylornck Davis, and he was instrumental to much of the core of the guide.

I'm sorry, those are my reasons, and that is as much as I will discuss.

 

[viator]

The Civ/Vista Survival Guide - Section 2

2. Civ only uses one core of a multi core CPU. That being said, a dual core CPU will run Civ better than a mono core because the game runs on the first core, and the OS and system apps run on the second core (Mostly. It isn't that cut and dried, but for simplicity, that will do.)

Likewise with a quad core. However, the performance increase is not doubled by having the second core. You basically see a little less lag in the late game, but that is also dependent on the amount of memory that you have installed.

3. Running Civ and Vista with less than 2 GB of RAM is just asking for slow, choppy performance, turn lag, and leaderhead slowdown. Vista really needs 2 GB to do anything reasonably well, and 3 Gb is better if you only run 32 bit. 4 GB or more is nice for 64 bit.

Vanilla Civ does not use more than 2 GB itself, because it's just written that way (BTS is /3 GB switch aware and can use up to 3 GB, Vanilla is not.), but if all the other stuff running in the computer is up above the 2 GB boundary, Civ has all 2 GB to use and performs quite well.

A modest 1.8 to 2.0 GHz dual core with 3 GB of RAM and a 512 MB graphics card will run Civ beautifully on either version of Vista, right up to huge maps. And Intel/AMD doesn't matter, btw, so let's not go there, shall we?.

4. The ATI/Nvidia "Which is better" discussion is largely irrelevant, with one exception. Recent (Early 2009) Nvidia drivers seem to have a problem with Vista 64 particularly, by all of the data we could find. We don't use Nvidia cards, so we have no direct experience. We can only rely on second hand data, so no criticism from us on this one. The problem is, however, not confined to Nvidia. ATI cards will sometimes have the same problem.

Great Guide !

Maybe I can contribute a tiny bit to your overall guide by mentioning the recent discussion in the threads of the Rom-MOD and the connected AND-MODMOD.
(By the way: both these great MODs are not yet in your list of MODs.)
Those MODs try to be of historical complexity, introduce a lot of new CIV-choices and the best of many other MODs, so are extensive memory users, especially when the game develops, thus very demanding ... result: imo an interesting discussion about 64 vs 32 and other ways to solve memory problems in the threads.

Vista specific: In that discussion I addedd a rather common Vista solution, which I did not find in your guide (yet):

UPDATE 2 SEPTEMBER 02

Thinking about drjones' remarks in the ROM-thread:

Well it is both, as far as I can see the Mod expands the memory needed to run civ to the point that before 64bit it was swapping out a lot to the HD which causes major slowdowns. I would assume the mod could be adjusted to not use as much RAM, but that would require removing functionality and features in all likelihood so that does not seem like a fix to me. Given that games expand as time goes by the 6gigs I have now might not be enough after a while, or there might also be CPU bottlenecks on some functions.

Under Vista you can create a socalled "READYBOOST MEMORY" by changing (a portion) of fast memory in the property-window of that memory
In my case I used an usb-stick. It has to be FAST (at least USB2) or it will not work: the ReadyBoost-tab will not even appear in the window !
I connected a 4Gb USB2-stick, changed it to ReadyBoost and suddenly everything works fine !!!
It turns out that in Vista the ReadyvBoost can also be used in the way drjones describes above.

There is a led in my usb-stick and I can clearly see the heavy activity as it needs this memory when I play CIV4-RoM-AND on High Grapics at 1680x1050. It even works great in a game fully developed after many turns!
By the way: same thing for other demanding graphics- or video-software
.

Hope it helps someone.
Greetings,
Viator

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Great Guide !

Maybe I can contribute a tiny bit to your overall guide by mentioning the recent discussion in the threads of the Rom-MOD and the connected AND-MODMOD.
(By the way: both these great MODs are not yet in your list of MODs.)
Those MODs try to be of historical complexity, introduce a lot of new CIV-choices and the best of many other MODs, so are extensive memory users, especially when the game develops, thus very demanding ... result: imo an interesting discussion about 64 vs 32 and other ways to solve memory problems in the threads.

Vista specific: In that discussion I addedd a rather common Vista solution, which I did not find in your guide (yet):



Hope it helps someone.
Greetings,
Viator

Hello Viator. Thank you for the input. As for updating the guide, I will quote myself from the post directly above yours:

Thank you for the kind words. I believe that you missed the following at the end of the guide:

The suggestions are good ones, but I am no longer doing anything with the guide. Due to my commitment with the BAT Mod, I no longer have the time to edit the guide and bring it up to date with Windows 7. I also no longer have the valuable input of Zylornck Davis, and he was instrumental to much of the core of the guide.

I'm sorry, those are my reasons, and that is as much as I will discuss.

Sorry, but the guide is what it is, and it won't be added to or changed in any way - at least by me. I'm actually considering asking the mods to delete this thread entirely, as the information is a little dated, and I have no time or interest to rewrite it.