Memory-fix by Harkonnen is out!

[jinif]

I hate to be an idiot but here it goes...
How do I install the patch? What directory do I have to put which files?
Ive read the instructions but I cant figure it out!
Thanks!

EDIT: Never mind, I found my answer in the previous post...Doh!!!

 

[Oblivious]

I applied the patch, and all is well thus far except for my wonder movies. The wonder movies prior to using this patch worked fine, now they run really choppy. (Prior to using The Kangaroo's .ini settings (from another thread) I had been experiencing CTDs with ver 1.0, and game freeze ups with ver 1.09)

Any idea which setting I can adjust in the Harkonnen patch to prevent this?

My specs are:

p4 2.53 ghz
1024mb ram (2 x 512mb) 333 mhz
ATI Radeon 9550 256mb
Soundblaster Live
Windows XP Pro

I believe the settings I used in the patch are:

D3D9Query = 1
DynamicAnimPaging = 0
patch_on = 1
vid_mem_usage = 120
insane_mode = 1
(and the 3 files placed in the Civ IV folder)

Hopefully this hasn't been answered already, I honestly haven't read through all 20 pages of this thread.

Thanks in advance, and thanks again to Harkonnen for all his hard work. It is greatly appreciated by all of us.

 

[Flash1]

Smidlee,

How is your supermap working out?

 

[Kushan]

Just installed the patch. Damn what an performance increase.

Kushan

 

[kettyo]

Though Harky's right that with 1GB mem. insane mode is not that important but if you play huge worlds try to make it work.
The test-save does swapping in my system without insane and does not with it and this is a big difference.

 

[kettyo]

kettyo
As I read on, you seem to have found your top performance spot. Good job!

The good job is yours actually i'm just lucky

 

[FullyCompletely]

I'm getting a runtime error and crash at the loading saved game point?

 

[Tractor]

as many others, i just registered to thank Harkonnen.
This is a real piece of genius.

My own system is not too shabby : 2 GB RAM, AMD Barton at 2.2GHz, Radeon 9600 XT with 128 MB Video RAM, well, quite enough for about everything currently available.

Everything bar Civilization. I was also suspecting some memory leak with some garbage collector struggling to keep everything in place. Especially in Video ram. Because one of my favorite CTD was when clicking on the mini map, or moving around the mini map, making some great changes to the graphics to be displayed.

Well, anyway, since your patch Harkonnen, the game is smooth, fast, and never crash !!! That's what Civ4 was supposed to be in the first place ! You made it man !

With such skills, you can't be missed. Should Firaxis be too proud to thank you or undestand that they need someone like you, there will be many other company impressed by your work.

Greets

 

[jvdbliek]

I have a ATI mobility Radeon 9200 with 64 MB of Ram.
WIth the fix the game loads fine and fast, but I get a crash when I start a new game or have loaded a save game.

One of: serious error had to close messages.
I have the vid mem set to 32 and insane mode =0.
Does the crash mean I cannot utilize this fix (dissapointment...) or does anyone have ideas?

Jasper

 

[druade]

is the auto-installation patch already out? (im far too stupid in pc-things to install the first patch of harkonnen)

 

[Harkonnen]

Oblivious
I am on the movies issue. My current version for update release has just 'insane_mode' setting, and should address these 3 issues:

1) movies
2) gray leader box
3) globe view (in case it was ok before the patch)

It's a couple of hours from being released, so just wait a little... You may subscribe this thread, the thread I pointed to be "release subscription thread" or just check main forum pages once 1-2 days to see when it is out.

FullyCompletely
There might be two reasons in Harkonnen.ini for that:

1) You probably have overestimated 'vid_mem_usage'. Try values of 120, 80, 40 in that order - one of them should work. If it does not work even for 40, set it to 60 and proceed to step 2.

2) Try setting 'insane_mode = 0'. If it works, you may want to increase 'vid_mem_usage' back to its original value or at least leave it as 60.

Tractor
Thank you

jvdbliek
I don't know what to suggest in this situation... Coming update will address such situations, but you'll have to wait for it for a day or two, or it may come today.

druade
Not yet, but it's almost finished.

 

[Harkonnen]

All
I forgot to describe situation with the poll... The forum had some problem of merging poll in here, and it contained 9 or 10 possible answers, so obviously Thunderfall couldn't recover it by memory. Actually, this was a good occasion. Placing the poll with next release is much more logical as it will be improved not only in installation aspects, but also will adjust itself much better - there will be less things to preconfig, and even those will be suggested.

 

[sen2000]

It works!!!

My huge game is faster than before i install the the fix

Good Job Harkonnen

It seems that it also have fix my problem with water tunning black when I play!!

My system is a Athlon 64 3500+ w/1 GB RAM, and Nvidia geforce 6600 GT w/128 MB RAM.

//SEN

 

[Ainvar]

I wanted to say that this fix has increased performance on my desktop system. Movies are still garbled but eh I want playablily over compatibility when it comes to movies and the game.

I am using Omega Drivers 5.12 release now.

AMD 3000+
1.5gig ram
ATI AIW 9600 Pro 128 meg

I also wanted to say the game is now nicely playable and movies work flawlessly on my laptop

Dell Insprion 6000d
Pent M 1.86ghz
1gig ram
ATI x300 128megs

 

[hardcoded]

I registered this forum just to reply to this thread. I don't even have civ4 (My geforce 2 GTS 32mb isn't good enough (well, I guess). The demo works, but I don't think that bigger map/more opponents would be bearable)

I'm amazed! Firaxis developers must be ashamed right now. I would be if I were among them.

As a developer myself (not in the game sector, but in the wonderful world of python ), I have a vague idea of the big amount of work involved in your patch, and I hope that Firaxis will pay you big bucks for it (and the consultancy service they'll need from you to integrate it to their codebase).

I've been thinking for a while about a vidcard upgrade for civ4, but now that I know about this patch, Firaxis can have my word that it won't happen until they integrate your patch (if it can make any difference ... ). My memory is not something an app can shamelessly waste!

EDIT: arg,typos

 

[frankieaquino]

Is this patch compatible with civ 1.09?

 

[rcoutme]

Ok...I adjusted the Harkonnen file. I did not do anything to the ini file, since I am uncertain which that is. I will leave that until your (promised) automated fix. Hope this will work.

I left the insane mode at 1 and set the other parameter to 180

Edit: since this will not add another post, I figured I would let you know what happened. I loaded up a previously saved game (auto) and it ran great. After leaving, my computer decided to restart, but that's ok, since it restarts really fast. Thanks for the help.

 

[Harkonnen]

sen2000
Ainvar
Thank you!

hardcoded
A special thanks goes to you as it was one of reasons to write it (still the community was the primary source of enthusiasm). I'd eat my HDD, should some (de)coder play this nasty trick with one of my own projects... I mean fixing it without any source code

frankieaquino
Yes, of course. It is rather generic solution which I am going to try with more games. The only thing which binds it to civ4 right now is loading it via 'zlib1.dll'.

rcoutme
Ok. Thank you for not giving up and waiting.

 

[Lorteungen]

Wow. This patch gave me the most dramatic performance increase of any patch in any game I've ever played. That's quite an accomplishment I think. Nice work!

Loading times have been dramatically reduced, I've never actually timed it but it feels atleast 4 or 5 times faster when loading a late game. Also the startup is a quite a bit faster. Shutdown no longer cripples my computer (I used to need a reboot after playing to be able to use the computer for anything else and the shutdown alone would take several minutes).

Overall the game seems faster too. When I play large maps with 12-14 civs now the game feels about the same as a standard map with 7 civs used to. It's still slow in the late game though and the memory used still seem to increase with time. Closing the game and restarting it helps but only for a while (this wasn't even an option before as closing the game made windows run at civ4-like speeds...). I've played with insane mode on and with vid_mem_usage of 72, 120 and 170. 72 and 120 felt about the same but at 170 I started getting weird graphic glitches after playing a while (like big blue squares in the middle of the ocean and diplo screens going completely one-color).

System:
Athlon 64 3000+
2x512 Mb Ram, dual channel
Epox 9NPA+ Nforce4 ultra
Galaxy 6600GT, 128 mb

 

[oldStatesman]

I also noticed that after the 1.09 patch the version of the zli1.dll file is 1.2.3.0, and your mod(fix) uses version 1.2.2.0, and the original game uses version 1.2.1.0.

Interesting, I just checked the file version, and it comes up as different versions depending on where you look....the old zlib1.dll before 1.2.3 had a security issue...Firaxis did update it in 1.09...I thougt Hark used this one as I just looked at the file Version in the lower window, not the version at the top...