Memory-fix by Harkonnen is out!

[Harkonnen]

All (and polyphemus)

I've got leave the city for ~3 days for the main work reasons. I will be available for replying for ~12 hours from now (if I manage not to sleep during finishing installer), then I'll vanish for a few days. I still hope that I manage to finish installer by 25th, but chances have lowered

I think we'll continue discussion in 'releases info' thread once installer is ready. That thread on itself won't be necessary once it is released since 'installer' version will have 'check for updates' button on its own. Also I will finally add a poll there with results of memory-fixing.

 

[Artagel]

Thanks for the update, Harkonnen and good luck, and have a safe trip.


At least you have been working on the problem. who knows what Firaxis has been doing all this time.

 

[Private_pAuLa]

Thanks for the update, Harkonnen and good luck, and have a safe trip.


At least you have been working on the problem. who knows what Firaxis has been doing all this time.

i think they're smashing the heads against the wall 'cause hark is doing better then they are

 

[polyphemus]

Boy am i special , i get special recognition!!

 

[Harkonnen]

polyphemus
Wow, yes you are 'Cause you made me forgetting to reply twice (around page 20 and recently here ). I've just edited post #801 with the info you requested about new thread...

I agree, this thread suffers a lot... mostly due to disabled searching (especially in-thread searching), but I accept this
solution since forum went down just too oftenly before Thunderfall disabled it.

 

[lebowski]

maybe it will be a merry christmas after all!

 

[MxxPwr]

MetHimPikeHoses
Actually, there are none making big sense... 'SyncInput = 1' solved some CTDs for nVidia users, but others don't have any meaning.

I don't know what 'D3DQueries' does, but I asked everyone to set it to '1', so that we all are in the same situation (and probably civ4 will try to adjust itself better for D3D9).

'DynamicAnimPaging' should affect a lot from its name, but it does also nothing... I guess setting it to '0' will reduce in-game memory reallocations, so I have also recommended it.

'CutTreeRegions' decreases performance when set to 0 (and it's 1 by default), so I recommend retaining original '1' here.

'DynamicAnimPaging' visually seems to be globe view clouds, civil unrest smoke, green mist from overpopulated city, tile improvement sparks/flame/smoke (like from a mine), and I swear it's responsible for smoke and flames in the opening movie. Hopefully it doesn't effect performance, because I don't know if I could live without it. It's the entire look of my game.

frank

 

[lifeaquatic]

hey harko, ok i have a new system now, what should i make my settings?

geforce 128MB FX 5200
512 MB RAM
2.4 celeron

 

[cerebusdapope]

my system is a 2.27 ghz with i gb ram

i am upgrading my card from a 64mb Nvidia geforce4 mx420

to a ati 9250 256MB

all agp

will i still need harkonnens fix? or can i turn it off?
if i do how should i set up the memory thingee?

any help will be appreciated!
L8

 

[cintorix]

Hi all

Except for near invisible gunships that look like charbroiled ostriches, it s working great.

1.3GHz, 512MB, 128MB Radeon 9250

Eventually fireaxis is going to come out with their own patch. Its inconceivable that they wouldn 't given the level of discontent here, though its also inconceivable they would have released that sloppy code so...i dunno...i digress. But I had spent $200 on the game and upgrades and was <del> <del> until finding the patch.

I wanted to do something to immortalize what's been done here. At first I thought about getting inside the code and naming a Great Enginner (I've read this whole thread and can't believe someone hasn't said this already...??) but the problem with that is they disappear after doing what they do.

So then I thought about getting in the code and having the one of the cities always named Harkonnen (or St Denis maybe since I just looked at a picture of the fictional Harkonnen and it ain't too flattering...hehe).

Anyone have better idea about how to immortalize this great work? Anyone can write a script to make whatever change and then all us tens of thousands of interested parties will be playing with the same mod? Just a thought.

Okay, can't say enough, Great work Harkonnen.

 

[BlueLikeYou]

Has there been any update on the memory allocation error that comes up when saving? I just tried again and got the same thing.

 

[Chopperhead]

Ok well I have installed your patch and it helps but I know it can help alot more from what other people have said and so Im wondering if you could tell me 1) how do I change the settings? 2) what should I change them to?

my specs are.... P4 2.4Ghz, 512MB RAM, GF 6600GT, audigy2 sound card, and I dont Remember the rest.

 

[Eagle'sStrength]

I can't thank you, Harkonnen, enough for the fix you provided.

Got an AMD 64 2800 system with a GeForce 6600 Vid Card which I bought as a Christmas gift for me and my wife, with playing Civ IV in mind. Got the game when i had my training at Boeing in Seattle and I couldnt wait to get home to run it. It was ok the first few turns in the huge map, but when i got to the Modern age, that's when things started to s..l..o..w down.

I installed your fix, initially set the insane mode=0. The game ran a bit faster, so I decided to switch on the insane mode. Now, it runs faster still, with all the graphics as detailed as ever.

There's only one concern - when I end the game and exit to the desktop, Windows alerts me that my system is low in virtual memory. But, that's after playing it. Once, i got the same message while my saved game was loading.

Is this OK or should I be worried about it?

Again, thank you!

 

[Harkonnen]

MxxPwr
Well, probably you are right about 'DynamicAnimPaging'. I even saw something more specific about that (kinda 2 pages to load) in something 'details.xml'. One of problems with this game is that it tries to allocate/free memory (especially video memory) during the game... That's simply not right, it is slow, a subject for fragmentation and all other "world wonders", those were my thoughts about disabling 'DynamicAnimPaging'

lifeaquatic
Well, you should follow post #1 as is with all its items (like 'low' textures). Honestly, I'm on almost same system, except 9800 Pro vs. FX 5200, and I still have slowdowns with late game and high textures.

So, you may try these:
'vid_mem_usage = 80', 'insane_mode = 1' for post #1 version.

Though, FX 5200 cards proven to be a bit faster with AGP, so you may try 'vid_mem_usage = 150', 'insane_mode = 1' next.

 

[Harkonnen]

cerebusdapope
With small-to-standard maps you won't need it, later you will. Set 'vid_mem_usage = 150' (or '180') - it should be ok with post #1 version.

cintorix
Thanks! Actually some people renamed some of their great units to 'Harkonnen'

BlueLikeYou
This time no... I have C run-time library allocations optimizer ('memory leak' thread started with it). It didn't save much (if saved at all), so I disabled it (commented out in my code) in these releases for stability reasons. I will try to bring it back in one of next releases, but I doubt we'll have it available before The New Year.

Chopperhead
Well, with 512Mb of RAM there's no such flexibility. If you have 256Mb of video memory, then yes - set 'vid_mem_usage' to 150 or 180 - it should become much better.

Eagle'sStrength
That's ok because even with my fix civ4 performs "on the edge". To avoid these messages and possible CTDs, increase your swap file size to ~2Gb, and better keep it fixed size.

 

[Eagle'sStrength]

Thanks! I'll try it out once I get home. Haven't experienced CTD's yet, even if the message displayed during loading.

I'm thinking of increasing my system memory from 512MB to 1 GB and up... but that's for next year. Appreciate your help a lot.

 

[bfuerst]

Hark,

THANKS, this patch enables me to play the last 40 turns. i got ctd without even completing a turn. i am not sure if it has been mentioned anywhere in the thread and i appoligize for the laziness of not reading the 40 pages but xfire has a problem a problem with the patch. If anyone gets a error message while trying to start civ4 and xfire is open, close xfire it will then work. i am assuming xfire is based on on of the games config, ini or dll files which may have been replaced by the patch. no big deal just cant chat during gaming, although i havent tried it but you may be able to tell xfire to ignore civ 4 and it will then work, who knows. Once again thanks Hark on the hard work.

 

[Harkonnen]

bfuerst
Yes, this was mentioned. Another beast is 'ATI Tray Tools'. They don't rely on DLLs, they just hook into Direct3D as well, so we conflict. I couldn't solve an issue with ATI Tray Tools (at least yet), but didn't try xFire so far... Also I didn't check if xFire lives with ATi Tray Tools on their own (i.e. even without my fix).

 

[bfuerst]

i have a nvidia card, while i would like to be able to tell you xfire has no problem with ati tools, i cant. i do know many people with xfire, civ 4 and ati cards and they seem to not complain, wheter or ati tools is open for them, i dont know. while i would love to be able to use xfire during civ 4, i am not complaining one bit. up until now i have tried almost every option in order to fix the game and the hark patch is the only option that worked. thanks again

 

[MetHimPikeHoses]

About the civ.ini file... the DynamicPaging is indeed the smoke from mines and glowing yellow "smoke" and so forth. Shutting it down speeds up the program, but it doesn't look as good.

I have been tinkering with my pixel shaders on my FX5200 128mb w/ 1 Gb RAM, and I found that the forceware 1.4 pixel shaders leaves some of the terrain gray, but the 1.1 version retains all of the color. I also have the vertex renderer set to 1.1, which speeds things up as well... so both have been rolled back from the original driver settings.

I would love to see a thread or hear more details from Firaxis about the civ.ini settings. It seems that they have a huge impact on game performance, and I gather that most of us are valuing the performance over the quality. There are also many "texture" settings that can be changed using Rivatuner, but I am reluctant to tinker too much with my limited understanding of what they precisely do.

Thanks again Hark for your work and willingness to reply to individual posts; it is very refreshing and much appreciated.