News: WOTM 04 - saves available

[Meatbuster]

I'm only a few turns from a diplomatic loss in the latest GOTM! I hope I win green ambulance!

Let's see what I can do with this baby, since my ability to play SG's is hampered at the moment.

 

[ianfuture]

Adventurer Class bonuses:

1. Start with a worker and an archer.
2. Start with knowledge of The Wheel.

Challenger Class Equalizers:

1. Start without the starting warrior

As a WOTM newbie what do these two settings mean?? Do I have to set them up somewhere??

Thanks..
I

 

[Gyathaar]

As a WOTM newbie what do these two settings mean?? Do I have to set them up somewhere??

Thanks..
I

There are 3 different starting saves.. check the game release page (linked in the first post) for more info.

 

[MightyGooga]

Can anyone post some of the characteristics of marathon speed? I dont know any...

 

[Thrallia]

they can be found in the WOTM4 pre-game discussion thread

 

[chunkymonkey]

I have a problem!

I'm in the mid to late game now and I am experiencing a lot of slowdown after 10-15 turns of loading up a save. Eventually it gets to a point where cycling from one city/unit to the next takes about 30 seconds. Obviously, this is not ideal!

I have discovered a solution to my problem is to save the game, quit, then restart and reload. This will last me for another 10-15 turns. This leads me to believe i am experiencing a memory leak. I have never experienced this before, but then again i never play marathon speed.

Question - Am I going to be disqualified/slapped for these 10-15 turn sessions? If so, I need to start figuring out some sort of fix to this before I start playing again.

 

[AlanH]

Question - Am I going to be disqualified/slapped for these 10-15 turn sessions? If so, I need to start figuring out some sort of fix to this before I start playing again.

Short answer: No, as long as there's no replaying.

Long answer: 10 to 15 turns per session has never caused a problem in GOTMs, particularly during intense phases of the game.

However, it would be interesting to investigate whether this is peculiar to your system or a general problem. If you email a copy of your save at the stage where this is happening to alanh <at> civfanatics <dot> net, then I'll see if I can find someone to look at it. Meanwhile, please carry on.

 

[Gyathaar]

However, it would be interesting to investigate whether this is peculiar to your system or a general problem. If you email a copy of your save at the stage where this is happening to alanh <at> civfanatics <dot> net, then I'll see if I can find someone to look at it. Meanwhile, please carry on.

From what I have seen this is a general problem for people who has low amounts of computer memory compared to what the particular game require.. the slowdown happens when civ4 no longer totally fits in memory and has to start using the swap file.

 

[AlanH]

If it is low memory, then it's easily and cheaply fixed. More memory is a cure for many ills, and is the cheapest upgrade you can buy for your PC.

 

[chunkymonkey]

I have 768Mb RAM which i believe is more than the recommended.

However, I have recently read testimonies that people upgrading from 1 Gb to 2 Gb are experiencing significant improvements in late-game huge maps. So maybe the recommended memory specified on the box is not sufficient?

I am going to treat myself to a new computer in a month or so for my birthday so i'm not sure I want to buy another a gig just to tie me over for a month. I'll just wait.

Anyway thanks for your offer Alan. Next time I play I'll send you my save. If you manage to find somebody willing to take a look that would be great.

 

[Thrallia]

yeah...the amount of memory the box asks for is sufficient most of the time....but Firaxis didn't do all the testing that they should have. They got the game into great shape, but it had lots of memory issues that have mostly been fixed since then(patch 1.52 and 1.61 got rid of most of the problems) but there is still massive slowdown sometimes even on computers with more than the recommended memory because of the way Civ4 accesses your memory.

*note* All this is from what I've gathered from what I'm told..even though I am told I'm a computer programmer, I don't know C well enough to tell if that is really the reason.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

FWIW almost ever since I had Civ, I've been playing with similar problems to those reported by chunkymonkey (though not as bad). The symptons, and the way they are partially relieved by restarting, suggests to me that there is a memory leak. (I've also noticed that if I'm playing in windowed mode, exiting by closing the window doesn't work nearly as well as exiting by telling the game to return to the desktop, which suggests to me that someone at Firaxis forgot to implement a handler for WM_CLOSING (or whatever the message is called).

I've recently bought a new computer (WOTM04=first full game being played on it), and it's great being able to play smoothly for the first time: Seeing the scrolling work instantly and without any juddering, being able to watch wonder movies without the risk of hanging, etc. I'm slightly surprised though to note that even on this spanking new mid-range machine, Civ still often hangs for a few seconds, usually in the middle of some obviously graphics-intensive thing, like a unit moving.

I definitely hope that in Civ5, Firaxis focuses on improving the gameplay and user interface and that they don't try to 'improve' the graphics

 

[Thrallia]

I would prefer they hire Harkonnen to help out with their memory usage on Civ5...and then they can do what they know how to do, which is make a good game

oh yeah...and hire Blake to do the AI

 

[ewokimpi]

I don't believe Civ IV/Warlords has significant memory leak issues.

Loading WOTM4 (date unspecified, but BC) takes about 250 megabytes of real memory, and 300 megabytes of virtual memory.

Loading GOTM12 shortly before my domination victory in 1940 something, takes 330 megabytes of real memory, and 420 megabytes of virtual memory.

In either case, Chunky, these numbers are more than enough to push your PC to the edge, depending on whatever else you have open in your process list. The operating system and virus checker alone probably run you at least 250 megabytes more real memory.

Basically, this game demands ram and a properly set pagefile. It's just plain BIG.

Harkonnen's fix dealt with video card memory usage issues that showed up as virtual memory issues. Post Civ IV v1_52, it is no longer necessary.

Buy more RAM. It's good for you.

For example, a pair of 512mb modules, Kingston ValueRAM 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) will cost you $99.99 + shipping from Newegg.

At that price, consider getting two.

 

[ewokimpi]

Also consider a 256 megabyte video card. Civ IV ran a lot better for me when I upgraded to that from a 128 megabyte card.

The GIGABYTE GV-NX76T256D-RH GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express works well for me. Similar products are available for AGP.

 

[Thrallia]

it did have a memory usage issue at first, ewokimpi...because it would take more memory the longer you played, but wouldn't give back the memory it didn't need anymore...it also used to assume(from harkonenn's conclusions, not mine) that your computer had a set amount of RAM based on your CPU, not on your actual system specs(I believe he said it assumed 1GB of RAM if you were using a P4, 512 if you were using an athlon or celeron).

besides, I'm not sure a program is supposed to use virtual memory unless your computer is out of actual memory, as virtual memory is slower.

 

[Ribannah]

Try rebooting the computer before you start playing. I only get these memory problems, I have recently noticed, if I have run some MS programs first, like MS Word and IE Explorer.
My guess is that these programs keep claiming memory, or the memory is not properly freed, after they have been closed.
Fresh on a rebooted computer, the game runs fine and keeps running fine on my 256 MB.

 

[ewokimpi]

besides, I'm not sure a program is supposed to use virtual memory unless your computer is out of actual memory, as virtual memory is slower.

Key Alt-Ctrl-Del to open Windows Task Manager and select the Processes Tab. In the View menu, in the Select Columns option, check on Virtual Memory Size.

As you will see, every application in Windows XP uses virtual memory.

Keep the Task Manager open while running Civ IV/Warlords and you can measure the memory and other system resources allocated to the game over time.

Oh, and if you use FireFox, watch THAT memory hog. It's something else!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Try rebooting the computer before you start playing. I only get these memory problems, I have recently noticed, if I have run some MS programs first, like MS Word and IE Explorer.
My guess is that these programs keep claiming memory, or the memory is not properly freed, after they have been closed.
Fresh on a rebooted computer, the game runs fine and keeps running fine on my 256 MB.

Sadly not for me. I essentially use my new computer only to run civ (as I haven't yet got round to installing much else useful on it), and it still has problems.

 

[ewokimpi]

Sadly not for me. I essentially use my new computer only to run civ (as I haven't yet got round to installing much else useful on it), and it still has problems.

Dynamic, what are the specs of your new computer?

Specifically, the processor name, amount of main memory, video card/video subsystem name. For example, my main computer has an Athlon X2 Dual core 4400+ processor, 2gig of main memory, and a separate video card, which has a nVidia 7600GT chip. That is the level of detail I'm looking for.

Just trying to be helpful. Sometimes a simple change can make a huge difference.

If you like, PM me on this, we kinda got the thread hijacked here.