Patch 1.09 released!

[blue3c]

Uhm, yeah. Could you put down the bong and wander into another thread, blue3c? That'd be great.

Wow these words of wisdom coming from you who have said so much in the thread.
With such a compelling argument I would have to reply.... umm well NO. STFU.
So my answer would be no, I will not.

all hail sid soren the antichrist

 

[sgtfury]

I hate to be a pest, but could someone be so kind as to give me some step-by-step, idiot-proof directions on how to download and patch this game. please?

I have a 2002 dell Dimension XP (sp1? sp2? maybe). I have a 2.4 gig harddrive and plenty of hard drive space. Maybe 128 mb of memory. Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

 

[HounddogLGS]

I hate to be a pest, but could someone be so kind as to give me some step-by-step, idiot-proof directions on how to download and patch this game. please?

I have a 2002 dell Dimension XP (sp1? sp2? maybe). I have a 2.4 gig harddrive and plenty of hard drive space. Maybe 128 mb of memory. Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

I wouldn't try to run this game on 128 mb of RAM.

What's your video card??

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I agree-unless that 128MB is in your video card, then I just don't see how the game will work on your computer. Get an extra 256MB of RAM, and you will be in business !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[blue3c]

I hate to be a pest, but could someone be so kind as to give me some step-by-step, idiot-proof directions on how to download and patch this game. please?

I have a 2002 dell Dimension XP (sp1? sp2? maybe). I have a 2.4 gig harddrive and plenty of hard drive space. Maybe 128 mb of memory. Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

Sgtfury,
Dell does not make a 2002 unless you meant the year. Even then the lowest I could find for that year was 256-512. My guess is you are talking about your vid card, which would have been top of the line in 2002.
If you right click on your my computer icon on your desktop, goto properties.
It should give you your os and sp level
who it is regeristered to
processor speed and total mem.

 

[dpstafford]

I agree-unless that 128MB is in your video card, then I just don't see how the game will work on your computer. Get an extra 256MB of RAM, and you will be in business !

I just upgraded my RDRAM form 512MB to 1G and it still crashes after a turn or two. There is less virtual memory thrashing, but the crashing is just as frequent. Factoring in the video card upgrade (GeForce 5500) with the memory chips, I have already spent nearly $300 on PC upgrades to get this turkey to run correctly and it is still no go!

 

[blue3c]

I just upgraded my RDRAM form 512MB to 1G and it still crashes after a turn or two. There is less virtual memory thrashing, but the crashing is just as frequent. Factoring in the video card upgrade (GeForce 5500) with the memory chips, I have already spent nearly $300 on PC upgrades to get this turkey to run correctly and it is still no go!

Careful now. You have hit a sore spot with alot of people. Some people claim it is your hardware lacking some claim it is the software (civ iv).
From my experiance with the newer games that are being released, 2G of mem seems to be the target area. A good video card goes along way. Setting your swap to a different physical hdd can also help.
Personaly I do not see the crashes going away until a patch comes out that fixes the mem leak\manager. But that is just what I have tested and experianced.


As for special idiot proof instructions on how to download and install the game.
The best is the ingame installer. But you (sgtfury) are on dialup. Which seems to be a problem. It is either very slow or locking your machine. Hard to tell from your last. It may be that you have to install a downloaded patch. I mentioned before about the size difference. I personally have not been able to download a patch that worked. I had to use the in game installer. That is why I suggested one of the supporters in here actually help you out with the exact size and a good download site.

If all else fails you could take up devil worship and I am sure the game you then work for you. Because it is straight from HELL.

all hail sid soren the antichrist

 

[Abegweit]

I hate to be a pest, but could someone be so kind as to give me some step-by-step, idiot-proof directions on how to download and patch this game. please?

I have a 2002 dell Dimension XP (sp1? sp2? maybe). I have a 2.4 gig harddrive and plenty of hard drive space. Maybe 128 mb of memory. Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

If you really have a 2.4 gig hard drive, you have a system which isn't worth upgrading. I'm sorry to say that the only reasonable solution is to get a new one.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

1 Gig of RAM and a 128MB video card and my game NEVER crashes-and I mean NEVER. It doesn't even really slow down on large terra maps with the entire map revealed (perhaps a 0.5 second delay AT MOST). Had LOTS of CTD and graphics problems with the Radeon 9550 card though-even though it was rated HIGHER than my 9250. Needless to say, I have gone BACK to the 9250 now.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Natronomonas]

I just upgraded my RDRAM form 512MB to 1G and it still crashes after a turn or two. There is less virtual memory thrashing, but the crashing is just as frequent. Factoring in the video card upgrade (GeForce 5500) with the memory chips, I have already spent nearly $300 on PC upgrades to get this turkey to run correctly and it is still no go!

I considered the upgrade path but found the .ini tweaks mentioned a page or two back in this thread stopped most of my crashes. I have I gig of ram and plenty of swap space, etc. The .ini tweaks apparently stop most of the memory leak bugs which allows longer play between crashes - I managed about 3-4 hours last night with only one crash, and that may have occurred as I alt-tabbed back to windows (should be able to do that without crashes, but it's better than a completely unexpected CTD).
Once you've implemented the changes don't forget to start the game up with the shift key held down (clears cache). If you haven't, give the .ini modifications a try and let us know how you go.

 

[blue3c]

1 Gig of RAM and a 128MB video card and my game NEVER crashes-and I mean NEVER. It doesn't even really slow down on large terra maps with the entire map revealed (perhaps a 0.5 second delay AT MOST). Had LOTS of CTD and graphics problems with the Radeon 9550 card though-even though it was rated HIGHER than my 9250. Needless to say, I have gone BACK to the 9250 now.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I thought you were gone. Oh right, your just here to start arguments. By throwing things out in caps.
Once again I congratulate you on it working on your **** system. Good for you.
But the rest of us have NEVER and I mean NEVER played a game in full without CTD'S, LOTS of CTD'S.
But thats right you think there is no problem with the game, but you also think there is a problem.


all hail sid soren the antichrist

 

[Natronomonas]

1 Gig of RAM and a 128MB video card and my game NEVER crashes-and I mean NEVER. Had LOTS of CTD and graphics problems with the Radeon 9550 card though-even though it was rated HIGHER than my 9250. Needless to say, I have gone BACK to the 9250 now.

It's this sort of thing that really gets me - ATI and Nvidia provide unified drivers etc, and still a simple card swap can make all the difference! We should all be using Macs - less configuration variety
Other game publishers can deal with this - what's going on that Firaxis is missing? With all the tech support emails they must be getting, plus the fact people on the forums here are figuring things out must surely bode well for the success of any future patch (1.09 being a bit underwhelming for most is my impression).

 

[Psyringe]

It's this sort of thing that really gets me - ATI and Nvidia provide unified drivers etc, and still a simple card swap can make all the difference!

Personally, I think that a lot of hardware that's being sold is sub-standard - including, but not limited to, video cards. Fifteen years ago you could by any video card (or any memory chip) - the chance that you got a lemon was infinitesimally small. I think that has changed a lot.

(1.09 being a bit underwhelming for most is my impression).

I wouldn't say underwhelming for most; the poll about the patch shows that the majority sees it as an improvement. However, the ratio of people who fare better now to the people for whom the patch actually made matters worse is just 2:1. I wouldn't call that especially successful either. But they continue to work on it, and I'm confident that the issues will be solved. (Yes, blue3c, I hail the antichrist. Probably that's why my game works flawlessly on just about minimal specs ).

 

[Natronomonas]

(Yes, blue3c, I hail the antichrist. Probably that's why my game works flawlessly on just about minimal specs ).

Sigh. I need your luck, or else your computer. Alternatively, you can pass on the midnight ritual you performed to get it to work. I don't have hemlock, bloodwort or a goat to sacrifice, but I'm hoping a supermarket chicken might do the trick

 

[Philips]

Is there any word on the v1.1 patch? It will be a great game if they release a version that doesn't crash every tenth turn.

The hardware incompatibility claim doesn't hold any water. I don't doubt that there are hardware incompatibilities in some peoples machines, and that these are responsible for some problems, but the memory leak/CTD problem is clearly a software flaw in CIV IV itself.

 

[player1 fanatic]

If it's wasn't hardware problem it would spoil game for all players not for just minority.

Which does not mean it should not be solved with software solutions (aka patch).

 

[ShortySeanbo]

I figure that it seems most people are having problems because the majority of the people posting are having problems because those that work are playing instead!

I figured I'd post my success story to give the rest of you hope!

PC: Inspiron 8500 (P4m 2.2Ghz, 512MB RAM, GeForce4 4200go 64MB)

Before patch: Worked usually. Huge maps crawled once you had a view of the majority of the world (RAM related I'm sure). I increased the Virtual Memory to stop the message popping up but using VM in the virst place isn't good because the hard drive is so much slower than real RAM. 1024x768 (non-stretched) with everything on low worked quite well on normal sized maps. I had a few CTD, a few "video not found" and such things, but not too bad compared the amount of time I played. The opening movie would stutter about 50% of the time I actually watched it. Wonder movies would also stutter about 1/3 of the itme.

Patch Procedure: I simply downloaded the patch from File Shack and installed it. Didn't install the extra prog/chat client. No errors whatsoever.

After 1.09 Patch: Works fantastically. It did reset all my settings in the options menus (Graphics, Game Settings) and until I rememered hearing that it did this, I thought it had slowed down a lot since the graphics were set back to HI. Haven't played a huge map yet, since I loaded my 1.00 game (no problems whatsoever loading a prepatch game). Played for a couple hours. The game seems much more responsive in general. No stuttering in the opening movie. No stuttering in wonder movies.

Simply judging by my experience the most important aspects in the game are the graphics card and the RAM. I have temperature monitoring on my proc and it was definately not full load all the time. It obviously LOVES to eat all my RAM especially on bigger maps.

My Vote: Patch 1.09 gets 5/5 stars!

 

[Philips]

If it's wasn't hardware problem it would spoil game for all players not for just minority.

Which does not mean it should not be solved with software solutions (aka patch).

It is pretty clear that it does spoil the game for most users.

If it were a hardware problem, we would hear what hardware it was compatible with or incompatible with. If it is not compatible with Nvidia or ATI graphics cards and ASUS motherboards, what IS it compatible with? Some no name obscure video card?

If it were incompatible drivers there would have been an announcement regarding WHICH ones it worked with. There would be specifics, not vague suggestions that some incompatibility probably exists.

If it were defective hardware it would affect software other than Civ IV.

I have been buying software for about 20 years now, and I seen my share of bugs. I have also seen plenty of PR spin, and it isn't that hard to tell the difference between the two. When a software company starts blaming anything and every thing for the fact that their product doesn't work, despite the fact that the items they blame work fine with anything else, it is spin.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Oh, Blue3c, didn't you KNOW? I just could no longer survive without your pleasant replies to my posts .
I will say, though, that my Radeon 9550 card caused problems with ALL of my more graphics intensive software-not just Civ4. Doom3 and Google Earth-in particular-constantly suffered Blue screen crashes-assuming the former worked AT ALL. Truthfully, Civ4 was the game LEAST harmed by the Radeon card, but it does suggest that the hardware was my problem. However, I also have an 18 month old processor, so it might not even be ATI's fault-just that there later video cards are not as compatible with older systems. WHO KNOWS?? What I do know is that a Radeon 9250 card allows all of my games to play smoothly and without glitches or crashes. I am sorry that this has not been everyone else's experience, but I still fail to see how software ALONE could be the cause of the problem-given the variability in performance between different systems.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Harkonnen]

Aussie_Lurker
I would agree and wouldn't even start my efforts in 'memory leak' thread, should game graphics deserve such memory consumption and video requirements.

I understand when 512Mb is small for Doom3 or a problem with FarCry and such. Their graphics level deserves higher requirements.... But civ4 has graphics of 2002-2003 year if not year 2000, but requirements of year 2005-2006.

Also, they demand T'n'L but it's so sluggish DUE TO GEOMETRY even when there is enough memory (no swap), just because there are too many triangles to render or they are still rendered by CPU just because they don't fit into video memory. I speak about 9800 Pro which is fast T'N'L card.

If they use damn-so-detailed models to make zoomed view looking good, I think they should've been coded some LOD (level-of-detail) algorithm on models, but still some things use around 5'000-10'000 vertices - more then pixels they use on the screen...