Problem with memory

[Micaelus]

I just wanted to report that by setting...

; Don't show a warning when a video memory allocation fails
HideOutOfVRamWarning = 1

; Allows some memory savings *** ALT-TAB WILL NO LONGER FUNCTION ***
MemSaver = 1

...in the .ini and in-game graphic settings to low, I've been able to get BtS working on my old laptop, a 2.66 Pentium 4 machine with 1GB RAM and only a 32MB Radeon 7500C video card.

I left this one alone, at its default setting:

; Don't show minimum specification warnings
HideMinSpecWarning = 0

With these settings I've been able to play to the completion of 2 games (I've only had the time to do those two since I discovered it worked on my laptop) without any in-game crashes or major errors. The intro and victory movies are choppy, but wonder videos play just fine. The only problem I have had during gameplay is that after playing for 15 minutes or so the Military Adviser screen is blank, and therefore useless. (Apparently it can't allocate the video memory to draw the relevant information.) The other adviser screens appear to work just fine and I haven't had any problems with other graphical miscues, artifacts, or anything.

Hope that tidbit is helpful, and if not at least a little interesting. I was quite surprised that it worked myself.

 

[Dirtleg]

I just wanted to report that by setting...

; Don't show a warning when a video memory allocation fails
HideOutOfVRamWarning = 1

; Allows some memory savings *** ALT-TAB WILL NO LONGER FUNCTION ***
MemSaver = 1

...in the .ini and in-game graphic settings to low, I've been able to get BtS working on my old laptop, a 2.66 Pentium 4 machine with 1GB RAM and only a 32MB Radeon 7500C video card.

I left this one alone, at its default setting:

; Don't show minimum specification warnings
HideMinSpecWarning = 0

First off, Bump for good info.

My system is not weak on hardware and should by all accounts run this game just fine. But it hasn't yet.

I have been having the CTD issue at 945AD. Failed to allocate video memory error. I have gone so far as to turn off every unnessary process including my wireless and anti-virus software prior to starting the game. I lowered my graphics all the way down etc. I set my virtual memory to 0 and then defragged the HD just to make sure the virtual memeory wasn't polluted with crap. Nothing worked.

So last night I find this post and set my .ini settings up this way. Graphics on highest 1680 x 1050 resolution, standard map size. Left everything running including my 200MB RAM Hog PC-Cillin 14. Played for 3 hours from my last saved turn before CTD. Cause was my Anti-virus popup telling me it was getting updates. Error said it was due to memsaver being set to 1. Game could not recover. So I will set memsaver back to 0 and try again or just disable my anti-virus when playing. (don't get me started on TM)

I am definitely making progress. Thanks to the people on this forum.

 

[Dirtleg]

Tried it again with memsaver set to 0. Computer was unhappy and CTD with no errors. Set back to 1 and turned off Trend Micro completely. Played flawlessly for 6 hours. I think I have my fix.

This game is great when it's working well. I just don't understand why it's so fragile.

 

[psob2]

in this thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=224178&page=4 i found a post by IKilledYourDude

Just wanted to let people know that Microsoft has issued a fix for this issue on Windows Vista as of yesterday.

More info and the download for this fix are at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

Enjoy.

i've had Civ4BTS for months on my computer with XP home editon and it was very stable. no crashes. a few days ago i installed Vista(clean install, not upgrade) on the same computer. after installing Civ4BTS the game started to crash with 'failed memory allocation' errors. while looking for a way to fix it, i found his post in that thread with with the link to the microsoft fix for Vista memory allocation problems with games

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

it worked . i've played a few sessions of more than 4hrs each and no crashes.

 

[Dirtleg]

Another update to this issue. I went ahead and completely uninstalled and re-installed my anti-virus software. My video memory errors are gone. I just played a complete game start to finish on a huge map without a single hiccup at 1680 x 1050 resolution graphics on medium. I even reset the memsaver to to 0 and no problems. Strange that the problem was a conflict with my anti-virus in it's then current state. I have left the HIDEOUTOFVRAMWARNING set to 1 so far. I think I will try it set back to 0 just as an experiment.

 

[seitan2102]

With this thing:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

It's now actually a lot better, still the problem remains but the game runs for more turns without Memory Allocation Failure. Thanks for submitting by the way.

Couple of questions (I play BTS):

1. How do we disable Autosaves (I think it will be much better in performance without it)

2. How exactly for BTS can anyone set HIDEOUTOFVRAMWARNING to 1 rather than 0? What file (.ini perhaps) is it in? Or it has to be added manually and where exactly?

Further, i'm gonna uninstall my antivirus and install it again as suggested, then clear the chache.

My PC is Athlon 64 X2 4200+, with 2gb's or DDR 400RAM in Dual Channel and an ATI 3850 with 512mb or RAM. So far, i've set graphics to medium, reduced the resolution to 1024x768 and still, i get a MAF. Of course I play Planetary Size with 14civs under a mod (but not quite a heavy mod other than Map Size). I don't get it! I'm actually mad!

 

[ori]

actually I would suspect that it runs better with autosave set to every turn (i.e. to 1) but if you want to change the autosave setting use
my games\beyond the sword\civilizationIV.ini
and change this line:

AutoSaveInterval = 4

to what you want - 1 would be each turn, 0 disables autosaves
in that same file change

HideOutOfVRamWarning = 0

to 1 and you probably want to do this also with

HideMinSpecWarning = 0

if any of those lines does not exist - just add them, it should work

 

[seitan2102]

Thank you. Did it already, will report back soon. I don't think letting it on makes thinks better. The system consumes RAM for every autosave so...

I save the game pretty constantly myself so i don't really need it. We'll see.

I also cleared the cache.

 

[OldFatDad]

My problem with the MAF crashes has occurred on BTS huge maps towards the end game. Typically the crash occurs when the view switches from one screen to a distant one. No problems connected to wonder movies, yet. To paraphrase a previous supplicant: What about those of us with old systems and/or low memory. I have XP, not Vista; 1gig Ram; and PNY Nvidia 256mb 6200 video card, though that seems not relevant.

 

[ori]

there are some memory settings in the civilizationIV.ini (just look for things annotated as will save memory) - however the game eats a lot of memory and it is quite likely that huge maps might not play well or at all with your specs... On huge maps the game does come close to the 2GB hard limit of memory that 32bit windows allows - so one of your problems might be that you run out of virtual memory. You could try increasing that.

Welcome to CFC

 

[OldFatDad]

Thanks, Ori, Slyflyer, et al, including #1 son and #1 son-in-law who're not on these threads. Even with my old crummy system, raising the Virtual memory limit did the trick (so far!). Actually, the V.M. had already been set rather high (4G-6G) but it was on the smaller and fuller of my two hard drives. The free space on the smaller drive was slightly over 4G, and maybe not contiguous, if that matters. Anyway, designating the larger hard drive as the location for the V.M., with vast expanses of empty space on it, seems to have let my BTS game free. How do you make these smilies work?