This game is seriously harmful for your PC

[trigger1]

Besides it being incredibly frustrating to deal with constant crashes to desktop and computer reboots, this game can mess up your PC.

My specs are:
athlon64 3200+
2x 512mb kingston ram
gainward geforce 6800GT with forceware 81.95 drivers
soundblaster audigy
windows 2000 servicepack4

running the game on 1024*768, no AA, all graphics settings on Low

Here's what happened to me earlier:

I had a good game going,
at 1922AD it crashed to desktop. I thought ah well, lucky I saved one turn before
however, I just couldn't load the game. I tried 14 times with it crashing to desktop and rebooting my computer each time
I tried loading an older save game, 800BC, still crashed to desktop, I tried loading a different save game, still crash.

I tried using older nvidia drivers (71.89 which some people said helped) but that didn't work either

I got latest drivers 81.95, and that didn't work either

I cleared the game cache each attempt btw.

I tried starting a new game, and that worked. I then tried to load an older saved game, and it rebooted my computer

at bootup I was greeted with an INACCESIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE stop error. The messed up thing was, this was the second time civ4 has done this to me

I had to put my hard drive in my other computer and fix it with chkdsk


I love the game, it's great, but far too buggy and unstable. No other game has screwed up my computer this badly. Since I value the integrity of my operating system / hard drive, I'm going to have to uninstall the game and wait for a patch that fixes all the techinical problems with it.

I've been browsing these forums for weeks trying all sorts of things to help fix it, but nothing worked. Also to mention, this is a Civ4 isolated issue. I have no problems with my other games (Quake4, F.E.A.R., HL2, GTA:SA)

Just figured I would warn people that value their computer

 

[VimesUK]

I had the same issues as you, including my installation of XP was trashed. Like you I could play all my other games, as well as encode video, with no problems at all. The machine was absolutely stable, up to installing and playing Civ 4.

I too condemned the game due to the above happening. However it turned out that my problem was a faulty memory stick that only showed up the error after a few hours of testing with memtest. It only produced 1 error in the hours of testing but it was there.

Replaciing the memory stick has meant total stability with Civ 4.

In my opinion, and my own findings, even though my other games can be demanding to run, in terms of hardware, Civ 4 seems to stress the integrity of my system in ways that they didn't.

The above might not apply to you but it resolved my issues.

 

[trigger1]

I'm quite familiar with stress testing my hardware for stability, and yeah I can run Prime95 for hours, memtest is all good, 3dMarks2005 can loop for days... etc...

I just don't know why civ4 does the things it does

 

[trigger1]

i finally managed to get my savegame to load up

had to set LargeSystemCache to 0 in the registry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory Managment
if anyone was wondering

 

[Laramon]

Hmm, maybe that's why I don't have issues: my large system cache has always been off from the looks of it.

I've also always wanted to jump through my screen into peoples' computer rooms to check on the way their systems are actually set up. I always make sure my systems are built properly and the hardware timings in line with capabilities. Yes, some pieces can be timed over thier rated specs, but those are the exception, not the norm. I push my RAM to its rated spec, as do my hard drive and CPU. Yes, I'm aware my CPU is capable of pushing harder, but is it worth it? I've OC'd a similar system as this one and got less performance boost than the OC supposedly gave. And if I ran it OC'd with Civ4... I'd be asking for trouble.

I wish Civ4 would use less RAM. I bought OCZ Platinum 2-2-2-7 RAM, and would love to keep it all in RAM, not page file... even with ATA133 it still crawls by 2025.

 

[camnel]

If chkdsk fixed your problem, it is likely that:
a. The disk was flaky and caused the Civ to crash, not Civ was flaky and caused your disk to cash.
2. If you take Civ off the disk, the disk will do this again in the next couple of months.
lastly, you should back everything up just in case.
iv. It's probably a good idea to do a chkdsk and defrag before and after any major install, just like me.

Cam

 

[nino.scibetta]

Well it did harm my laptop, which runs perfectly by the way since i don't play civ anymore...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=142605

 

[trigger1]

If chkdsk fixed your problem, it is likely that:
a. The disk was flaky and caused the Civ to crash, not Civ was flaky and caused your disk to cash.
2. If you take Civ off the disk, the disk will do this again in the next couple of months.
lastly, you should back everything up just in case.
iv. It's probably a good idea to do a chkdsk and defrag before and after any major install, just like me.

Cam

Civ4 rebooted my computer while it was writing stuff to my disk, thus corrupting the file system. My hard disk is fine, completely error free and quite new. I also defrag it quite regularly. Civ4 isn't even on the same partition as my operating system.
I hate to sound rude, but I know about computers and yeah everything is 100% fine except this game being the most buggy game I've ever come accross that seems to do quite lethal things to my computer. Lucky I know how to fix it, I just feel sorry for people that don't and have to pay somebody and/or lose their data.

 

[oldStatesman]

Civ4 rebooted my computer while it was writing stuff to my disk, thus corrupting the file system. My hard disk is fine, completely error free and quite new. I also defrag it quite regularly. Civ4 isn't even on the same partition as my operating system.
I hate to sound rude, but I know about computers and yeah everything is 100% fine except this game being the most buggy game I've ever come accross that seems to do quite lethal things to my computer. Lucky I know how to fix it, I just feel sorry for people that don't and have to pay somebody and/or lose their data.

Just wanted to say the same exact thing happened to me this week...same error, same result. checkdsk found over 40 files from my system32 path to be corrupted...had to do an ASR ecovery. I too keep my OS on it's own partition. My games have their own, my apps another, My Documnts still another, and the page file has it's own too. I have not re-installed Civ4, and probably won't on this setup; when I have time I will format another OS drive for it to use...the game is not worth the risk for me.

I too am a computer professional, I defrag regularly, have run all the stress tests, memory tests, HDD tests, new drivers, yadayadayada ad infinitum. It is the game. I have had this behavior with other buggy software, eventually it will get fixed if the devs can be made aware that there are issues...I have sent in logs to T2 etc too...

Just wanted to post this to let others know Trigger is not alone in this.

 

[Zanmato]

I had the same error last weekend, loaded a saved game on a large map. The system reset then I got the blue screen 'Inaccessible Boot Device'. Very lucky, CHKDSK repaired the errors, took a good hour to fix.
I noticed looking thru the Event log when loading any saved game produces 'Delayed-write' errors on the HD, usually in the $Mft, system32 and My Documents. I'm guessing because the CPU is flat out at 100% that it's leaving no resources for the system to actually write anything to disc fully thus screwing the file system.

Here's my spec, Althon XP2400+ running @2.1Ghz, 1 GB RAM, 120Gb Maxtor HD, ASUS A7v8x-x MB, GeforceFX5200 128Mb, Win2000 Pro SP4.
All game graphics set on low, no BG music.

I've tried tweaking the memory setting but I don't believe it a memory fault and all my other apps run fine and produce no disc errors.

Reading up on some of these errors, I came across that disabling UDMA on 2nd IDE channel can eliminate 'delayed-writes' but I have yet to test this.

EDIT: To keep it all paged in the RAM, set 'DisablingPageExecutive' to 1 in the Registry. I did this and when running Civ4 less the 2.5% of 512mb pagefile was being used. If it does still exceed your actual RAM it will still page to the HD tho.

Cheers,
Rob
--

 

[camnel]

I'm sorry if offended; I was trying to help. However, I experienced CTD and a spontaneous reboot the first couple of times I played Civ4. I put it aside for a week, then after reading the forums and seeing that some people were able to run on some machines but crashing on others, I decided to spend some and see if I could fix mine. Memtest 86 picked up errors in my RAM and I replaced it. I was able to install Windows Vista on this same machine and it ran as I expected it too; no rebooting or freezing. I sincerely believe that over 90% of problems Civ4 users are having is because of faulty hardware: huge maps easily use 750MB of RAM, which is going to stress your memory and if have less than 1GB of RAM or have a lot stuff running in the background, you are going to stress your hard drive moving stuff in and out of the swapfile. Your processor is running at close to 100% the entire time you play, bringing up thermal issues. And the graphics are incredble, stressing your video card and the motherboard's video subsytem. I think anyone having problems, especially CTD and rebooting, should thoroughly examine their hardware, including running any diagnostic software that may have come with the PC, before they begin blaming the software.

Cam

 

[Zanmato]

Well I uninstalled it, defragged the HD, reinstalled it, unpacked the Art0.fpk, patched it then defragged it again. It's stopped the delayed-writes error at least for now which is a step on the right direction. Only the 2k logo intro plays good, all the other movies both video and sound freeze and skip. Loaded a previous saved game (1850s AD, Large map) without any HD errors. Still pushes the CPU at 100% tho.
Hey camnel, could you post your spec I'm just curious to know what it is.

 

[VimesUK]

Well I'm quite amazed at just how much memory this game uses, especially on the largest of maps, once the entire map is revealed.
When I had 1GB of memory it used around 700MB or so but now I have got 2GB I have seen that use go to 950MB.
So, obviously, the amount of memory used is proportionate to the memory that you have available.
It has made a lot of difference for me with 2GB of memory. The hard drive no longer has to work too hard and there are very few pauses at all. Going from the game to the world builder and back, or to my other running applications, is very smooth.

 

[Underseer]

Well I'm quite amazed at just how much memory this game uses, especially on the largest of maps, once the entire map is revealed.
When I had 1GB of memory it used around 700MB or so but now I have got 2GB I have seen that use go to 950MB.
So, obviously, the amount of memory used is proportionate to the memory that you have available.
It has made a lot of difference for me with 2GB of memory. The hard drive no longer has to work too hard and there are very few pauses at all. Going from the game to the worklbuilder and back, or to my other running applications, is very smooth.

Thanks for the insight. I've been considering upgrading to 1.5GB or even 2GB.