This game is trash

[terra_prima]

markdata, can't agree more. Game doesn't run for more than 10-15 minutes before dropping out of existence. Tech supp is as close to useless as water is to liquid and no advice anywhere has done any good. Yes, I'm updated on XP and all drivers, yes my system ix DirectX9+ compatible. Sheesh! Do I need to confirm I have KEYBOARD next??? What happened to playtesting BEFORE release??? This is crap and everybody with a problem deserves a refund. Did nobody learn ANYTHING from Frontier: First Encounters??? I'm about to trade my PC in for a slide rule... at least those suckers WORK!!!

 

[dosage0]

Well I broke down and bought a soundcard. That fixed my crashing at XML problem (EVERY other game works just fine with USB speakers -- even if it says directx soundcard required). I picked up a creative labs brand because I figured its pretty mainstream. Anyhow, the game works now, but only up until about 1400 AD when it starts freezing up every 5 turns. Memory leaks

This is pretty frickin ridiculous. The coders of this game should head back to school and the asshats who decided that this was ok to release should be fired.

 

[TiggerToo]

Although I agree that the game shouldn't have been released in it's current state, unfortunately the people that are complaining the loudest about it are the same people that would have been screaming if they had waited another month to release. A lot of the reason they push these things out early is because people demand it.

 

[dosage0]

yah, you are probably right as far as most people go. I didnt even know this game was scheduled to come out until I saw it. Who knew it would be this much fun

 

[Renegade X]

Ya'll are kicking yourself for spending $xx on this game and it being so fecked up. It aint even out in the UK yet but many of us have acquired an "evaluation" copy from certain Sources and are therefore not worried about the monetary part. It is Frustrating for a 1.0 version to be so dodgy however but if you are patient and trust sid to get this all sorted then all will be peachy. Remember, this is a totally new Civ engine and with that combined with ******* companies hounding for a return on thier money then it is a forgone conclusion that its gonna be a bumpy ride.
Just be thankful that Sid and co have a good reputation for getting **** fixed unlike some companies that will release 1 patch then dump the game.

 

[MrCynical]

Umm, the game has been out in the UK for over a week (since November the 4th). Maybe it would have been better if thay had waited this long to release it, but there is a patch in the works which should hopefully fix the various problems.

 

[X sheehan C]

did the patch come out yet??

 

[Whammy]

I've been waiting all week to play this game. I'm so sick of these PC game companies rushing games out only to screw the paying customers. This is why people download games, and many are switching to console. I've seriously lost faith in the PC gaming market. I'm sick of this crap.

 

[RogueNine]

Have any of you tried rolling back your drivers? The 71.89 drivers work great for Nvidia cards, all the way up to the 6800GT. Civ isn't programmed to handle the way the newer drivers handle the game yet, so roll them back and you'll solve the majority of your crash problems.

Another tip: Find the directory:

C:\Documents and Settings\'user name'\Application Data\My Games\Civilization 4\cache

Delete these files before running the game each time. (This is basically clearing out the cache) To make things faster, I created a shortcut to this directory and placed it beside my game icon on the desktop. I just double-click, delete everything in it and run the game.

I've gone from constant crashes every 1/2 hour or so, to crashes every 5-10 minutes after I 'updated' my drivers to the latest from Nvidia, to 1 in the last 20 hours of Civ 4 gaming with the new drivers and clearing of the cache. I can't garantee it'll fix everyone's problems, but it worked for me (and lots of others, which is pretty important) so I thought I'd share.

Edit: I should also clarify that my computer ran everything else like a dream, so yes, it isn't your computer and it IS Civ 4. I think its awful that they released the game without it being functional with the very drivers they suggested upgrading to!

 

[historic_bruno]

Well I wouldn't go so far as to say the game is trash. The reason is because I have been able to play it sporadically and enjoyed the gameplay very much. However, it obviously has some serious issues that seem worse to me than just about any other game I've ever played.

From the moment I began playing it acted strange, after 10 or so turns the GUI would begin to disappear and the terrain would fade in and out of view. At this point the game would become inplayable. Early in the game this isn't so important, but when you're midway through your game and suddenly you can't play the game much less control it, that sucks! So it's not surprising to see people complaining about this. Also I've seen Civ4 using as much as 1GB of memory which obviously brings my computer to it's knees, accessing the hard drive so much. This makes me question if in fact this is a driver problem...

My computer should be able to handle this game even though it is 3+ years old. It has an Athlon XP 2000+, 512MB RAM, and GeForce4 TI4400 video card. Playing normal sized map so this much memory useage is IMO unacceptable. I updated my nvidia drivers to 81.85 before installing, so I'll roll them back to 71.89 as suggested above and pray that works.

One thing I noticed is yesterday the game worked flawlessly with no apparent changes to my system setup. I played for 4-5 hours on and off with no crashes and no terrain disappearance. It was a little sluggish due to my older system but not bad at all. Today it's back to the same old. I hope they get a patch out soon

 

[dosage0]

I finally played an entire game without it crashing. But I had to roll my drivers back to the 71.xx version.

I dont really think that was what fixed it though. There are bad memory leaks in the game and it causes all sorts of problems. I can play the standard map up to about 1400 AD, and then freeze/lock. At least I can finish a game though... still leaves a sour taste though.

I set pagefile to min = 500 max = 500, bought a soundcard, lowered resolutions, and switched drivers. What a royal pain in the ass and all of this on a top of the line computer.

Good luck to everyone else and thanks for the tips...

Rob

 

[historic_bruno]

I updated my nvidia drivers to 81.85 before installing, so I'll roll them back to 71.89 as suggested above and pray that works.

Wow that seems to have significantly reduced performance, and I didn't think that was possible... After rolling back my drivers I could load the game as usual, but nothing after that - it was incredibly slow (5 minutes and literally nothing happened except the cursor rotated) and if you let it run long enough the video card will go out (the monitor loses the signal) and after that the computer restarts.

Great!! My finger's on uninstall, should I click yes?

 

[StyxNCa]

I have to admit utter disappointment. I have been playing Civilization since the very first installment in the series, so naturally I figured this would run as well as the rest. Civilization is really the only game I spend time on when I tear myself away from my baseball game, so I was happy to see the new version today. So I install it and what do I get? Black terrain and faces that are nothing but eyes and teeth. Then I see posts in forums that the developers say the game isn't totally compatible with certain video cards. Wouldn't one think this would be mentioned on the box so people wouldn't have to spend money to find out? I am really let down here.

 

[Renegade X]

the game has been out in the UK for over a week

Sorry my bad. Its not like I pay attention to those money grabbing Game shops anyway.

 

[Omegamerc]

Aparently, no one here has play WW2OL for the first year of its release

 

[Blackthorn27]

... the suspicion that they may be a bit untrustworthy when it comes to approving major games can only be hightened if the number of technical problems people are experiencing with this game is anything to go by. Gamespot descirbed the game as 'stable'.

Half-Life 2 was a bit iffy in terms of getting that game to run for a lot of us when it was first released in the UK: You buy the DVD ROM, then find out you need to be online to get a whole bunch of stuff downloaded from the Steam website before you can play, then you find out that Steam doesn't think the money you paid for the game authorises you to play it! This went on for weeks. Yet, apart from a few glib comments about minor sound problems, there was no suggestion of software difficulties from Gamespot, whose verdict was 'stable'.

If they're going to give 9+ scores for these games, Gamespot could inform us now and again that there are 'minor issues' (if not 'glaring software corruptions') so that we can at least prepare ourselves for a few disappointments before the games get patched.

 

[MotherH]

I just find it amazing that the people on this board having problems seem to have either an Nvidia or an ATI card, and both are causing driver issues of some kind with end-users.
Did they not put this game through compatibility testing? Did the testers not notice their games would not start runnign properly until they put in at least a gig of RAM? And if they did why doesn't it say so on the minimum requirements?

 

[Corkmaster]

Great!! My finger's on uninstall, should I click yes?

You might as well; it probably doesn't do anything.

 

[WoodenEye]

I confirm, this game is trash.

 

[greenshift]

this is why ppl stop buying computer games, if nothing else consols generaly work out of the box without haveing to spend hours trying to get the game patched and happy with your computer.

the memory problems should have been solved long ago, i have ctd every 5min or so on larger maps and few on the small maps, this game was released way to early and its funny all the reviews gave it a 90%+, 4.5+ or 5/5

heh ww2ol had problems for...... prolly still has major problems