When zooming FAR out, game CTDs with no fanfare.

[Drac0nis]

I have tested this a few times and it happens every time since.
I have just traded world maps with a large empire and got a BUNCH of new terittory uncovered. I look around it for a bit and let it load a bit. Then I try to zoom out to world view to get the big picture. It promtly crashes to the desktop without an error message or any system warnings or harddrive grinding ext. The game runs pretty much fine the rest of the time, Ive been playing the same game since this morning, I am at 1440AD on a large continents map with 8 or 9 other CPU players. I am playing as germany and i just bought the mongolian<?> empires map. My specs are as follows.

AMD XP 3000+ running at 2.0GHz w/ good cooling and Mobo NOT O/Cd at all
512 megs mushkin black label
200 gig HD 5200 RPM ata 160
geforce 5200
Audigy gamer sound card w/ 5.1 SB speakers.
Windows XP pro
All the latest drivers for all my gear.

It seems like some kind of memory leak or problem to me but im no coder. It seems like suddenly its just totaly looses itself and just drops everything, as it ONLY happens when I zoom way out. Other than that the game runs pretty much flawlessly and I have darn near NO complaints, Ive been having a BLAST up till this point, as its 4:23 in the morning here its proof positive that it is an even LARGER dose of gaming CRACK goodness than the last. Ahhhh sweet gaming crack.......
Anyhow if you have similar problems feel free to post your trials and tribilations in this thread. We will see if we cant figure this bugger out.

So far I have tried raiseing my page file to 1500/3000 A bit excessive I know but I thought it MIGHT help this seeming memory dump that my game is taking. Still no dice, seems to run just a hair smoother tho.

If anyone has any info or advise it would be apreciated.

Thanks in advance for reading this as its quite late and I and quite tired and I can tend to ramble when im tired...... .....oh wait............

Darn gaming crack.......


Peace,
Drac

 

[balearicrazy]

Could be the DirectX problem that I mentioned in the other thread (I posted it this morning). Only one option.

 

[Drac0nis]

Unfortunatly it looks like your thread no longer exists. I did check the forums BEFORE i posted as the rules said and saw nothing in this forum like my problem. I just checked again and cant see a single post started by you. Thanks for the hint on the problem tho, Perhaps you could share this "One" option to fix it that you had stated.

 

[Drac0nis]

Update: I reinstalled video drivers and Direct X 9.0c
It still crashes when I zoom out to world view. NOW however the world map also disapears and all I can see as I zoom out is the city names and then BOOM right back to the desktop. Loving this bug already. I want to squash it bad. Is anyone out there having no problems that is running XP and 512 of ram? Is 512 not enough? I would think that it would be plenty but <shrugs>.

Thanks,
Drac

 

[balearicrazy]

The thread still exists, you didn't look very hard its on page 1!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133497

 

[Drac0nis]

Sorry I guess I missed it, Either way it realy says nothing about the problem I am having, Unfortunatly the recomended solution <A total removal and reinstall of DX> has been tried on this problem already to negitive effect. It acctualy made made the problem worse.
I have no strange graphic effects or problems untill the game realy gets boged down with 8 civs with 25+ citys each <ONLY when I acctualy get their map info>, and even then it doesnt have ANY problem untill I roll back on the mouse and go to "god" view. I also noticed after this latest crash that The yellow ! virtual memory warning was on my system tray. As stated earlier I have VM set very high. I have very very few programs acctualy running in the background, system tray, or task manager. 512 megs of top grade ram that I have should be plenty for this not to happen. This leads me to beleive it is either a memory leak, or something else entirely, just doesnt seem like a graphics problem, and I have had enough in the past to know. Tho I certainly am no coder and I do not nearly know everything. Again I thank you for the help in this case, but I dont think we are talking about the same problem.

I could be wrong be wrong tho...

So anyone else with any ideas or perhaps the same type of problem wanna post and compare notes? Maybe we can figure out if its a bug or a leak or maybe even something we havnt already tried or thought of.

Thanks in advance,

Drac

 

[Drac0nis]

Update:
Still playing the same game, avoiding zooming out. It has not problems for about 20 more turns or so, untill I meet the civs on the final continent. Then it crashes to desktop again every time I try to buy or trade for someones worldmap. It seems to me that this problem only gets worse as the game progresses. Could anyone out there verify this? I just cant beleive that it would be only me this is happening to.

 

[Drac0nis]

Arggggggg bump for some answers.

 

[RoninRo]

ur not the only one...everyone who plays on large/huge maps with 9+ civs and are in the industrial+ era experience this. mine sometimes even reboots my comp. and the thing is in the beginning the game was smooth and flying. now when i load the saved game it uses up about 750 mb of ram!!!! thats insane.....and if i start a new game all is good and smooth whatever. so what i am wondering if its a problem on large/huge maps late in the game with 9+ civs. because if i start a new game all is good

 

[SuicideMW]

The problem is just playing a game with a large or huge map in general. It doesn't matter how many civs are on the map. It was doing it before with me, around the Industrial era like yours.

I believe it has more to do with how much of the map you uncover from the fog. I guess until a patch fixes this, I suggest playing games on standard maps or smaller.

 

[Dom Queron]

Yupp, same here, up to date computer with this year's hardware, XP, DX, drivers etc up to date, and the game will CTD if I zoom out on any large map during the industrial era.

Same for my computer at work, which is a next gen machine with the best hardware you can currently buy. Takes a bit more time to fill the 2 gigs of ram, but Civ manages to do it anyway...

This kind of issue is 100% to be on their "known bug, we ship it anyway" list, since there is no way QA will have missed that, so I would assume the patch is already underway testing internally.

As someone who works in the gaming industry , the only thing I can say about that it is sad that consoles have this elaborate certification process their games have to run through to get to the market, while PC games are still treated with release first, patch later mentality - just because it can be done. And then people wonder why, with all it's much larger install base, the PC is not able to move as many units as today's consoles and the shelfspace is getting smaller and smaller. But then again it's not like it is usually the developer who is pushing games out of the door when they aren't just done yet, so there's not much Firaxis could do about it, except maybe cut features early, which causes outcries on a different level.

Anyway, at least it's likely that the patch is underway.

 

[RoninRo]

I just would like to hear an official word on this from the beta testers/or firaxis. Thank you

 

[Drac0nis]

Havnt even bothered to play this game in 3 weeks. Im just standing by waiting for the F#$#n patch. Getting pretty tired of waiting for that essential first patch to make this thing playable. I swear to god, They have untill this weekend and if its not patched its going to go right to walmart and get exchanged. Then I will just download the motherf#$@er and say to hell with this pointless investing in game companys that just dont give a **** about my time and money. (<--ranty meaningless threat) When a person invests 60 bucks in something it DAMN well better work, Or barring that get a patch out to fix it FAST. And you know what, if they cant do that at the VERY LEAST they should tell us that our problems are being adressed. Hell 2 posts and 3 emails and I still have NO answers to any question.
Ok....Sorry just fed up with this horrid attitude that some companys have. Its the WHOLE reason that PC gaming is going to die. Ripped off people ONLY have so much patience.