Will Civ 5 have the memory allocation error like Civ 4?
- Thread starter Ronnoc
- Start date
digitalcraft
Warlord
Let me guess, you're attempting to imply that Civ 4 was bad because it had bugs.
White Elk
99 > 1
Wow digitalcraft, you may be a bit defensive there. The OP posed a fair question, asked in a neutral way. Any malice found in that simple one sentance question, is put there by the reader not the poster.
digitalcraft
Warlord
Because it's a totally random question. Will Civ V have memory allocation errors? Why would you even ask that if not to bring up Civ IV's issues?
Will Civ V have a bug that causes leaders to appear upside down? Why not ask that?
Will Civ V have a bug that causes leaders to appear upside down? Why not ask that?
White Elk
99 > 1
This is a question I wondered myself. The Civ4 MAF was a serious problem for some. Civ4's MAF prevented me from playing large+ maps. And I couldn't finish even small mapped games for the mods I most wanted to play. Now, Civ5 has even a greater focus on graphics than Civ4 did. And Civ5 has an extra application (steam) running in the background. People are naturally going to wonder if the MAF is going to be a problem with Civ5. If you don't wonder or care, thats fine. But I think your posting in this thread was not cool. It wasn't useful to the discussion. It is destructive in that it provides incitement for flaming.
Psyringe
Scout
It's a valid and sensible question since MAFs were a major annoyance to many players, especially those who like to play massive mods. It's equally valid as was asking "Are we still limited to 512 cities?" or "Are we still limited to 4 hardcoded eras?" when Civ4 was released.
That said, the MAF problem was solved to the point that they really only appear if you play a huge mod on a 32-bit OS. This cannot be prevented. When a game gives modders the ability to turn the game's content up to 11, then at some point they inevitably will surpass the 2GB / 3GB limit of 32-bit Windows and the game will crash. Civ isn't the only game that has this problem either.
If Firaxis tested the game well enough, then they will have limited the largest map size so that MAFs won't appear. But there will be a point at which, if you want something larger, you'll have to switch to a 64-bit OS. I think I've read something in a FAQ about a 64-bit version of Civ5 to be released somewhat later.
That said, the MAF problem was solved to the point that they really only appear if you play a huge mod on a 32-bit OS. This cannot be prevented. When a game gives modders the ability to turn the game's content up to 11, then at some point they inevitably will surpass the 2GB / 3GB limit of 32-bit Windows and the game will crash. Civ isn't the only game that has this problem either.
If Firaxis tested the game well enough, then they will have limited the largest map size so that MAFs won't appear. But there will be a point at which, if you want something larger, you'll have to switch to a 64-bit OS. I think I've read something in a FAQ about a 64-bit version of Civ5 to be released somewhat later.
bernlin2000
Prince
Never heard of this problem, and never had it in Civ 4 (or in Civ 5 so far), so lets say no
.MarkJohnson
King
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2007
- Messages
- 605
In theory you should never get the MAF error with any multi-threaded apps. The worst you'll get is a popup from windows saying it's resizing your pagefile because it ran out of memory and having huge lag anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes and may even seem to lockup while this happens. The lag will continue afterwards as windows will be using your hard drive for system ram which is hundred of times slower.
Thyrwyn
Guardian at the Gate
In the GDC presentation Firaxis stated that they got rid of memory allocation completely. Based on that, I would say the answer is "no".
xienwolf
Deity
You can't get rid of memory allocation unless you turn off the computer. Everything that is done is in memory SOMEWHERE, and needs that space allocated to it.
Certain languages make it impossible to allocate improperly, others make it quite easy to do so if you don't know what you are doing. C++ is one of the later. Most MAFs were introduced by modders, since they aren't professional programmers by any means, and don't know what to do to avoid them. And because they weren't privy to the initial design of the code, so don't know when they do a seemingly harmless action in a way not predicted in writing the code and cause issues (like making a -1 result possible for something which will later be put into an array as the enumeration).
Long story short: MAFs will exist as long as mods are fan made. Any MAFs you experienced in unmodded Civ were probably anomalies (don't think I've ever heard anyone mention getting them in unmodded Civ 4, but I hear little about unmodded civ)
Certain languages make it impossible to allocate improperly, others make it quite easy to do so if you don't know what you are doing. C++ is one of the later. Most MAFs were introduced by modders, since they aren't professional programmers by any means, and don't know what to do to avoid them. And because they weren't privy to the initial design of the code, so don't know when they do a seemingly harmless action in a way not predicted in writing the code and cause issues (like making a -1 result possible for something which will later be put into an array as the enumeration).
Long story short: MAFs will exist as long as mods are fan made. Any MAFs you experienced in unmodded Civ were probably anomalies (don't think I've ever heard anyone mention getting them in unmodded Civ 4, but I hear little about unmodded civ)
Okay, thanks for the replies. I always played Civ 4 with mods and always experienced MAFs, even on small worlds.
I do have a 64 bit processor, with Win 7 64 bit and 4 Gb of ram, hopefully then when the mods come, it will all be good.
For the record, I loved Civ4, but the MAFs drove me crazy.
I do have a 64 bit processor, with Win 7 64 bit and 4 Gb of ram, hopefully then when the mods come, it will all be good.
For the record, I loved Civ4, but the MAFs drove me crazy.
