Worst software ever

S

Shazzamx

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 13, 2005
Messages
3
Ok I know this site and others have various ways to help people with the problems CivIV Presents. I mainly talk about the slow .... extreamely slow performance you get if you don't configure your computer to run this game specificicly.

I might be wrong and out of order here, but I operate in a world where if I buy a product I expect it to work, especially if my hardware specifics exceeds the recomended settings.

I run a 2500 AMD, 6800Geforce Nvidia chipset grafics card. 1gb of ram.

Now I am no way a computer wiz, infact I will go as far as say that I don't know a lot about computers. I can enter websites download updates and news, load games and such.

I find it odd that a game is launched where even if you exceed the recomended requirements your unable to run the game, unless you read and modify your computer to accomedate all kinds of requirements that issen't listed on the box.

I really hope there is a patch in the near future that fixes these issues so that people like myself, who are unable to configure our systems after the "new" requirements which are only listed on sites such as these, can play this game.

As it is now I consider CivIV one of the worst investments and game experiences I have ever had. Afterall a game filled with the best the gameworld has to offer, is still worthless if you can't experience it.
 
Cant image that Civ4 is such bad that people start comparing it with the unchallenged Windows :lol:
 
I find the driver rollback annoying. I have a GeForce 6800 Ultra and I'm not afraid to use it, therefore I don't exactly avoid games that use the latest drivers.
 
Sorry it's not working for you, but calling it the worst software ever... your saying it's worse then the game (sorry, name escapes me) that when uninstaling (which happened a lot because of the bugs) actually rendered your computer dead, until you reinstalled Windows? There has been a lot of crappy software, and because you get grief with one piece doesn't make it the worst in history.

I understand that your frustrated... but, chill. Frankly the only problem i've had with the game is the movie stutters, and that was because I enabled AA. Wait for the patch to address the issues your having with your hardware, and we'll see. This is NOT the first game in history that needed tweaking (you obviously weren't around in DOS days), nor will it be the last.
 
I'll be waiting patiently ... for a while atleast. Being a huge fan of the entire series... well CivI still is the best in my book, but nostalgia runs deep there, so who knows.

Anyway lets see what the cook up over at fireaxis
 
You have been very fortunate with software, if this is the worse ever. It is one of the sloppiest, buggiest, rushed release but it is great when you can run it. The game is a lot of fun and enjoyable, but the game being unstable can cause a lot of frustration. The game engine is horrible and a resource hog, hopefully the crew who worked on it was paid in expired coupons. No other game out now, sucks up the resources like civ4, even bf2 on max settings is less demanding than civ4 on high settings(large amount of civs and huge maps). If you want to try out horrible software, try windows me, think even Bill Gates gave up on that junk :lol:
 
The game engine IS indeed a resource hog, i have quite a fast setup and yet the game is unplayable when you reach modern age in a standar map.

My configuration is:
AMD Athlon 3,4gz
RAM 2gb
HD Sata 200gb
ATI 9250TD - 256MB RAM

I was running a resource monitor on my laptop for the desktop while playing civIV. CPU is constantly at 100% and the memory it consumed was ever expanding turn by turn (ok logical) and needed about 1,5gb of RAM (that is also logical if you have that much memory, application expands to as much as it can take if memory is there)

What is not logical is the final performance of the game, you dare not scroll, i have the graphical settings at minimum.

I upgraded my memory to 2gb from 512mb after i installed civIV (and the game was the main reason) the perfomance was not better but the game did not crash every 20mins any more which suggests the extensive use of swap memory really helps for the crashes (and i mean crashed with no mercy, not even blue screens, straight to the bios).

However i still do NOT concider that civIV is the worst game ever, actually i believe it's the best civ version as it has addressed many issues and features i prayed to see by playing all the other civ versions since civ1 in my old amiga.
 
i have a much weaker system than triabita and mine runs smooth in modern era on a large map

but i do have a geforce :lol:
 
I have a AMD 64 3000+, 1GB RAM and a GF4200Ti (!!!) and i have no problems running the game on standard maps. All i did was installing the most recent nvidia graphic drivers.
Sometimes when a lot of wars going on it takes longer, many calculations going in the background. Can live with it.
There seems to be a memory leak through, so after some hours it gets pretty sluggisch, but thats nothing which can't be fixed in a patch, and nothing i haven't seen in many other games as well.
Of cource there a settings who go beyond the hardware normally availible. Huge earthlike maps with 18 agressiv civs (many wars!) surely need hardware normal people may have in 2-3 years at home. Thats nothing new in game industry eighter. Wasn't different in civIII, i played my first game on a huge map after te conquest expansion came out and i had better hardware.
Of course the easy solition for firaxis would be to reduce all map sizes by the factor 2 or 3 and the game will run pretty smooth on any setting on the avarage today system. Not a solution i'am looking forward to.
 
Shazzamx said:
I run a 2500 AMD, 6800Geforce Nvidia chipset grafics card. 1gb of ram.
Click to expand...

Your system is more than sufficient to run CIV IV
There's just a few things you should take care off:

Visit www.nvidia.com for your latest graphicscard drivers

if you have a VIA chipset on your motherboard install these: http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1070
If you have a nForce chipset get the drivers from nvidia.com

Clear your system from spyware; I'm personally very happy with the microsoft one; (although you can use a multitude of tools). http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&displaylang=en

If you have your Motherboard Drivers, GFX drivers installed and you have the annoying spyware removed you should be ready for a comfy game experience. Have fun!
 
triabita said:
The game engine IS indeed a resource hog, i have quite a fast setup and yet the game is unplayable when you reach modern age in a standar map.

My configuration is:
AMD Athlon 3,4gz
RAM 2gb
HD Sata 200gb
ATI 9250TD - 256MB RAM

I was running a resource monitor on my laptop for the desktop while playing civIV. CPU is constantly at 100% and the memory it consumed was ever expanding turn by turn (ok logical) and needed about 1,5gb of RAM (that is also logical if you have that much memory, application expands to as much as it can take if memory is there)

What is not logical is the final performance of the game, you dare not scroll, i have the graphical settings at minimum.

I upgraded my memory to 2gb from 512mb after i installed civIV (and the game was the main reason) the perfomance was not better but the game did not crash every 20mins any more which suggests the extensive use of swap memory really helps for the crashes (and i mean crashed with no mercy, not even blue screens, straight to the bios).

However i still do NOT concider that civIV is the worst game ever, actually i believe it's the best civ version as it has addressed many issues and features i prayed to see by playing all the other civ versions since civ1 in my old amiga.
Click to expand...
Now see this? THIS is the way to complain! This guy has stated that he has troubles, but the the game does work, gave his system specs, and hinted at his tech proficency to let us know he is competant, and still manages to give credit for the game, and what the devs did get right.

Hats off to you sir! Too bad most nayayers arent as articulate and honest as you.
 
You have no concept of computer game hell unless you lived through the launch of Anarchy Online. Civ 4 had a sloppy and rushed release, but this is nothing. People were writing parody songs about how sucky Funcom was, on their own message boards :).

If you want to go really, really old school, look up the nightmare of Battlecruiser. That one got hysterically personal, as the developer "Derek Smart" openly attacked criticizers, then was hounded as a purveyor of Vaporware and owner of a mail order Ph.D. It doesn't really count as worst software ever though, because almost no one ever tried to play it.

Anarchy Online was a perfect storm of expectations vs. incompetence and dishonesty, as roughly a quarter of Everquest players were ready for something new and it was the first sci-fi MMORPG. The beta testers howled and screamed and fought as they suffered through 0.25 FPS in cities, lost characters and equipment, CTD's, reboots, bluescreens, etc. Funcom claimed it was just due to the "debugging" code running behind the client side. The end of beta finaly was a nightmare, as people were booted off every 5 minutes, doors wouldn't open, missions would initialize, etc.

Turns out it wasn't the debugging code. A lot of people who had become apologists for funcom during beta got egg on their faces. I happened to be one of them, and its one of the reasons I have so little tolerance for game company apologists now. They aren't worth your support, and supporting them just encourages bad behavior. Make them release working games.
 
As a software engineer I can deduce to some extent what is under the hood in Civ IV. It is quite clear that this is fairly well crafted software but that it is suffering from the typical problems of incomplete finishing. This is the sort of situation that is likely to get completely corrected although many people may be unhappy about the timescales. I have had to deal with software solutions where the faults were far more fundamental and you simply end up throwing it away and starting again because that is cheaper. CIV IV is a million miles from that status and therefore nothing like the worst software ever.

On a further point, I am something of an expert on game algorithms (that is games as mathematical system, not specifically computer games) and from an admittedly rather short term analysis CIV IV appears to be an amazingly robust game system (again, I'm talking the rules not the software). I am actually quite impressed with the apparently large number of equally viable strategies for playing the game. This variability is extremely unusual for a computer game and deserves a lot of credit.

Well done :goodjob:

(But please finish it off)
 
Wlauzon said:
If you think this is the worst ever, then it must be like your 2nd or 3rd software.
Click to expand...

And the first two must have been Frontier Elite 2 on the Amiga and Nethack.
 
Rhandom said:
You have no concept of computer game hell unless you lived through the launch of Anarchy Online. Civ 4 had a sloppy and rushed release, but this is nothing. People were writing parody songs about how sucky Funcom was, on their own message boards :).
Click to expand...

What's really sad is that I never owned AO, and I knew of these things. That's when you know it's bad software...
 
Gather round, kiddies....let your old Unca Omens tell ya a story...

I was there for the launch of AO. I was right there in the trenches, man. I didn't have any fancy DSL. Oh, no, I was on dial-up. I didn't have any of your high-technicological video cards either, with their "quadruple blip-mapping" and "quantum hoody-doo." I had a Voodoo 2, and that was all I needed, by gum! I tells ya, the graphics were great! I had a good opportunity to study how good they were, because I got about 1 FPS, so I had lots of time to examine each screen. I still have fond memories of looing a corpse; it only took about a minute.

On the other hand, I did win some sort of Anarchy Online sweepstakes (I think it might have been through PC Gamer), and got a poster, a keychain, and a really nice backpack. Not bad for $50.
 
I'm guessing you've never played anything from Derek Smart...Now there's plenty of candidates for "worst software ever" :lol:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

B
After +1000 hours playing, worst luck I've ever seen
Replies
10
Views
2K
mutax2003
mutax2003
T
AI League 2.0
Replies
12
Views
532
Thrasybulos
T
T
The AI Horatius League
2 3
Replies
41
Views
2K
Keler
Keler
H
Рerception of units on the map
Replies
8
Views
1K
ArchGhost
ArchGhost
Luke1195
Luke's 32 Civs Earth Maps Mod
Replies
9
Views
4K
Luke1195
Luke1195
Back
Top Bottom