Found Memory Leak & Sound Problem with game and fixed it so far!

[EPhillips]

A memory leak is definate - it slows down vastly towards the end of games with my 1gig of memory

[abman]

The only solution that works for me is to constantly quit out and restart the game in order to clear the memory. Is there some utility out there that can clear memory not actively used by a program at the moment? Restarting the game takes me about 10 minutes on my laptop. Not worth the tradeoff for a slightly shorter wait between turns

[daveprc]

Originally posted by Mazra


Maybe a patch can fix some of the problems. Hopefully, the programmers will come up with some improved cache system, or get with the various graphics card manufacturers for settings downloads.

Unfortunately, I fear that the only thing in my case that will truly work is a better computer. Which makes me sad for I am not buying another computer anytime soon!
(BTW-My computer now exceeds the recommended requirements. It is still not enough.)

I beg to differ, however with my pc which currently far exceeds the minimum standards - P4 3.0g, 1024RAM, NVidia 5800-128M Video card, all updated drivers & latest bioses - The memory leak does appear noticeably just a bit later in the game.

I'm currently playing a large world on the Earth Senario - not the 1000AD but the other one - I must admit some success as I can make it to the late 1700's without a significant slowdown, but then it goes downhill from there. Multiple crashes & restarts, I've now given up - can't seem to play past 1920.

On that note, first thanks to my brother for fed-exing me the game (I have no idea when or if there will be a china release date) - in case he's reading - and secondly, I think I'm going to go back to Civ3 Conquests until a patch is out as its just to frustrating to start a game & not finish it.

[Mazra]

Originally posted by daveprc


I beg to differ, however with my pc which currently far exceeds the minimum standards - P4 3.0g, 1024RAM, NVidia 5800-128M Video card, all updated drivers & latest bioses - The memory leak does appear noticeably just a bit later in the game.

I'm currently playing a large world on the Earth Senario - not the 1000AD but the other one - I must admit some success as I can make it to the late 1700's without a significant slowdown, but then it goes downhill from there. Multiple crashes & restarts, I've now given up - can't seem to play past 1920.

Hi daveprc,

Your machine is more powerful than mine, but not by much. I am experiencing much of the same thing. I still don't believe it is a memory leak. I believe as the game develops toward the endgame, the size of the files and graphics are more than even moderately powered machines can handle. Now, that is not to say that Firaxis may have some kind of program to handle some of the file sizes. In other games, when you move from one scene to the next, the memory is cleared from earlier points in the game, but with this program, you can not clear earlier points. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger with more and more.

I hope I am wrong and it is some kind of cache problem that a future patch will easily fix. But at present, it doesn't look good. They may have to come up with a CIV IV light, with less graphics and calories.

Thanks again for noticing,

Mazra

[marvinkosh]

I've managed to play through and complete a standard sized game (spaceship victory) with maybe a couple of crashes. As others have pointed out the larger more-revealed maps seem to give the most disruption to game flow.

I have a large-map game that will CTD every turn and I have just given up on it. It's not due to slowness or memory bloat either, since I've played without those non-essential processes that I usually run, and still I have an abrupt crash sometime within 2 turns of loading, memory not seeming to be the issue causing it.... perhaps it's something about those particular map sizes which predisposes the game to come to a grinding halt, I really don't know for sure.

Edit: I've gone back to regular-sized maps and the CTDs have stopped for now. It doesn't prove anything, but I've been able to play without interruption for hours, and that's more fun than playing for brief periods in between crashes

[Cambo67]

I can think of an obvious reason why the game uses more memory as a game goes on, but doesn't need so much if you save->exit->reload;

In the course of a game, the 3D models for each unit are loaded as and when needed. Each advance can mean more models to be loaded.

Towards the end of a game, there are models for _everything_ still in graphics memory (this is _not_ the cache folder, btw).

When you load a saved game, it only needs to load the models for the units in existence at that time, plus load any new models for later advances.

Much of this model handling is actually down to DirectX, not the game itself. Graphics drivers can have some bearing on it, but going by the problems people with ATI & nVidia cards are having, I'd go for DirectX.... ;-)

If only there was an OpenGL renderer!

Oh, and OpenAL for the sound, too.



Cambo
(Former PC Engineer, and former MilSim programmer)

[Gelvan]

just an idea:
if Civ 4 needs much Virtual Memory, and Virtual Memory is the same [=] as your hard disk drive, couldn't updating the drivers of the hard disc drive - and an utility to increase it's (HD) speed of communication with the CPU, increase the pace, the virtual memory is swapped in and out "the game"?

I have a newly bought FX5200 128MB (since yesterday ) - and on small maps everything is fine - on huge maps though about 1000 AD, it's scrolling extremly slow. system ram 256MB. After reading the posts, I don't think increasing system Ram would help that much...?

[seebs]

Actually, increasing system RAM helps IMMENSELY.

The slowest memory is hugely faster than the fastest hard drives.

If you can avoid needing virtual memory, by having enough real memory, it'll make all the difference in the world.

[seebs]

Originally posted by EPhillips
A memory leak is definate - it slows down vastly towards the end of games with my 1gig of memory

I don't think so. When I had a HUGE game that became unplayably slow near the end, I could close the game, reboot, load from my latest save, and have it be slow right away.

A memory leak should not show up right away on a large save.

There may be a memory leak, but I haven't seen any evidence of it.

[Gelvan]

I don't know, so many people have high end machines, regarding RAM, and it doesn't work anyway. So I could stay with my 256 MB and just play smaller maps.

but IF a hard drive would be fast enough (in comunication with the processor), you could have tons of GByte virtual ram. Imagine a hard drive which is really fast...

would be much cheaper

[ez42x10]

Originally posted by BleckLord
It might not be an all out 'leak', Civ 4 might have been coded such that it just uses way too much memory. I'm sure that the developers started testing early on with just small test benches, so the amount of memory use wouldn't have been obvious. By the time the game got far enough along for people to run games long enough to see the memory gluttony, the bulk of the code was probably already completed. Now Firaxis has to go back through and trim the fat, re-code some wasteful procedures. I expect its a big job, a job that should have been done in code reviews during development.

I think you hit the nail on the head - not a leak, just irresponsible coding.

[Mazra]

Originally posted by Cambo67
I can think of an obvious reason why the game uses more memory as a game goes on, but doesn't need so much if you save->exit->reload;

In the course of a game, the 3D models for each unit are loaded as and when needed. Each advance can mean more models to be loaded.

Towards the end of a game, there are models for _everything_ still in graphics memory (this is _not_ the cache folder, btw).

Much of this model handling is actually down to DirectX, not the game itself. Graphics drivers can have some bearing on it, but going by the problems people with ATI & nVidia cards are having, I'd go for DirectX.... ;-)

Hi Cambo,

I trust your background in this matter. What you are saying makes alot of sense. If this is the case, then it would be correctable. That would be good news.

Thanks,

Mazra

[Cambo67]

Heehee, thanks, Mazra

Another DirectX game that has 3D model issues is Anarchy Online. There, the problem is the vast number of textures used. Wandering into an area with a lot of player characters in can cause _any_ machine to drop into slideshow mode ;-) Thankfully, they are working on updating their renderer....



Cambo

[Mazra]

Originally posted by Cambo67
Another DirectX game that has 3D model issues is Anarchy Online. There, the problem is the vast number of textures used. Wandering into an area with a lot of player characters in can cause _any_ machine to drop into slideshow mode ;-) Thankfully, they are working on updating their renderer....

Cambo

Hi Cambo,

Quite frankly, I can only guess by its name what a renderer does. Would this be something that may be the problem in CIV IV? Or am I forever stuck playing the game on smaller maps, so my machine can handle the graphics in the endgame?

Thanks for your input,

Mazra

[Cambo67]

The renderer is the lump of code that creates the images that you see. Some games actually have the renderer as a seperate DLL file, thus simplifying updates, etc.

Quake II actually was released with 4 different renderers, iirc. PowerVR, OpenGL, 3dfx, and software. You could select the renderer to use from the game's options menu.



Cambo