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

[Fireb]

performance and leaks

I'm glad to hear that a patch is being worked on, as this issue seriously undermines an otherwise fantastic game.

Regarding what is causing the problems: I have save games which consistently crash (to desktop) as soon as I load them and end-turn. (using a geforce 5k something, winXP, etc).

I have noticed some performance degradation over time, though whether this is from memory leaks or simply more units/animations/buildings on the map causing things to be a bit jittery I'm not sure.

I'm confident though, that whoever is working on the patch will find out exactly what is going wrong and fix it

[Gelondil]

Just to clear up any confusion, this game DEFINITIELY has a memory leak, though I have no clue as to what is causing it. It has happened in other games that old/bad drivers clashed with new games to cause memory leaks.

In one specific instance I watched my memory usage climb slowly above 1 gig over a few hours, then when I saved and restarted Civ (and visited all my advisors to re-acquire the memory used for them) the memory usage dropped to around 600ish. I'm no windows guru, but I take it as a bad sign when CivIV leaves over 300mb of memory usage up to 30 seconds AFTER it has been exited.

Nevertheless, still playable if I restart occasionally, going to have to give the Chipotle trick a try, I'm sure that would help a lot. No CTD's yet, but a few hard lockups at times when memory usage/leaks have my memory pegged.

[Stromprophet]

Re: Hehe

Originally posted by Civfreak1970
LOL...I win!

Civfreak1970

I had a question. the config.ini file, is that a notepad file? Where is it located?

Second, I have no username on my computer right now, recently crashed and I did a destructive restore. What would the path be for getting to the "cache"

I also wanted to know if it is ok to delete that? It just creates that folder everytime you play or????

What does changing the autosave to 1 do? Does this prevent it from autosaving when starting a new game? Cause I have noticed that causes my game start to lag. The pictures don't sink up when the world is being made, you know like when he starts talking about single celled amobas, I'm still looking at a picture of the planet being just formless. Kind of makes that whole dramatic speech not enjoyable.

I have a P4 2.6, 512MB, Geforce 4 MX 440 AGP8X, and Realteck AC97 Audio.

I also get skipping music still with all up to date drivers.

[Stromprophet]

Oh I had encountered another problem the other night.

I was exiting the diplomacy screen and I hit (farewell....exit) and then the person I was talking to, there image popped up again, and I had to hit exit again.

Did it the entire time I was playing the other day for every leader.

[Civfreak1970]

Some Anwsers!

Okay if you delete the Cache File Folder it will remake it fresh everytime you start up a new Civ4 game!

This folder is located in the following area; C:/Programs/My Documents/User Folder/Application Data/My Games/Civ4/(Files should in here)

Make sure you have hidden files/folders showing okay!

Changing the autosave=1 means it saves every turn so if you do have a crash it doesnt effect where you last left off or can go back upto 6 turns to try to work around a crash if it happenes.

Civfreak1970

PS. Config.ini file is a notepad file and is located in the Firaxis folder under programs folder..Look in there!

[brill]

I don't know what it is, but it shouldn't take 3-4 minutes between turns, I know that. I don't even care about the movies skipping, which they do from the get-go with me (but that seems like a whole other problem), its just that at first, the turns go by instantly, then after about 20 minutes, the turns start taking agonizingly long to transition, and this gets worse and worse. And its not like my computer is doing anything while this is happening. It's crazy. You know how when you start your computer, every once in a blue moon, it will take like 10 minutes to boot, and it looks like your comp is just locked up, no hard disk activity? The windows idle process is using about 98-99% of system resources, and eventually it works. I suspect this is what is happening here. I think its a windows problem. I suspect this game was created using unix and they never ported it properly.

Fantastic job guys.

[Civfreak1970]

LOL!

[tulkas12]

I think its a memory leak as well. The longer I go the more time it takes to load a turn, but I've never had it crash since increasing my pagefile thing. My PC is right at minimum specs and I don't expect it to run well, but the leak is a nuisance.

I took the movies off and although zoom in zoom out and scrolling lags its not unbearable. I literally play hockey while loading a game and I keep playing as the turn loads get longer and longer.... this really sucks for the programmers, I mean what a dibacle.

[rewclaus]

am having a problem with Civ IV: The game minimizes itself and when I try to switch back to the game, it just minimizes itself again. What part of my system is causing this problem? does anyone know? Is it an issue with the game?

Sys. Specs.:

Celeron 2.6 GHz
512 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce MX 4000

[evizaer]

One small request:

If you are going to post a possible solution to a problem, can you please give a concerted effort to make the language of the solution coherent and the explanation thorough?

I know more than most about computers, and i'm still wondering what the hell the topic starter was talking about in some parts of his post.

[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've never used Python before, but if its anything like Perl, you can get yourself into a hell of a mess if you don't scope your variables properly. That might also explain why Civ 4 garbage collects well, the interpreter can clean up after Civ kicks the bucket.

[Raion]

So far playing on a small map with 5 Civs, the game started slowing down especially after the first Diplomatic Contact. I verily made it out of the game because the rest of the turn took it seemed forever, but I saved it, and applied what another person said, I went out to the Desktop with Alt-Tab(bing) and waited a minute or two, went back into the game and all the slowdown was gone. After that I had to restart the game later, but ever since, after the meeting the first time with subsequent times (sams Civ AI though) the game has not slowed down, and now I am way up there to 850A.D.
If it happens again on the show all the map thingy, then I will try that again.
I however think that the *.dat files except for the ones with all the numbers in them, may help the game perform better later after the initial upshoot in memory.

However at this time, I sure would like it if the game was more consistent than what the game is.

However now its been playing fine, but I have not played for hour after hour with the game going through the motions yet!
I tend to play in short bursts and then quit the game and start it up again a little later.

However it works though going out to the Desktop and waiting a bit did work for me, and the game is still running fine after that initial slowdown that everyone seems to meet!

So whatever the surge in memory usage is there, it seems to go away if one goes to Desktop and then comes back to the game, just the first time it happens!
??

[Fireb]

Could one of you please clear something up:

I don't fully understand the VM (virtual memory)/paging part of the solution. I think I know what these are, but what do I need to do and why does this increase performance?

Thanks

[Raion]

In your computer is a Virtual Memory Manager, that is when your computer does not have enough memory as main memory part of any program is swapped out to the harddisk and swapped back into main memory when it is needed. So it is like a temp memory holder that all games use. The ideal back a few years now, was to make it 1.5 times the size of memory you have in your computer, but nowadays I use a larger swap file, since some graphics program I was using (image and picture files) took up to 2gB of Virtual Memory to use while working with the program.

Essentially my main memory is 512mB and all OS's (opertaing systems) will have to use some of that memory. If XP, then more memory will have to be used to keep the computer running, and if Windows 2K like I have, the OS will be less of a memory hog. So when a program starts up and asks for memory, a certain limit will be reached for the program, and mainly all programs run within that limit that they request from Windows. However, many games will need more memory, and that is when the Virtual Memory Manager will be used to swap part of the game out to the harddisk until needed in the game again, and it is swapped back in to main memory. This is normal, goes on all the time while you are using your computer, and it is the reason that some people buy more main memory. It makes the computer slower a little bit to swap part of the program out to harddisk and back into the computer's main memory to use when it is needed.

So that is what Virtual Memory Manager does, and usually the default is to let Windows handle the size of it while playing or using any program or game.

However when playing games it is usually better to make the Minimum and Maximum memory that can swapped out to the harddisk drive a constant, where that means that both the Min and Max are the same size, and a restart of the computer so Windows can set that is needed.

Like I said right now, I have 512mB of main memory in my computer, and my Virtual Memory Manager is set both for the Min memory it can be, and the Max the memory can be -- to 2gB or 2048mB of memory that will be set up on the harddisk by Windows. Once restarted, if a program running needs more memory then the Virtual Memory Manager will be used if necessary. Making it large enough and by making it constant keeps Windows from changing it on the fly while playing the game. Sometimes Windows is just slow, so this helps keep the game playing constantly, and even may avoid the computer from Crashing.
It is just a common rule for the Virtual Memory Manager for any large usage memory program.

Another is setting the video card for High Performace instead of what the default is when new drivers on installed for the video card. They will always Default back to using the computer as a general-purpose computer, not as a gaming computer, so setting the video card for -- Image Quality with a Geforce type video card -- to High Performance -- makes the video card respond quicker and makes the game play better.

This is norma for a gaming computer and has been done for any number of years including back all the way with Windows 95 OS in a computer.

[Mazra]

Hi Everyone,

I doubt it is a Memory Leak. Instead, it may be a problem with the cache. In large graphic programs, the images are cached, often using Virtual Memory. This is why the higher Virtual Memory settings may be helping some users. The cache may not be clearing out properly. This is why deleting the cache also seems to help.

There is alot of information processing through your computers in this game. I have noticed that the players not having many problems have more powerful PCs with some of the latest graphics cards.

When I mouse around on a large or huge map is when I most likely get a CTD. My midling little machine can not handle the information trying to process through it.

TMI guys!!!

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.)

Thanks for noticing,

Mazra