Great game ruined by show stopper bugs.

[snoochems]

Who would've thought that the day would come when a turn based strategy used over 1GB of RAM.

My current game, (huge continent map, 14 AI civs) has my PC using OVER 1.4GB of RAM. Looking at the task manager, Civ4 is taking up about 1.2GB. This is ridiculous! Civ 3 used under 300MB with 31 civs on an even larger map!

Thank goodness I have 1.5GB of RAM installed.

Plus… how buggy is this game! It crashes, freezes, quits to desktop way to frequently! In my current game, I can’t even load a saved game from within the game, and if I try, it quits to desktop. (this strange phenomena only has happen with this particular game I’m playing). I can only load from the main menu screen!

Also, I’ve got decent HDD’s in RAID0, yet the game takes forever to load.

This compounds the frustration of the constantly crashing bug, as loading the game again take ages.

Now I know this is on a ‘huge’ map… but surely… FEAR and QUAKE4 don’t take this long to load. They don’t even take up this much RAM. And yet, to an observer like me, those two FPS games look much, much more demanding that Civ4.

Why why why????!!

And then there are the bugs that are just plain annoying… like how the [ROLLOVER] mouse help only works half the time. The silly civlopedia is just a major step down from the one in Civ 3 too. This has to be a bug right? Or a joke? And how bad is the world builder. Placing a single tile takes forever! Placing rivers requires a magic wand!

Another VERY annoying bug that has only just started happening is that when I change a civic, once I press ‘revolution’, ALL my civics go back to there original 4000BC choices. Then I have anarchy for three turns. So, I just simply can’t change my civics. I’ve recently also noticed little messages pop up on left of the screen informing me that “XXXX failed to load”.

These problems are just infuriating as the game itself is great.

For the love of all things holy, some of these bugs are just show stoppers. How can they release a game with so many bugs!

[Kassiopeia]

Another VERY annoying bug that has only just started happening is that when I change a civic, once I press ‘revolution’, ALL my civics go back to there original 4000BC choices.

Umm, that's what's supposed to happen when you have a revolution, the civics will be the ones you chose after anarchy ends.

Then I have anarchy for three turns. So, I just simply can’t change my civics.

Hmm, did you change every single civic in your civ? That's the only way I can think of that can get you to three turns. If the civics are still the same after the period of anarchy, though, something strange is going on.

[ghen]

Since when have games not used tons more resources than their predicessors? Being in the PC building business myself, I prefer games to have outrageous requirements as it feeds the economy & feeding the economy by having people with enough money to waste actually waste it is a damn good thing for the country.

So in conclusion.. I think you're a communist.

[rockhopper]

So... you are complaining that its using all your RAM...

Isn't that why you have all that RAM?

To use?

If not, what did you want all the RAM for? If you didn't want your programs to use it, did you want it for:

1. Prestige?

"Hey, I have 2gig RAM!"

(thunderous applause and much praise from the ladies)

2. Money sink?

(sung to the tune of any current hit song)

"I have a pocket full of change, yeah yeah...
What should I do? Oh, what should I do?
Invest? Donate? No!
Buy RAM! Buy RAM Ohhhh, RAM-O!
But you, YOU CPU..
Don't touch it!
Noooooo, don't touch that RAM, you bad CPU! No RAM-O for you!"

[Tacit_Exit]

Oh man, too funny

[Lancer]

I...I have a case of RAM envy.

[amicus curiae]

It is absurd that you are forced to have such detailed graphics in a Civ game. And there are many animations that you can't even turn off. I really hope the patch addresses this because it is totally needless. Even if you love the animations, why force everyone to use them? The game would be much better for everyone I think if the graphics were much worse. You could run bigger maps, play faster, etc...

[Lancer]

Ya. Civ players aren't usually eye candy types. We be strategists. Forcing us to upgrade our comps to the level of hot 3D action game techie wierdos doesn't endear me to the developers. That said, I can't say I've seen what all the hoopla is about, because my comp which runs Civ3 fine just crawls into a fetal position and cries for momma when I try to load Civ 4. So, I've bought a $125 video card for my comp in the Phils and when I get back to the US I'll buy a new $1700 game machine with dual this and overclocked that, just to play a game I paid $49.95 for.

I guess that makes me one of ghen's commies.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by amicus curiae
It is absurd that you are forced to have such detailed graphics in a Civ game. And there are many animations that you can't even turn off.

Hm, have you tried adjusting the graphical settings under "options?"

[Lancer]

How do you get the game to load far enough to turn off the graphics?

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by rockhopper
So... you are complaining that its using all your RAM...

Isn't that why you have all that RAM?

To use?

I have 512 MB RAM, the recommended size. Yet on a regular map, continents, standard game, my comp uses 800 MB of RAM! Add to this the fact that I close prior to playing all unused services and tasks, and I don't do this for any other application I use.
If the game uses 500 MB on standard settings they should put it on the box. "Recommended RAM size: 512 MB on a regular map, 1 GB on a huge map, plus whatever your Windows and your other applications are consuming additionally to that".

[Robert]

The memory leak will be addressed in the soon to be released patch.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lancer
How do you get the game to load far enough to turn off the graphics?

The main menu has something like "options" or "advanced." Go there, make the changes, and click "Go Back" at the bottom. Some changes require you to restart the game, though you will be given a message when you change those.

[Snotty]

My friend was crying about huge maps being slow in civ 3 as well. Surely its much better to ship the game with huge maps that only some people can run well, instead of limiting everyone to small maps so as ensure it runs smoothly on the lowest common denominator

[Aileron]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The main menu has something like "options" or "advanced." Go there, make the changes, and click "Go Back" at the bottom. Some changes require you to restart the game, though you will be given a message when you change those.

I think that was sarcasm, Lancer probably can't even get to the main menu.

Personally I think the graphics are great, but I think there should be a way to *substantially* turn them down. The low/med/high setting doesn't seem to change much for me. And as for the other settings that stop unit animations, etc., I don't think that reduces the load on the graphics card that much. But I guess we can't expect them to make 2 completely seperate sets of graphics, one 2D, one 3D. Anybody want to start working on the Civ1 mod for Civ4?