I too have to put this aside for now

[vmxa1]

First I must say I am sorry to all those who I roasted for complaining about the bugs. That was foolish on my part.

The reason I am putting this down is I just cannot go through all the aggrevation I did in CivIII. That game crashed a great deal for me, until I got a new video card.

I got this to run with no problems, until I started to play for Domination only. Once the game is allowed to play with lots of towns and units, it started to drag. It started to flash the screen with a map with nothing on it, but land.

It started to fad out, it started to hang, to crash, to get an all black screen. I think much of this is from a memory leak as when I reload the game it usually plays fine for a few turns.

I am just sick of it. I do not want to hear about hardware or driver issues, that is crap. When one has scores of games that play fine and then gets one that has all sorts of issues, do not blame it on the OS or hardware or drivers.

The problem is yours, not mine. This sort of faulty product is actionable in my view. What other products get away with so brazen of failures.

No one can say I am not a big supporter of Civ and I have an understanding of how software products are created and tested. I spent 40 years in computers on mainframes and I know you cannot afford to test all possible uses.

I know you cannot try all the possible hardware configurations, but with the tons of people having issues, it seems some glaring holes were missed.

For the record I replaced my ATI radeon 9800 pro with Nvida FX5500. It has the lastest driver as of a week or two ago.

Pent IV 3.06GH
1GB ram
Raptor 10000 rpm drive
XP PRO always updated.

I have two CD's and all of a sudden one starting seeing errors on the CD, so I use the burner and it seems to work fine for now.

So I am hoping that a patch will come out and it will fix these issues. I am not even hoping for improvements in the game, only that it load up (faster would be nice) and stay up all day.

I tend to play from the time I get up till I go to bed. I want the game to do the same.

[Harovan]

Re: I too have to put this aside for now

Originally posted by vmxa1
I got this to run with no problems, until I started to play for Domination only. Once the game is allowed to play with lots of towns and units, it started to drag. It started to flash the screen with a map with nothing on it, but land.

Exactly my observation. Builder style on normal maps or less runs just fine and without problems, but games on large maps or with a more aggressive gameplay are bound to become instable and crash eventually.

Some of them end up pretty messed up AI-wise also. In one game I landed a settler on a 1-tile island. Three other nations (AI) had shipped settlers/defenders there as well. They stood there for ages, but neither of them actually founded a city. I did.

I wait with serious games until a patch or two are out. Currently I'm at most toying with it on occasions and not really playing.

[LzPrst]

firaxis is playing a dangerous game with their fanbase...

[Dis]

works fine (but slow on large/huge maps) on mine.

and my system is like 3 years old technology.

and I'm using the original drivers for my video card, not updated ones.

and I use a Radeon card.

the game has not crashed to desktop once.

[LzPrst]

me neither, but I see the less fortunate's side of the story. and really, we as a gaming community should stand together or we will get screwed.

[Dis]

true. It's obvious the game has problems with some configurations. Perhaps because the type of video card and motherboard. Who knows.

I can't explain why the game runs good on my system. Athalon 2600 +, Radeon 9600 XT video card, 512 megs of ram, Audigy 2 ZS soundcard.

[TheArsenal]

I’ve had pretty bug-free gaming. Until Saturday.

After playing for hours (more accurately, leaving the game running for hours, playing some in between) I would get Nimoy’s “In the Beginning” voice over every time I hit the button to end my turn. As with your problems, a simple reload solved it. Funky.

[vmxa1]

I have started to think it is less about the hardware, then the type of game, but I do not know.

When I played easier games and did not get aggressive, it was ok.

I really started having trouble on an Always War with raging barbs. The later the game played and the more land I controlled the more troubles I had.

For a long time I was able to just reload or reboot to get it to play again. Eventually I had eliminate three civs and had pinched one back hard and it them was only a few turns before it got ugly.

This suggest a memory leak. It may not be that, but it looks like it.

The point is it is not fun to get locked with a black screen or even to see a black screen and have it recover in a moment or so. You start to say it is more work than it is work.

I know it will take a lot of testing before any patches can be released as the do not want to face the patch failing as well.

This is why I would like it to be a just plain bug fix and leave tweaks for the second one. You can work on two patch concurrently with the proper maint scheme.

[ScreamingCube]

I've also stopped playing. The Crash to Desktops are getting more and more frequent, the hotseat diplomacy bug makes hotseat pretty much worthless.... I love the gameplay, but the ridiculously sloppy work they've done here really turns me off of the game.

[Datajack Franit]

videos started to play buggy, all of sudden. stopped playing and waiting for the patch

[vmxa1]

Actually it makes me sad to hear others having problems. I wanted it to be at least free of serious problems.

I wanted it to be successful and maybe it will be. I know they made a valiant effort. I am convinced Robert (Sirian) is serious and dedicated.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
videos started to play buggy, all of sudden. stopped playing and waiting for the patch

I'm not sure about the videos. It is possible I'm missing some. Or they just not in the game. Most of my videos work just fine.

But no wonder video for Mt. Rushmore comes up. And nothing for the church of nativity or the religious wonders (or whatever they are called)

[greggbert]

My problem is that sometimes in the late game all the improvements, units and cities dissapear for about 5 seconds and then Boom. I'm crashed to desktop. Reload, Crash to desktop, Reboot my machine and go from a slightly older save, then I'm ok for about a half hour wash rinse repeat.

XP sp2 + GeForce 6600GT
Got the November, 2005 drivers from Forceware.

[vmxa1]

greggbert I have seen this occur where it flashes the map with all improvement (except roads) missing, but often it finally display it correctly.

For me this is a sure sign, that I am soon going to have a crash, so I save and exit the game.

[Dis]

one thing I should mention is I have a fresh install of windows after a hard drive reformat. I'm not sure if this has made a difference. Of course, one should not have to do this to play a game. In fact, I didn't do it to play this game. But to play the Sims 2 . I had already played the game and uninstalled it. But it wouldn't allow me to re-install the game for some reason. I figured I was due anyways. it was about a year and half since I last reformatted. I'm lazy at performing maintenance on my computer.