Civilization4 memory usage fix

[Bill3000]

I'm noticing a huge difference already.

[Zen]

Harkkonen,

please post again when your newest version (that doesn't alter a game dll) is out!

-Zen Blade

[Finarfin]

This sounds great. I am definitely going to try it as larger maps are unplayable for me, even with 1GB RAM.

[Enigma_Nova]

If only I had the skills to create something this useful.

[mike2h]

Originally posted by Zen
Harkkonen,

please post again when your newest version (that doesn't alter a game dll) is out!

-Zen Blade

2nd that one!

[gwgardner]

Wow! I installed your patch/fix and it has made an enormous impact on gameplay. Fast movement in scrolling and by units, information popups occur instantly now, etc. Thanks very much for your hard work on this.

I have a Dell 3000, pentium 4 3Ghz, 1 gig memory, nvidia geforce fx5500. Before your patch the game was achingly slow. Not it screams along.

Oh, by the way, I did have to set the insane mode to 0 due to the black screen after an alt-tab.

[Harkonnen604]

Solver
Not exactly... It's unmanaged for D3D, but it's managed by my DLL instead.

All
Thanks for good words. Much appreciated

All
If size of python24.dll is the issue, you may download zlib1.dll instead (it does exactly same thing - loads my DLL).

http://www.sampo.ru/~headden/zlib1.dll

I thought a little, and came to idea that creating aside loader.exe isn't good. Just because civilization4.exe will restart worse, some people won't be able to fix shortcuts, and I will have to fix .savegame filetype, so that double-clicked savegame loads patched.

Please, can anyone test it with multiplayer?

[mike2h]

thx! kust downloaded.

[player1]

Hmm...
How to set memory use for a computer with Radeon 9000 (64MB), and 1GB or RAM.

P.S.
I think that AGP thing is set to 128 in BIOS.

[rjwoer]

Nice work.

Your fix actually made it possible to load the game on both my systems for the first time with 1.09. Up to this point I'd reverted to 1.00 because it just wouldn't load. Needless to say, it's much appreciated.

[Blake]

Works great. Much snapier and better memory usage, no longer grinds when quitting/alt-tabbing out.

The leader portraits go flatcolor sometimes tho... there might be a setting to fix that... it didn't really bother me because I recognize them by the music.

edit: I'll also note I was playing multiplayer with v1.00, so this patch is indeed "very compatible" as advertised.

[Harkonnen604]

player1
I'd suggest to try some minimum first:
vid_mem_usage = 32, insane_mode = 1

If there are problems with the above settings, try this instead:
vid_mem_usage = 32, insane_mode = 0

Blake (and all othrers experiencing leaders flat-coloring)
Try reducing 'vid_mem_usage' by 10 or 20. If that is still a problem, try 'insane_mode=0', but check performance changes, especialy after setting 'insane_mode=0' with 512Mb system.

Also note that 'insane_mode=1' is good until you alt-tab frequently. If you alt-tab frequently (especially in full-screen mode), you should use 'insane_mode=0' or switch to windowed mode.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Yes, it seems snappier overall...excellent! Although, I also had the problem with leaderheads displaying as a gray box. This was with vid_mem_usage set to 64, insane_mode=0, high quality settings on a 128MB GF6600GT.

I also had an odd artifacting problem: When I move the map, the base of some towns had a weird shimmering effect. I tried to get a screenshot of it, but it didn't work very well...I highlighted the areas that were doing it on this shot:

[Harkonnen604]

I had shimmering too, but I thought it's general z-buffer artifact, I will investigate...

Well, summing up - so far gray leader-box appears to be the only problem with some systems, and globe view speed didn't improve as was expected.

[player1]

Originally posted by Harkonnen604
player1
I'd suggest to try some minimum first:
vid_mem_usage = 32, insane_mode = 1

If there are problems with the above settings, try this instead:
vid_mem_usage = 32, insane_mode = 0

Interesting...
I tried 80 and 160! and none of them gave any problems.
Exempt standard alt-tab problems for insane mod only.

Although I did only tested just my vicotry standard map games.
I don't play larger maps much due to tedious mircomanagement.