Civilization4 memory usage fix

[Tiberius]

Abefar, I think you would be able to play it, but only on small or regular maps (not huge ones). You will have probably longer wait times between turns, but it should work (especially if you use Harkonnen's patch)

I have P4 1,6 GHz, 512 MB RAM and GeForce 3 TI200. As you can see, only my proc is faster than yours. Before the Harkonnen patch I was able to play without crashes but I had extreme slowdowns in the late game (sometimes waiting 15 minutes between turns, especially when exchanging maps). Now this problem is gone and the only remaining issue I have are the choppy wonder movies. Honestly I couldn't care less about them. Of course you will have to defragment the the harddrive, close all applications running in the background and so on, but it's doable.

[Brinoch]

I downloaded and installed Harkonnen's patch today... color me impressed.

I was having terrible delays as I went into the end game, and to that that I was frustrated would be a tremendous understatement. And yet... this resolved many problems (and probably created a couple of minor problems since I am inexpert at installing such things). Great work!

I played an entire game straight through, with only one problem near the end -- the game hung, and I generally when it hangs an alt-tab flip will jog it loose. But, in this case, it created the dreaded black tiles (something that Harkonnen warned about if one uses full screen). There were virtually no delays between the turns.

I did notice that the sound was softer with the implementation of the patch. But I can always turn up the volume!

[Harkonnen604]

Brinoch
Civ4 uses GPU very intensively when it's not swapping, especially its geometry part. I do not overclock anything, but still some people had overheating issues only after my fix (when it stopped swapping). Some had their sound going down.

I personally had my HDD restarting with my 250W power block when the fix started working (had to put 2nd HDD away). I mean this can be the problem with softer sound.

As for freezing/black_terrain. 'insane_mode = 0' should eliminate that. Also freezing sometimes takes about 10-20 seconds, and then it's ok... probably you didn't wait enough.

[Harkonnen604]

Intermediate release is finished. Please check this post (read it attentively before applying):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3457231&postcount=640

You may answer here or at CFC, whatever you prefer. You may also PM/mail me (headden@karelia.ru)

[Enigma_Nova]

Great work, Harkonnen! :cheer:arty:

[dorg]

Firaxis should be paying you!

This patch fixed EVERYTHING! Civ 4 is now humming along. The wonder movies are no longer an inconvenience, but a pleasure to watch.

Harkonnen - you should be getting royalties for this!

[polarnomad]

Integrated FPS counter! Nice!

*Sacrifices freshly bred Settler on the alter of Harkonnen!*

[Enigma_Nova]

In Apolyton, you get royalties not just by mastering a Patch thread, but by mastering all threads.

[Szut]

It works !!

Harkonnen I salute you.
Without your patch game was totaly unplayable at
later stages of the game. Now it works just fine all the way.
Hats of !

[Jim Cobb]

I unzipped the intermediate patch, replaced the zlib1.dll and changed the ini as instructed. I rebooted my machine. CIV4 now won't load. What did I do wrong?

[Harkonnen604]

Jim Cobb
Any message from civ4? At which point "won't load"? How much video memory do you have?

[Jim Cobb]

My bad. I thought both "Harkonnen" files were in the zip. I went back and d/l'd the harkonnen.ini. The patch is marvelous. I'll try to get it on the Wargamer news column. Thanks so much.

[Harkonnen604]

Ok, thanks! Just better post the one shown in post #1 of CFC thread - that has proven to be more stable.

[Peter Andersen]

quick question since this post deals with memory.

My game is running ok on my machine and I have 1 gig of RAM. I am looking at adding an additional 1 gig of RAM so that I will have in total 2 gig. WILL this make the game run beter (faster). Any idea how much if so?

[Harkonnen604]

Peter Andersen
Yes, you will avoid lag. But probably you'll get CTDs instead as it happened to many 2Gb users. Though, CTDs with 2Gb are less often as lags with 1Gb.

Also, 99% CTDs (crashes to desktop) in civ4 are caused by memory usage, so almost everyone with unexplainable CTDs on 2Gb systems avoided them with my fix, just in case you'll need it...