Patch v152 out

[Shogun Gunner]

Funny. With the new patch, I really suck at cIV. I was passable prior to v152, but now I outright reek. Thanks Firaxis

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by gdijedi7
My game works WORSE with the new patch. Now I have to run at a lower graffics level, and the wonder movies still crash my game. I want an option to turn them off. The religion movies just have shadows instead of the relics.

you can turn 'em off.
there is an option in the INI-file. look for the section:

; Set to 1 for no in-game movies
NoMovies = 0

and set

NoMovies = 1

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
Funny. With the new patch, I really suck at cIV. I was passable prior to v152, but now I outright reek. Thanks Firaxis

I don't see why. Maybe you were lucky before.

[swiss42]

Confimed Memory Leak

Hi all. Just wanted to post our findings with this latest patch. Hopefully, a Firaxis developer will read this.

We have found and confirmed a serious memory leak in the latest patch that can cause anything from graphics on units disappearing to corrupting software running in the background.

We tested the game with the latest patch on 5 different computers all with different video cards and above system requirements. At first, I was going to post the specs of each of our machines along with the offending code however, when we looked at the code, we were able to find the obvious memory leak with ease.

I would like to say that I am quite shocked at this patch with such a blatant error in the code.

In any case, this post is a little unethical for me but I felt that I wanted those who play the game with the latest patch to know that the code could allow some nasty happenings. For an example, if you run any background software like firewalls or anti-virus software, they can be compromised and corrupted, especially those who use AGP cards.

If you are a game developer, check out the code from the patch (1.52 - of course you have to look at the code after you install it) and you should see what I'm talking about. What a major oversight. It's hard to believe it was done on purpose but it IS that obvious.

By the way, I'm a programmer for another company who just so happens to play civ3 as my favorite game.

[sabrewolf]

can you be more specific what you mean?

to me, a memory leak is when unused objects are not cleaned up and the game/application takes more and more memory until it eventually uses virtual memory. that's when the system starts "swapping" and performance shuts down massively.
but this does not corrupt software firewalls or anti virus programs. it'll just make the operating system unusable until you kill the process.
however, so far i have not discovered any memory leak. civ4 uses between ~150 and ~300MB on the types of games i played so far..

what you speak of sounds to be more like some kind of buffer overflow exploit (allowing civ4 to be hijacked for (evil-doings") or a malicious programming (thus implying that there is some very unhappy employee at firaxis)

so please... be more specific

[yin26]

swiss42: Contact Firaxis directly with the problem. If you've really identified it (and they haven't), you'll have done us all a great favor.

[player1]

What yin26 said...



EDIT:
By the way, HOW did you looked "into the code"?
Reverse engineering or something?

[swiss42]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
can you be more specific what you mean?

to me, a memory leak is when unused objects are not cleaned up and the game/application takes more and more memory until it eventually uses virtual memory. that's when the system starts "swapping" and performance shuts down massively.
but this does not corrupt software firewalls or anti virus programs. it'll just make the operating system unusable until you kill the process.
however, so far i have not discovered any memory leak. civ4 uses between ~150 and ~300MB on the types of games i played so far..

what you speak of sounds to be more like some kind of buffer overflow exploit (allowing civ4 to be hijacked for (evil-doings") or a malicious programming (thus implying that there is some very unhappy employee at firaxis)

so please... be more specific

Sorry about not being very specific. I've been using my "Work time" to post on here so am kind of in a hurry.

1st I would like to mention that the game ran fine with the occasional CTD before the patch.

The memory Leak we found (I found) is as exactly as you describe. As for the corrupt software, some software such as Norton Anti-Virus does it's "auto updating" and opens/edits certain files on the fly sort to speak. If the virtual memory runs out as it is updating or doing one of the "open/edits", this would corrupt the file.

This is a normal process with any memory leak. I should have been more specific about that.

For an example; The following errors we received while running civ4 on the machines varied from each computer and the time it took to generate those errors were different depending on the video and system RAM.

The most common error was a CTD with a "you ran out of video memory" message. This was on the ATI Radeon 9550. Other times you would get a "Fatel Virtul Memory" Message.

In fact, one of our computers did indeed had a corrupt Virus file due to the fact that the memory ran out and the Anti-Virus software had to be re-installed. This was indirectly related to CIV4 running.

On the computers with the Gforce cards, I would never get an error message, just some graphic gliches when the memory ran out, the graphics would start dissapearing or you would see lines, and/or all menus and links would dissapear.

Of course all these errors would take from 4 to 8 hours of consistant game play to generate.

In all cases, these errors would no longer be an issue if you closed the game and restarted within an hour or 2 of game play.

I hope this helps. I just wanted those who are playing the game to be aware of the consequences when running other applications and what running out of memory can cause.

Note: I made a fix for this for my personal use but it didn't work. I decided to leave it at that as I would need to do some digging to find out why it didn't work and I simply don't have the time.

If they looked at the code, I'm sure they could fix it in a patch. I love CIV4.

[yin26]

Originally posted by swiss42
If they looked at the code, I'm sure they could fix it in a patch. I love CIV4.

Just curious: You think they haven't already looked at the code? This performance issue was a killer for them, and one would think that they'd catch something "obvious." Why not send them your findings?

[gdijedi7]

how do i get into the INI file? I can't find it.

[swiss42]

Originally posted by player1
What yin26 said...



EDIT:
By the way, HOW did you looked "into the code"?
Reverse engineering or something?

Ah ha...Ancient Chinese Secret. No, just kidding.

Well, I'm an independent contractor and as such, I work for many different companies with many different databases, software applications, including PC gaming. Other than using the basic text editor, we in the industry use code editors for various languages. Some I made myself while others I purchased.

To be honest, I usually ...come to think of it, I have never posted on a message board about things like this. I have a personal code of ethics (and many companies do). Writing something like I did is embarrassing and not a proper way to notify a developer. But I LOVE the Civ games as it has always been part of my "off time" playing when I can.

I had thought about contacting Firaxis, but the code is so blatant. Put it this way, If they looked into it, they should see it right away...or better yet, I would be surprised if they did not already know about it.

The only thing I can think of is that programmers often correct a more popular problem by replacing it with a less popular problem. This is common with those who have deadlines as to fully correct most problems without causing others often take many many hours, or I should say "days, weeks" and in some cases "months".

EDIT: Just a quick note; I would be very surprised if another patch did NOT come out for this particular memory leak. In fact, they may be working on it as we speak. You never know.

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by gdijedi7
how do i get into the INI file? I can't find it.

look in My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\
the only INI file there.

[DrSpike]

The plot thickens.

Let's see what the next patch notes say.

[yin26]

swiss42: Well, sorry to say, you're not being helpful then. If you feel you can't give the info because it shows you violated the EULA, then send it to me and *I'LL* post it to Firaxis. Or, better yet, send it from a new Hotmail account. Whatever. But it's silly to play hide the sausage anymore.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by swiss42
Other than using the basic text editor, we in the industry use code editors for various languages. Some I made myself while others I purchased.

A 'code editor' that reconstructs C++ source code from an executable binary?

...and those fools at the CTPII project waited for Activision to release the code...