Anyone else get occasional game hiccup?

[Prussia]

5 second hiccups and freezes are nothing to worry about. They happen all the time for me, especially when I trade away a city and it switches hands, or when I buy a World Map with a lot of info on it that requires a few seconds to process.

As long as the game keeps working, there is nothing to worry about.

[Addled Platypus]

mouse jumps every so often

have to click the unit icon twice to activate/promote
just about everytime

screen blinks every so often

I am over powered spec wise

game does work, it will get old real quick

[phlucas]

Not a hiccup in the game, but...

Why is the translation team unable to sort tables in the target language? Again, just like in the Civ 4 manual, the tables for units and building are faithfully translated line by line, but the order remains the alphabetical order of the English names, making it impossible to quickly find the stats of a unit or a unique building.

[Provost Harrison]

Well think in English then

[jdchambe]

Originally posted by rjwoer
Speaking of loopy music, I ran into some kind of horrible sound file error during my end-game this morning. Whenever I selected a foreign city to activate my spy within, I got blasted by a scratchy distortion sound that faded away in about five seconds. This happened over and over again. No freeze or hiccup was associated with it, but I am trying to sniff around to see if I have a corrupted sound file in my Warlords install. Or maybe I just needed a reboot.

I have encountered this problem too, but it happenned at random while I wasn't doing anything but studying the map. It persisted for about 5 to 10 seconds and then went away, and hasn't come back since.

[jdchambe]

Originally posted by Akaoz
I also get lag when trading world maps. I'm assuming that's because it requiers a big update of the game map.

yeah. that is not new. on large maps that has alway been a minor issue. I have always assumed the same thing you are assuming: the game is rebuilding some massive data structure that keeps track of what the player does and does not know about the map...

[rjwoer]

Originally posted by jdchambe


I have encountered this problem too, but it happenned at random while I wasn't doing anything but studying the map. It persisted for about 5 to 10 seconds and then went away, and hasn't come back since.

That's three people who've encountered the problem. Makes me wonder if there isn't something more than an isolated sound-glitch here.

[jdchambe]

Originally posted by rjwoer


That's three people who've encountered the problem. Makes me wonder if there isn't something more than an isolated sound-glitch here.

It happenned to me a couple of times today. I think I noticed a pattern, but I'm not sure. Everytime it has happenned to me in a game, the problem started when the following conditions are true:

1) the screen was on maximum zoom or very close to maximum zoom.
2) the screen had just jumped to a new location on the map as a result of normal "unit cycling".

it is as though the game is trying to swap what is playing on some of the sound channels when it does the jump to the new map location and something goes haywire. loud volume distortion gets fed to the speaker for a few seconds. As a programmer, my guess would be that a bogus value is getting passed into some internal game function that sends sounds to the sound driver [bad pointer??]. But I'm only speculating.

It does seem to be related to the zoom level. For the problem to start anyway. Once the problem has happenned once in a game, it sort of seems to continue to happen at random intervals and at all zoom levels.

[jdchambe]

btw: the distortion, when it happens, is much louder than the nominal sound volume of the game. It's bad enough that if the volume was already fairly loud, the extra volume of the distortion might be able to damage speakers or (in the case of headphones) sting your ears.

Turn the volume on the speakers down a little if you go seeking to reproduce it....

[jdchambe]

meh. it happenned again. yucky sound.

I'll tell you what it really sounds like: it sounds like a fading echo effect is getting applied to a white noise sound source at high volume.

the sound is similar to the fading echo of the low volume drum noise you hear when something momentous is printed out to the event log (like when "somebodies city reaches legendary culture"). except instead of sounding like a low volume high-bass drum strike, it sounds somewhat like glass shattering in your face.

[jdchambe]

well, my theory that it is related to having the game on maximum zoom was wrong. It happens at all zoom levels completely randomly. It seems to only happen late in the game after the world is heavily populated with "content" (citys, units, etc.). But this is only a standard sized map I'm playing on...

It not always a fading echo either. It's always high volume white noise, but other than that it's random. Sometimes its a fades out with an echo. Other times it just blasts at a constant volume. Sometimes it blasts through all speakers. Some times it blasts only through the right speaker. Sometimes only the left.

It's so bad that I have to turn off the sound completely to play the game at all.

I'm going to try to update my sound drivers, just in case, but I suspect that won't help.

[yin26]

I've posted a link to this thread on the Firaxis forum. Alex is aware of the issue, but since we can't seem to reproduce it reliably, this one might take time to fix. Please continue to post any of your findings. For example, a few of us have already taken to listening to all sounds individually to listen for a single corrupt file, but that doesn't seem to be it. Most likely it's two or more sounds playing at exactly the same time or something? Of course, Spock can read the tech discoveries on top of himself, so who knows...

[jdchambe]

updating my sound drivers (I have a sound blaster audigy 4) did not help. the problem still occurs regularly.

On my late game standard size map it is very frequent.

the sound problem happens about once every 5 to 10 minutes at random times. it's not always the same sound, but it is always high volume white noise which sometimes has with some other effect overlayed on top of it, sometimes not.

something is clearly getting corrupted, and if the base sound files themselves are fine it seems to be dynamic in-memory corruption. it might be in the save game file, but rumor has it that I cannot post those here. and I doubt it is in the save game file personally....



aside: tried taking a break to try out civcity rome, but that game is even buggier. in that game, targetting with the mouse only works if I am on maximum zoom.

[rjwoer]

Originally posted by yin26
I've posted a link to this thread on the Firaxis forum. Alex is aware of the issue, but since we can't seem to reproduce it reliably, this one might take time to fix. Please continue to post any of your findings. For example, a few of us have already taken to listening to all sounds individually to listen for a single corrupt file, but that doesn't seem to be it. Most likely it's two or more sounds playing at exactly the same time or something? Of course, Spock can read the tech discoveries on top of himself, so who knows...

Yeah, I sniffed around the sound files too and didn't find any individual corrupt files.

Glad to know this is a something Firaxis is aware of. Everything jdchambe is reporting coincides with my experience.

I am in the midst of another game and have not had the sound problem occur again. In my experience, it has only occurred in the late game (and I'm not there yet). I will post more if appropriate.

[jdchambe]

another update: both of my friends, who purchased the game one day after I did, are also now reporting that they are experiencing the same problem that I have described with all the same symptoms.

one of them is using a audigy 2 card. The other has some generic sound device that is integrated into the mother board.

doesn't seem it is sound card or driver specific.

come to think of it. My immediate experience is only 3 people, but at this point, everyone I know has this problem with the game.