.swp files grows to epic proportions.

[Vlado]

Everytime I try to play the game the .swp file grows and takes up the full c: drive. Ther nthe game shuts it self down "civIII has perforemd an illegal operation..." What's up with that?

I have
PIII 500 Mhz
c: 2gig
d: 18 gig (Two partitions on the same hard drive, have tried to install on both.)
64 Mb RAM
32 Mb Videocard
16 Mb Sound Card

Anybody who knows what to do?

/Vlado

[Ethelred]

You should also give your operating system.

I am going to assume you don't have XP because you don't have enough ram.

You may have tweaked some settings badly but I doubt that. More RAM would be good.

If you are one of those Civ III players that insists on playing on oversized maps then stop. You really don't have the ram to do that well.

What I recommend is that you download Cacheman and use that take controll of your Vcache which is likely oversized and forceing the OS to keep using the swap file. Why windows 9X does this is unknown. Its stupid but that is what all windows 9X does. Windows ME may do a bit better at it but only XP handles memory at all correctly. Of course you don't have enough RAM for XP.

Link to Cacheman

http://www.outertech.com/downloads.php?product=3&PHPSESSID=6512c2910f8d0dcbe5a53ea9c4e01377

It will really help get that swap file under controll. I recommend NOT use the chunk size setting. Maybe its working well now but everytime I used it in the past it made my system unstable. Otherwise the program can really help. Mostly what it does is tame Vcache by putting a limit on its size. Its Vcache bloat that is the likely cause of your swap file bloating up like that.

Then again maybe you just don't have enough free space on the drive. You want at least a half gig and more is better.

That two gig partition on the C drive is a weird choice. I know some think its good idea but its not. At least not for games where the programmers are often assuming the games will be running on the C drive and that there is plenty of room on it. Since Civ III takes over 500 megs PLUS lots of swap file space this may your problem.

If I had noticed that littly oddity I wouldn't have bothered mentioning Cacheman because it can't make a big drive out of a tiny one. And these days 2 gigs isn't tiny its puny.

[Willem]

Re: .swp files grows to epic proportions.

Originally posted by Vlado
Everytime I try to play the game the .swp file grows and takes up the full c: drive. Ther nthe game shuts it self down "civIII has perforemd an illegal operation..." What's up with that?

I have
PIII 500 Mhz
c: 2gig
d: 18 gig (Two partitions on the same hard drive, have tried to install on both.)
64 Mb RAM
32 Mb Videocard
16 Mb Sound Card

Anybody who knows what to do?

/Vlado

Well first thing would be to get more RAM, 64 is not nearly enough. Just in case you don't know what the swp file does, it acts as your virtual memory, so if your RAM gets used up, your computer will start using the swp file instead. And 64 meg is just barely enough memory to run Windows 98, there's nothing left over for other applications. Civ III can easily eat up 128 meg all on it's own, never mind your OS as well.

Also, clean up your hard drives. If you're running out of space for the swap file, it's a pretty good indication that your drives are to full and/or badly in need of being defragmented. Dump some junk you're not using then run a defrag program to clean them up.

And I agree with Ethelred, 2 gig for a system partition, which is what I'm presuming you have it for, is a bit small. For Windows 98 I'd recommend another gig. However, if you have any plans on upgrading to XP, it should be at least 5-6 gig. And don't install anything on it other than the OS, if you have any choice at all in the matter.

Finally, if you go to Control Panel, you'll find a an area that will allow you to set a fixed size for your virtual memory, or your .swp file in other words. I believe it's in the System settings, where you find the Device Manager. Be careful when setting a number since if it's to low, you're going to run into problems. In your case, I'd recommend at least 500 meg. That will insure that your .swp file won't get any larger that. And don't try shutting it off completely, your system will give you all sorts of problems if you do.

[Raion]

I have Windows 2000 Professional, the F:drive is the real boot up drive, and also have Windows 98SE on the comuter on the C: Drive, also holding part of Windows 2k P. Made my partitions 4gB though for another program for school and went to FAT32. Leaving 2gB on each drive, and still the other program taking 3-1/2gB total on another 2 partitions helped also, but Civ is on its own partition anyway, right now, which is big enough to hold other games also.

Had to change it, and memory was cheap here lately, and increased memory to the limit I can have - 256mB.
Windows is a 'hog' with memory.
Also will make the game run faster, but I only play with 5-usualy 6 other Civ's, as a newer faster 2.5gB processor will improve the game also. But that, will come later.

[Jahi]

wow, more ram more ram more ram... i've gotten games to hover around 300 megs before.. and thats just the game and nothing else. but as Ethelred will love to point out, i love to play stupidly large games.

with enogh ram you will never touch swap for this game

[Ethelred]

but as Ethelred will love to point out, i love to play stupidly large games.

Not stupidly as long as you don't complain about the time it takes. Egregiously large is more what I am thinking. Its just a lot of units and cities to manage. If you don't mind thats OK by me.

I have come to the conclusion that most of my tedium problems with previous civ type games was playing on too large a map or a to large a galaxy. For some reason I figured that out with Civ but not MOO. In MOO 1 and 2 I usually used the largest galaxies. Not gonna do that with MOO III. Well maybe once unless the governor system is either very good or very bad.

[Raion]

Yes, if you do not have enough room for Windows to expand the Swap File Virtual Memory manager and it gets the drive down to about 100MB left, then Windows will not even work, and that could also be the problem.

I recant, I can have up to 1GB of memory in my new computer, but my Swap file now is set at 768MB, but I may even make it larger.

Large games take a large amount of room.

I read in another file where someone used a training program to play Civ III, and thought the program should handle over 2800 units in the game. It probably does, he just needs a supercomputer to play it, and should consult the Government to see if he could get funding to conduct the game on a supercomputer, I guess.

Over 2800 units in a game. Turns must take days on a regular computer!