Another crash story

[Lermontov]

I've now gone back ...

... and tried to start earlier (I found my discarded games were still the the recycling bin) and ... it crashed one turn earlier than before, also on the Babylonians workers making their move.

I don't think it has anything to do with RAM, as I put 640 MB in this puppy. It could be a combination of Windows upgrades and driver upgrades, perhaps, not taking into account potential conflicts with civ3. Or I might just be doing something entirely stupid that I haven't thought of yet.

Oh well, maybe it's my cue to build another system (although I don't think that excuse would go over well with the wife).

Thanks,

M. Lerma

[SpencerH]

But if its drivers etc the game shouldnt start, or should crash very quickly after start. The fact that you can play for a while suggests something cumulative. I was thinking mods, but you've said you're not playing any. Can you play a game all the way through on a normal map? You should have enough RAM and more than enough cpu etc. The other hardware consideration that has just come to my mind is the possibility that your cpu is overheating with the increased workload of the later turns.

[Lermontov]

replay on normal map

I'm just now starting to play a game at the large size vs huge. Do you think that would be enough of a test?

The CPU heating question is a good one. Oh, except if I start the game up from scratch at the faulty game it crashes immediately again--I don't imagine the CPU heating up that fast (and with all the fans I put in here ... it's a little overkill).

M. Lerma

[SpencerH]

It depends, I think the CPU can heat up very fast under a load especially if the heatsink-fan is not up to the task. Hopefully you'll get some input from others about this. I just dont see that this is a driver-type problem.

[Jahi]

i have the same problems with the crashes.. about 33% of my games go that way. i think there is something wrong with the game myself. i have a new install on a new machine. if and when i get time again i'll experiment between my laptop and desktop

[Ethelred]

Jahi, have patched the game yet? 1.29f is stable for most people. The original version had problems including a file corruption problem.

[Raion]

Ah, could it be that the Virtual Memory Swap to Disk is not large enough. I changed mine in Windows 2k Professional. I have looked at the game, when finished in System Monitor, or whatever it is, and it is already running peak memory usage at 272,156 or something like that, and I am just around 1100 A.D. That's with 12 players total. In Imperium Galactic II, the book said to have a 500mB swap file, if playing with less memory, meaning I guess, around 128kB or so.

Since windows takes so much memory even now that I have 256mB in my machine, I went into Adminstator level and changed the swap file to 640mB. I may even make it slightly larger.

If it already peaking over the memory in my machine that early, it may need more swap file memory -- Virtual Memory.

Mine was only at 240mB, with Windows setting it.
I don't know if this will help, and it may not be the answer. It may just be a corrupted save, but then, some games may take more memory than what any one thinks.
And it may be the OS that is bombing, not handling the game right.

Let's see in Civ II, that was small, the computer were smaller, but then, it always seemed to be the OS that was actually bombing and not the game.

Can't be sure, but setting the Virtual Memory Bigger can not hurt if one has the disk space to use.
Also Windows will not work right when a hard disk gets down to around 100mB. It just will not, if there is not enough room on the hard disk left on it.

[Jahi]

my old save games are posted here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57563

as soon as work slows down i'm gonna try them again

[Ethelred]

I can tell you why I didn't touch those files. They are bleeping big and it was a modified game. I leave those to the masochists. Takes forever to play those things.

A 256 X 256 map requires a huge amount of memory so the swap file becomes a bit more likely as the cause of your problems. In the early versions of the game there was also a bug if you hit the limit for the number of cities which is possible on such a large map. Especially with the unpatched game that has half the city limit that it does now.

[Jahi]

all my games run the latest patch, i have lots of ram so i never use my swap as the entire game can load into ram. with that in mind i really dont think some sort of swap file corruption to be the cause. i've had this problem from day one, long before i ever made any changes to the game. once i did mod the game it was simple things like adding more city names and eventualy changing some civ colors. i was just curious to see if the game crashed for other people to, i wasnt really looking for a solution. also, i can load old save games 10 turns back, play using totally different moves and the game will still crash at the same point.

now i realize that me pushing the game to its limits may cause some problems that were not playtested very well, but i'm only trying to do what the program was advertised to do. but, i've also had this problem on smaller maps with less civs and it has also happened way before the modern era before as well.

on the excessive ram usage i think firaxis could have done a better job on the trade network since thats the hog there. i feel certain i could design a better one using the OSPF routing protocol as a guide as opposed to the full mesh network they have in use now. this is a prime example in network engineers why full mesh nets are bad. once i have a zillion cities in a game and i build an airport i can see the ram usage jump a few megs everytime another one is built.

ok, enough ranting, i proimise i'll give your save a shot this weekend or sooner if i can get work under control.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Jahi
all my games run the latest patch, i have lots of ram so i never use my swap as the entire game can load into ram. with that in mind i really dont think some sort of swap file corruption to be the cause.

Its the data that needs the huge amount of space. The bigger the map and the more units and cities the more memory that is needed. Unless you have MORE than a gig of RAM you need the swap file to be large enough to accomadate the needs. Use the task manager monitor to find out if you truly do have enough virtual memory for the game. It can get over half a gig with a standard map.

on the excessive ram usage i think firaxis could have done a better job on the trade network since thats the hog there.

Thats a CPU hog. I don't know if it eats RAM or not but it can take a while to recalculate it with larger maps.

i feel certain i could design a better one using the OSPF routing protocol as a guide as opposed to the full mesh network they have in use now. this is a prime example in network engineers why full mesh nets are bad. once i have a zillion cities in a game and i build an airport i can see the ram usage jump a few megs everytime another one is built.

All I know is that some of the routines, route finding in particular, have a geometric increase in CPU usage as the map size increases. That is why the game was never intended to have a Huge map size. It was only added because people asked for it late in the game develpment. The huge map size was decreased in the latest patch because very fast systems were still bogging down even after more optimization was done. Huge maps are for the patient and 256X256 are for the VERY patient.

[Jahi]

Originally posted by Ethelred


Its the data that needs the huge amount of space. The bigger the map and the more units and cities the more memory that is needed. Unless you have MORE than a gig of RAM you need the swap file to be large enough to accomadate the needs. Use the task manager monitor to find out if you truly do have enough virtual memory for the game. It can get over half a gig with a standard map.

hmm. i've never gottan a game above 300 megs in usage and its something i tend to monitor in task manager. even with the large maps i tend to play.. and since i tend to play on a laptop the disks on that machine are very slow i always know when the swap is in use. i'm going to have to disagree on that point, at least how it operates on my machines.

Originally posted by Ethelred
Thats a CPU hog. I don't know if it eats RAM or not but it can take a while to recalculate it with larger maps.

yes, it is a cpu hog and there can be a minute delay per airport/harbor/and sometimes road tiles when they are built, but i've also notived that in task manager that i can get ram usage to go up and down by building more airport/harbors or selling them all off,

Originally posted by Ethelred
All I know is that some of the routines, route finding in particular, have a geometric increase in CPU usage as the map size increases. That is why the game was never intended to have a Huge map size. It was only added because people asked for it late in the game develpment. The huge map size was decreased in the latest patch because very fast systems were still bogging down even after more optimization was done. Huge maps are for the patient and 256X256 are for the VERY patient.

yes, very true, but a long time ago one of the firaxis people posted that they limited the number if cities because memory usage would begin to go up to an unacceptiable level every time a new city was added due to the trade network.. this lead me to believe the following: every city maintains a table to every other city and its capital.. and if you build a harbor then it established a connection to every city with a harbor and so on.. if this is the case then the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) algrathim could really help out here in speeding things up and cutting memory usage down. for example, we have 20 cities on the same piece of land all connected by road, one of those cities has an airport and that trade network has been calculated for it already. if another one of the 20 cities builds an airport then there should be no need to recalculate the entire network, as it can check to see that it is already connected via road to a city with an airport therefore saving all the recalculation time. all 20 cities would not need to calculate there trade network if they all had airports then.. saves a lot of time.

ah well, these are just idle musings though.

edited bacause i cant spell and i'm a goober with html

[Raion]

Well, I am not sure, but I do know that even with the game just ended, the peak swap file memory was 272kB and that was only about 1100A.D. The memory for the game, and the swap file are separate when reported, but even the game Imperium Galactic II, said to use a swap file of 500MB. That game was about the same, but probably smaller than Civ III.

A supercomputer is needed!

(Smiley goes here).
128k for IG II, but then that swap file was in the manual, because of thousands of space ships.

[R Daneel Olivaw]

Try less civs

I had the same crashes since the original version and it seems that Firaxis couldn´t solve the problem already.

I tried everything from different map sizes, diferent rules and difficulties to different civ amounts per map, different OSes (Win2kPro, Win2kAS, Win98SE) and the only one which seems to solve the problem is the civ amount per map.

My theory is that the game can manage a certain amount of units/cities on a certain map, and if you pass that amount the game will crash.

I tried a huge map with 16 civs an the game crashed, more than 10 civs on a smaller map and the game crashed, but 12 civs on a huge map allowed me to play enough to get a cultural victory.



So, mi friend Lermontov, my advise for you is to use less civs according the map size you want to play.