Civ IV needs fumigation and delousing
by Vladimir Cole 
{ Nov 27th 2005 at 8:28PM }
Civilization IV has been
winning accolades from game critics, but customer
experience with the title has not been quite as positive, with widespread reports of buggy software behavior piling up
at Amazon.com and at other sites that accept user feedback (MetaCritic, too). We're talking roach infestation here.
In sum, gamers complain that the game simply overpowers even gaming rigs with multiple gigs of RAM. Here are some typical complaints:
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"Even after a clean uninstall/reinstall of Civ4 and the updated ATI drivers, I continued to get the increasing (and ultimately fatal) number of late-game crashes on my Sony VAIO desktop (3.6GHz P4, 1GB RAM, WinMCE SP2, RADION X600)." (Bruce Webster, on Amazon.com)
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"2+ minutes game load time, 1+ minute between turns (large pangaea) and circa 1999 graphics which lag and sputter make this game unplayable for all but the most devoted of Civilization fans." (Duane Pye, on Amazon.com)
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"I think the game itself is pretty interesting, but what does it matter since I can't play a game all the way through? Once I get to the 1800s or so, the game crashes every 2 or 3 turns." (Lawrence Wisne, Jr., on Amazon.com)
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"I installed this on two computers. On one, the graphics completely don't work. While there are ways to fix this, they basically involve cheating and revealing the whole map. No no no. On the other computer, the game runs at a snails pace. I have to wait 3 minutes between ACTIONS. ACTIONS, not TURNS. It took me 7 hours to advance 20 turns. This is NOT an acceptable rate." (S. Wong, on Amazon.com)
Chance are, the game can be quite fun and is worth $50, but we can't encourage anyone to buy a game that was released in such a raw state. It's a shame to see a game with such giant promise taken down by a Lilliputian army of defects.
[Thanks, Jake]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris McMahon @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
They released a patch Friday that addressed about 85% of the problems but it's almost too little too late.
Aaron Styles @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
You hear all these reports about crashes and slow lodaing times, but I'm sure it's a very vocal (for good reason) minority.
How about all the people that have it and are just playing it too much to get out there and talk about it?
BTW, I don't have mine yet :'(
Getting it for my birthday in 4 days... :P
vc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I checked with two friends who I trust before I put this entry up. Both of them have been encouraging me to buy the game, but both admit that it's got the problems I wrote about here.
bob23 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
oh no! Black and White 2 all over again!
Kevin @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I bought this game a month ago when it was released (I've been hooked since CivII). The installation was plagued with problems upon first install - Crash To Desktop within 5 minutes after double-clicking the shortcut.
I messed around with some drivers and finally got it to run somewhat stable - it would only crash after hours of play.
The memory hog label is deserved - even if I start Civ after rebooting my computer, I can only get about 5 hours of play in before the memory runs out and the game crashes again.
The released patch hasn't helped any. In fact, I now get windows errors during play.
That said - I love this game. The errors really only happen to me after several hours of play, and those several hours are wonderful.
Clu @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
It works fine for me and 2 of my friends that have it, but it can be a bit slow. I have the preorder version, is it that same as the regular one?
ryan @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Seems like the last couple Civs (indeed the last couple Sid Meier's games) have been like this (though I think Pirates! was relatively stable). He's really been phoning them in as of late, the last original game I remember from him was SimGolf, which was another fun-but-overwhelmingly-buggy title.
Nesmercal @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I have seen and read many such problems people are having with Civ IV. I too purchased it on release and have played many games through completion without any issues at all. If I had not read about all of the problems, I would have said this is one of the smoothest running, most bug free games out there. Anyways, all issues aside, I love this game. This fourth iteration is actually the first Civ game I have played to any extent. Just could not get into the previous installments for one reason or another.
Gil @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Been playing it since last week. No probs.. except at the end game everything starts to bog down, not the game, but using the mouse to move around. Got the patch yesterday, but haven't played a serious game yet.
I also don't have the most advanced computer out there.
P4 2.4 (OC'd to 3.0ghz)
2GB Ram (Bought it because of Battlefield2)
eVGA 6800NU
kwizzeh @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Those with ATI cards, I highly recommend you update and follow the "unoffical" fix found at civfanatics.
Yes, the patch does wonders. My game run realtively bug free right now.
And my specs just if anyone cares to know:
AMD Ahtlon 64 3200+ 2.30Ghz
1GB ram
ATI 9800 Pro 256 bios changed too XT version
Runs perfectly fine after applying the 1.09 patch. Unlike before where I would experience random crashes 2-3 hours into the game.
Mintz @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I'm not hating on PC games, but why can't they release a FULL, FINISHED game after it's been put through rigourous testing? Why must they release a game in such an unstable state then gradually make it the way it SHOULD be through patches?
Lao Boy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Because they have a date they promise to release it on, but to perfect a game it might take years (Half-Life 2 :P)
tittergrrl @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I dunno if this is just anecdotal or not, but myself and a number of friends (six? seven?) all have this game and we have varying levels of computers (gaming machines to casual machines), and none of us have any problems with the game other than the memory leak that people have been talking about. And at least for me, that doesn't show up unless I've been playing for 5 hours or so and then I just reload from an autosave which is usually a year behind.
dirtyballs @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I dunno what these peoples problem is. I have been running the unpatched retail version on both my desktop and laptop with no serious issues.
I have ATI graphics chips in both, and i do get some stuttering with the Wonder videos. As for the issues relating to the end of game, I have found that the simple solution is to save your game, exit, and reboot. (clearing system and virtual memory).
Most applications do not use memory efficiently. Moreover, windows prevents other applications from seeing the state of your system RAM. Civ4 uses large amounts of memory to store all the data one game needs. As turns progress, it has to use more memory. Eventually your system memory WILL become fragmented. This slows down performance considerably, to the point that your system will hang or crash.
Again, simple fix: Reboot.
Once I do this performance is fine and even on multiplayer games on huge worlds turns go by quickly.
For Example, i have noticed that if i had bittorrent running for a few hours and then I sit down to play, I have a moderate peformance decrease. a simple reboot fixes this.
People who play games like Civ4 and encounter the issues they are reporting, then bitch loudly about them are squabling over nothing in my opinion. By the end of a normal game there is probably several players to keep track of, and there may be hundreds of units for the AI to manage. A certain amount of slowdown is expected.
People who claim they have these crazy fast computers should be able to perform a reboot in less than a minute. I can, and my equip is less than cutting edge.
I consider myself a serious gamer. I have played every "major" game release for PC in the last 6 months. (Civ4, AOE3,FEAR,QUAKE4,SWBFII, and many, many others.) I NEVER have issues...
I am employed as a computer technician at the largest "big box" electronics retailer in North America. I occaisonly help people who have purchased games they cannot get running. The odd one is because their video card is insuffcient. But 90% of the time it is due to poor administration on part of the computer owner. Whether its spyware or tons of adware, or the person who just has 20 programs running sucking up all their memory, these systems rarely perform as they should.
Inevitably you have some user who thinks its their right to bitch and scream and yell that they are getting ripped off or that whatever they bought is crap, when really, they are just stupid. perhaps ignorant is a better word. And while everyone in a free society has a right to bitch, STFU cause you only make yourself sound incompetent.
Civ4 is the #2 best seller, and obviously works for hundreds of thousands of people. If it doesnt work the way you think it should you are either expecting too much or doing something wrong.
Aiden @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Decided to pirate the game to check out the crashes and stuff for myself, didnt really find any. Ran perfect (close enough) on my 2.2GHz AMD Athlon with 1GB RAM and a GeForce FX 5700LE. Not exactly a gaming rig but I did around 50 turns in 20 minutes. Game ran perfectly smooth for me (except some areas where I think my defragger started workin--CPU usage low enough for background defragging to go on).
Overall I give the game 8/10. Its a good game and I do recomend it to others, but get a demo or pirate copy to see how well the games runs on your system before buying it (I did buy it but have yet to install the legit version, heh).
vc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
" If it doesnt work the way you think it should you are either expecting too much or doing something wrong."
Or the game is just buggy.
Matthew Rader @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
The patch does nothing but make things worse. I was one of the better off ones pre patch. Now, hoping that the patch would address some minor issues I'm faced with many of the problems people have been facing all along. All this, after the patch forced me to reinstall to get it to work.
Great game. Crappy flaws.
Syl @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Never had any problem with any aspect of the game, only framerate drops or slowdown I had was in late game when I wanted to zoom all the way out to world view, at 1600x1200 and 4x AA, that made my computer stutter a bit.
I'm curious where the rest of these problems are coming from. (I'm running an AMD 64 3800+, 6800ultra, 1 gig of 2-2-2-5 PC3200ish ram)
Lee @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I have an Alienware area-51m laptop, 1Gig of ram and a 3.2Ghz pentium - this bitch overheats in about 20mins of gameplay and shuts down, even on the lowest gfx settings. Problems tend to mount later on in the game, when you have hundreds of units, and dozens of cities. It's SimCity 4 all over again.
elle @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Anyone try playing with a memory defragmenter running in the background?
B C @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I have played this game since the day after it was released, and have had no issues with it...I've only tried it one of my computers, a Dell XPS 2, and have had nothing but good times with it.
Hans @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I have the same computer as Lee, and I can't even finish one turn without the machine crashing or the graphics screwing up and making gameplay impossible or very, very, slow. Also, if I zoom out completely, the game crashes instantly. Though I love all the Civ games, this is simply unacceptable. It seems as though they're created a game that'll only be playable in 1-2 years time with the most high-end computers...
spleendamage @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Been playing this multiplayer LAN at a friend's house (between 3 and 6 of us in any one session) for the past few Friday nights. No major problems to report for any of the computer configurations (from laptops to discount homemade rigs). The only one with any real issue was the guy with an alienware machine had to do some kind of fix for his graphics drivers, but other than that... no problems.
Andrew Fong @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
2.8 GHz P4, GeForce FX 5600 256MB, 2GB RAM, all drivers updated, spyware zapped, unwanted nonsense removed from registry, rebooted, background programs shut down -- Runs fine early but sluggish late game. I'm not experiencing 7 minute waits between turns, but once I've reached the modern era, there's definitely a delay of about five seconds between clicking on something and seeing results. The globe view is unusable. My rig is a little outdated, but with 2GB of ram, I was hoping it'd run a little smoother.
To #12, I think a fair chunk of Civ players would probably never touch a game like Doom 3, and it's a little unreasonable to expect them to have a machine (or mainteanance abilities) to get it to run. My roommates are both Civ fanatics that got Civ 3 to run on crappy Dell laptops with 32MB integrated graphics. I remember having a blast playing Alpha Centauri on a 64MB Win98 machine that crashed running MS Word. While Civ 4 is a better game, I don't think it's that much an approvement over its predecessors that it requires such a huge leap in terms of graphics.
Also, the planet busters in Alpha Centauri were way cooler than nukes in any Civ. Gameplay balance be damned; nukes are supposed to leave smoldering craters in the ground, not just reduced city sizes.
Jake @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
My computer exceeds the recommended system requirements by quite a bit. I have no problem with the game running smoothly without any long waits. I occasionally get a graphical glitch where I have to alt-tab out and then go back in to reset it, but it's no worse than any other game. What bugs me is that I can't finish a game on a large or huge map because it uses up all 1.5 gigs of my RAM (I also have a 2.5 gig pagefile). When I load the game back up after rebooting my computer, I'll go 2 or 3 turns (5 or 6 if I'm lucky), and the game crashes again. If a game takes that much memory, they need to bump up that 'recommended' 512 MB's...
Shagi @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Bought the game when it came out. The only thing I ever noticed were a couple stuttering videos but since in the same session some would stutter and some would not I assumed it was just a bad video file. Even late game it never takes more than a couple seconds for the computer to take its turns and clicking on my units is instantaneous.
Heres my rig:
P4 3.2Ghz
X800XT PE
1 BG PC2700 DDR
Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Thats about all that matters...
Phizzle @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I have the game and it runs fine on my brothers laptop and it's not top of the line. it is really but can take a little while to load.
Lars J @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Been playing the game for about 3 weeks now. No crashes and no slowdown (2,8 ghz dualcore / 2 GB RAM / 7800GTX), but the constant load on my dual-core CPU makes my heatsink spin like crazy.
The new patch made it possible for me to run it on my 1,7 ghz Pentium M labtop at an acceptable speed - the problem seemed to be with cards without hardware T&L support (in my case a mobile ATI Radeon 7500).
All in all a great game in the fine Civ-tradition, but released to early - probably so they could make the wishlists for christmas.
Sloppyjo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Got a dell 9300 (2.0GHz,1.5Gb,6800Go). Bought it a week ago and game has been running without problems, in both unpatched and patched state.
It only becomes slow when in world view with lots of cities. Apart from that, all running fine and dandy :).
mo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Well I have the original un-patched version of the game and haven't had a single problem in 30 hours of gameplay with my P4 3.4ghz + ATI Radeon 9800...
Edward Eade II @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I and alot of other people have found that going back to older versions of their video drivers have solved all of their crashing issues.
ShadowsLight @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I was running the unpatched version (high gfx) on a Dell Dimension 4500 with 512 mb ram without any major slowdowns. Admittedly the game is running faster now that I upped my RAM to 1gb. I'm now running the patched version without any problems. Other than the end game being a bit slow (I have "show opponent moves" on so I expect turns to slow down toward endgame) I haven't noticed any problems.
Tom @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
First of all, thank you Joystiq for finally covering this. Its insanely frustrating to know that there are all these problems but that many people, as witnessed by the Apolyton help forums: http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=228
, are having.
Now, yes a patch has been issued. Too little too late. My system actually crashes more with the patch! Thankfully, they are less painful, simple crashes to the desktop, but you got to be kidding me. (Before my entire system would just reboot. Not cool.) This is a system that can run DoD:S, HL2, Q4 all without a problem at nearly always maxed out settings. Why can't it handle a TURN-BASED STRATEGY GAME?!?!
Athlon XP 2800+
ATI 9600XT
1 GIG RAM
etc., etc...
szimm @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
thats why i gave up pc gaming.
you spend more time fixing errors than actually playing the game. basically, youre paying 40-50$ to fix new bugs you never knew your computer could have.
Matt Clemson @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
For the record, I've had the game since the UK release and I've had absolutely no problems running with an Athlon 3200XP CPU and an ATI All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro. Guess I'm just lucky; no slowdown (okay, the computer takes a few seconds longer to think in the late game, but that's when the game's at its busiest anyway, and that still barely breaks five-ten seconds or so) and not one crash. As it stands, it's unpatched, but that pillage sound effect's been getting on my nerves so I suspect I'll be patching it up sooner rather than later - if I can pry myself away from Mario Kart.
I'm wondering if the problem could be down to something more esoteric; perhaps a combination of graphics card and specific motherboard chipset, or somesuch; either way, I've (thus far, touch wood) been entirely hassle-free.
Maniac @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I find it hilarious when people say things like 'It's simple, just reboot' as if that's acceptable. These apologists are just part of the problem.
Actually, no, I take it back. They are the reason for the problem.
Dave M. @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
My wife and I have been playing since it's release, and haven't seen any major problems with it. Not at all as slow as Black and White 2. That game is pathetic!
We are running Dell 8400's circa 2003 1GB ram, 3.2GHz cpu and RADEON X300 video.
As far as Amazon.com's reviews... I would take them with a large grain of salt. It's really easy for someone to post fake reviews.
I would suggest looking at sites like PCGamer, Gamers with Jobs, etc. Especially the later, they don't have corporate sponsors telling them what to say.
Bobby Bice @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I just picked it up yesterady along with a new sony vaio laptop. It has a 6600 Nvidia graphics-card and nothing is wrong with the game. It hasn't crashed and I have been enjoying the game to the full extent
Jackson West @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Civ III was always slow, especially on huge maps with lots of land (and therefore lots of units and cities). It was a total memory-hog, and always went through lots of patches.
That said, I always got the later, Mac version, and always pirated, so I generally blamed it on those two factors. Thank god for autosave. Of course, I still sometimes played 24 hours or more in a row, and am kind of scared what will happen to my life once Civ4 is released for the Mac.
Poopstain McGee @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
What makes you think its only a few folks having problems? I've awaited the release of CIV IV with bated breath for months--imagine my chagrin when I paid my $50 and brought it home only to find that it works with NEITHER of my computers (a powerful desktop with the latest/baddest ATI video card wont run the program at all--notwithstanding the fact that I've tried all of the "fixes" that have been floating around--my two year old ibm laptop will run it, but so slowly that it is literally unuseable). I'm a huge CIV fan but I don't think I should have to buy an entire new system to play a fucking videogame.......
Kevin Ward @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
How bout this on CIV IV? It reboots my computer! I went to start game on autosave only to find out that the autosaves disappeared & my saved version had been reduced to 2 kb & erred out! Here I am playing great games and losing them! I'm so royally pissed.