Galactic Civ Newbie with tech question

from Stardock Forums
First off, yes, I am slow. I finally picked up Galactic Civilizations on Monday (I was that far behind in terms of games I was playing). To be honest, I didn't really enjoy the demo that much and actually just purchased it because Stardock is a company I actually feel the desire to support for a number of reasons. Now, after two days of the full product the preliminary verdict is in.

Why did I not purchase this game earlier?

I am hooked. It is an extremely addictive and incredibly well made game, with some serious strategy going on. And I hold it up high as the quintessential example of gameplay over graphics making a phenomenal game. Stardock, you folks did a fine job and deserve a lot more positive press than you are receiving (and thankfully you are receiving some).

That being said I have had one issue pop up for which I thought I would come to the altar of Gal Civ wisdom. Occasionally while I am playing the game will just freeze. It doesn't crash to the desktop, the mouse still moves, but I cannot select anything or click on anything. If I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del it will bring up the Task Manager and minimize Gal Civ. It will initially say it is Not Responding, but that immediately switches to Running. So, it isn't a game stopping issue, Alt-Tabbing back to the game pops it up, running fine. It is just annoying to have to Alt-Tab out of the game every once in a while (yes, I don't even want to leave it for a minute!). Anyone else have this problem? It never happened in the demo, and I am using the internal mp3 player to listen to my own music. I have not waited to see if the game will un-freeze itself yet, so perhaps I just need to wait some? Any help would be appreciated. For reference, my system specs are as follows:

Sager NP 5620 notebook
P4 2.4 GHz
512 DDR RAM
Win XP Home (All critical updates and service packs 100% up to date)
ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 64 Megs (using modified Catalyst drivers vers 3.7-they have been better than modified 3.10)
AC '97 onboard sound with latest RealTek drivers

Thanks all!
433 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
BlueDev, I have the exact same problem except it never starts running again (at least not that I was patient enough to wait for). What size galaxy are you playing? When does it usually freeze? Mine is usually right after a vote at UP.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Right now I am playing a Large galaxy I believe. And it seems to happen at random times. Sometimes when I go to save the game it hangs for a while, sometimes right after a select a ship. It seems to be pretty random and has only happened about 4 times over 2 days.

Any ideas out there?
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
It happens to me every turn. I think it just needs to have time to do all its calculations.

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
on a gigantic galaxy and lots of ships etc it can take awhile after each turn cause the game has to do alot of calculating for the AI's and etc especially the further along in the game you are.....if you can move your mouse the game isn't crashed....the only "crashes" I've seen Gal civ do is drop you back to the desktop....as for just freezing....no on my older then dirt Internet sharing box which is way below the p 3 600 mhz minimum it plays you wanna talk bout slow and acting like its froze :) but the drive is constantly accessing and you can move the mouse and it still plays....so I wouldn't think you have a problem just defrag before the game save it often (I do every turn on the auto save) and you'll be fine :)

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmm, okay, sounds good. I will give it a try and see if it resolves without me having to ALT-TAB out of the game to get it to start back up. Thanks all.

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I have been playing since June. Freezes are rare compared to Crash to Desktop (CTD). Sometime after hitting enter, the machines does its calculations but sometimes I space out (or get impatient) and hit enter again and have frozen a game this way. Doh!!! :D The only way out was to reset and go through the ScanDisk.

One thing that really slows the game down but I find necessary is the autosave. I autosave every 2 turns or so (because of CTD) and on gigantic it seems to take forever to save a game. So one turn goes by faster and the other turn drags while the game is saving. I mostly listen to music and wrest my wrists/hands during the long turns. Good luck. :)




[Message Edited]
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks again to all for the replies. So after playing some more today (a LOT more than I was planning, dang addictive games) I forced myself to be patient. As it turns out I just needed to give those occasional hangups just a bit more time and the resolve. The game must just be thinking.

Oh, and this game is great.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
oh it does ALOT of thinking :) its thinking of ways to humilate you completely then rub it in your face when it does :) like these for instance

You are defeated. It is useless to resist. Don't make us destroy you utterly.

When we get done with you, you'll wish you had stayed up in the trees of East Africa where you belonged. Grovel now and we may let you live. Maybe.

You humans are pitiful warriors. Maybe you are better at begging. Let's see how well you do.

Of course on the other hand if you're beating the crap outta it, it comes groveling to you which I think is 1 great and 2 alot of the times funny

for example this is 1 of my favorite grovels it came for me from the Drengin

"Well you see... it's like this: When we attacked you we were kind of, you know... hoping you'd die. But it seems you're now wiping the galactic floor with us so we were wondering if we could grovel for terms of peace?"

or this 1

"Human, this is an awkward moment for us. Remember how we ACCIDENTALLY attacked you awhile back? That is just how our species shows its love of other civilizations. Now that we're kind of, well, dying, we were wondering if you would have mercy on us?"

this is 1 of the many reasons why I love this game :)

~SDC~
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Do you have winamp3 installed? I can't remember if we changed the mp3 player before or after the demo came out, but our mp3 player in the game uses whatever codecs it finds installed on the systems, and some programs like Winamp3 and WinDVD install buggy codecs.  Also, run dxdiag and make sure that there aren't any errors there.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Nope, actually I have Winamp 5.01 installed (though I never use it for more than to create my playlists for Gal Civ). Dxdiag checks out okay. Now that I have finished my first game and am playing my third (second hit a show stopping vote in the United Planets that would not exit) I have just been more patient and it inevitably resolves. I saw this last part with great shame. I had not noticed the little watch face on the turn button, and had not noticed that when I posted this originally. So, basically, I posted a concern when there was none. Thanks again for the replies. This community is another of the reasons I bought the game.

~SDC~
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Did you read the tech sharing thread? It tells you how to fix that UP issue freeze until we can get the next update up.

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Tech sharing. Oh man, now I know what that was talking about. Yep, that was it, the vote to share techs. When I read it I didn't know for sure what it was talking about, but now it all makes sense. I will follow those instructions. Thanks again for the help. I feel like a total fanboy saying this, but you folks are really showing to be the ideal developers. Thanks!