Late Game Freeze » Forum Post by Apostat

Island Dog

Join Date 06/2003

+1046

Thanks for reporting, and could you see the info below and start a support ticket please?

Link to forums for explanation:

https://forums.galciv3.com/452855/page/1/

Link to support tool:

http://sd.stardock.com/Support/supportToolTest/SDSupportTool.exe

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Ticket created.

Thanks.

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As one who has submitted tickets on this before, I would like to say that it may seem intuitive that as one gets deep into a game, that freezes will happen more often, as there is a greater demand on resources, especially memory.

However, if the issue is total physical memory available, this doesn't make any sense --- freezes around turn 200-300 in an immense game leave my monitor programs showing > 7 gB of physical memory available not to mention a huge page file (I use the Windows recommendation). Further, there isn't a large increase in "committed" memory once the game gets started. If there may be memory "leaks" I don't see anything noticeable.

This is consistent with my observation, for what it's worth, that upgrading from 8 to 16 gB didn't noticeably affect the late game freezing issue. ((t did greatly smooth out peformance, but that's a different issue).

In other posts I have talked about another possible hardware relate issue, namely temperature, and it doesn't appear that a late game is raising my gpu or cpu temperatures noticeably. As I have said, my cpu temperatures are just under spec, but everything I read seems to suggest that shouldn't be a problem.

That said, I am confident that SD will get a handle on this, I am just thinking about what hardware issues might be involved (being no guru on PCs, mind you!). I guess from my scientist days with large equipment, my first reaction always was to check the hardware first --- but there I was using bleeding edge stuff, so that was the problem 95% of the time.

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To my ticket, that I have created, I have gotten an e-mail reply, saying this issue should be fixed with the next update.

As you can see from my stats above, also my system should handle that game easily. So I figure, it is a programming related issue.

Unfortunately most games are programmed to use about 4 gigs memory, no more. Therefore in most cases having a high end machine (as in game performance), is pretty much useless.

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Hello All,

I have no plan to submit a ticket as the problem is not on our computers, it is in the code, I don't need personal help, I need to see this problem that affects many players fixed via a patch.

Unfortunately there is very bad handling of memory in this game. I noticed it most prominently when I started playing Gal Civ III with a Vid Card that had only 512MB of Vid RAM (GC3 claimed there was less than 384 MB). It was completely unstable on anything more than a Med map and 3 races. Even then if issues occurred, it was ALWAYS after invading planets. Now I have a 970GTX with 4GB of Vid RAM and play it on the highest settings, largest map, all opponents. It was incredibly stable until I had around 46 colonies then I started running into issues again.

I love this game, but there are some things that really frustrate me, and ALL of them relate to wiping out races and taking their home worlds. I have multiple games saved that will not progress to the next turn. Guess what fixes that? Going back to a save before I invade the home world of an opponent. Magically you can continue past where you couldn't progress before. The problem? You still have an opponent that makes ship yards and transports. You have to keep a ship near that world to wipe out shipyards and transports or you wind up with them invading your planets. Another annoying thing is how defeated opponents keep asking for war or peace when there are no ships, planets, or star bases from that race left.

I have no other real complaints, but the one issue is annoying, and the other prevents completing a conquest campaign.

Regards,

sonoyuu

+1

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peregrine23

Join Date 02/2007

+79

Quoting sonoyuu,

reply 5

I have no plan to submit a ticket as the problem is not on our computers, it is in the code, I don't need personal help, I need to see this problem that affects many players fixed via a patch.

Submitting tickets is how they find and correct the problems in the code, they are not just for individual problems.

+1

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BuckGodot

Join Date 11/2009

+73

Quoting peregrine23,

reply 6

Quoting sonoyuu,

reply 5

I have no plan to submit a ticket as the problem is not on our computers, it is in the code, I don't need personal help, I need to see this problem that affects many players fixed via a patch.

Submitting tickets is how they find and correct the problems in the code, they are not just for individual problems.

Indeed. One of the things that submitting tickets do (presuming the SD Diagnostic Tool is run) is a) send them a savefile (which ever one is currently the most recently saved) and send a buncha log files that help show where things are getting messed up.

I'm a little curious how sonoyuu thinks that bugs would get fixed without save files, logs, and whatnot. Just saying, "Hey, this isn't working. Fix it!" isn't exactly very helpful on games of this size.

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That is kind of the same as expecting a mechanic to fix your car, without giving him the car.

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

Quoting sonoyuu,

reply 5

I have no plan to submit a ticket as the problem is not on our computers, it is in the code, I don't need personal help, I need to see this problem that affects many players fixed via a patch.

i wish i could remove karma for this

Quoting Apostat,

reply 8

That is kind of the same as expecting a mechanic to fix your car, without giving him the car.

this isint exactly right, its more like you needing a new car and hoping that a sales person will somehow know and show up at your door with exactly the right vehicle for you without you calling them or informing them in any way

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Quoting androshalforc,

reply 9

Quoting Apostat,

reply 8

That is kind of the same as expecting a mechanic to fix your car, without giving him the car.

this isint exactly right, its more like you needing a new car and hoping that a sales person will somehow know and show up at your door with exactly the right vehicle for you without you calling them or informing them in any way

I don't agree, since you have already bought the car, but it isn't working properply, it is like expecting the production company to fix your car, without letting them see what the problem is, ergo, not giving them the car to look at the problem.

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erischild

Join Date 01/2012

+136

I understand and agree with some of the OP points, but, to use the previous metaphor, this isn't a production car just yet. It is an early prototype released for early drivers, engineers, and testers to tinker with, to break. It is an opportunity to give back to the game and the community for the sake of a better game. If that is not your kind of motivation, then wait a while until a full release version and see if that works better for you. I expect there a lot of people who are not into the whole "Beta" experience as Stardock approaches it. That's cool and hopefully these folk will see what they need to see soon enough.

Until then, we ask that if you want to not only try out GC3 early, but contribute just a little, too, then please submit tickets when requested to do so. They don't always directly request tickets, and it indicates they possibly see your case as a good trouble shooting example that would help them find an obscure bug they haven't quite caught yet.

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Hello All,

Quoting androshalforc,

reply 9

i wish i could remove karma for this

Likewise for a comment like that...Maybe you should find out WHY a person is not submitting a ticket first. Don't assume it is just because they are being difficult.

The better question, is HOW do you submit tickets when it returns BS like this:

"We encountered a problem (cross-site request forgery detected); please try again)
Sorry, we encountered a problem (invalid department). Please start over." Support Tickets

In IE. When you try to use chrome, it doesn't even advance. This is a freshly installed computer that works with everything else, so clearly the game is not the only thing with issues...

I mean seriously?

It does not indicate that you have to log in to submit a ticket, but that wouldn't matter, because it returns the same error regardless of if you are logged in and you lose the contents of your comment field.

They don't unify the user databases, so you have to register AGAIN instead of it just using your forum credentials.

Even after registering for the help desk, and resubmitting everything, it still returns the same error. I have about 20 years of IT experience, and a degreed background in both programming and electronics engineering. If I am having issues with their support system, then so are many other people. How are you supposed to provide feedback on a beta when the support system is not much better than beta? My current only option is to complain about it in the forum. If I could even just freaking email the support ticket...that would be something...

I get that people have been able to submit support tickets, but there doesn't seem to be any information on how to submit a ticket for the broken support ticket system

As for comments about not letting them look at the problem....give me a break. It has been beta for around a year and is behind schedule. I am still having the exact same problems I saw last year when I only had the crappy old vid card I mentioned. These same issues should not still be here a year later with a brand new top end card. They are still charging a premium rate for this game even though it is in Beta. If we are doing the testing, and have to troubleshoot it with the developers, the price should never have gone over $10 until it hit release, or they should have fixed the major issues by now.

Let us use the car analogy...I brought my wife's car to the dealership after a 3000 mile trip to verify everything was good to go to return on that 3000 mile trip. I was told it wouldn't make it 200 miles to the border because it was "leaking so badly" and would need $5000 in repairs. I drove it the 3000 miles back afterwards and only had to put gas in the car. It was inspected and sold to the assistant to a state governor. I called up the dealership and asked them about the "200 miles max" and they said they would need me to bring the car back to them for them to look at it and verify it. Kind of hard to do after it was driven the 2800 more miles than they said it would and passed a full inspection...

My point is showing the developers the problem doesn't help much if it doesn't get fixed in a reasonable time frame for a reasonable commitment of resources. I really dislike paying good money and not getting appropriate support. Gal Civ 3 should be at release at this point, and if not, it should at least be able to finish a game on it's max settings even if it crashes a lot to do so. I obviously like the game if I am here complaining about not being able to play it based on issues that people were complaining about a year ago and still are....

Regards,

sonoyuu

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LOL frogboy gave him karma

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I don't expect much from game developers, but if they turn out to do a good job and listen to the community, I will hand them lots of compliments.

So many disappointments out there (speaking of game developers), that I got kind of used to it. At least they are not releasing the game unfinished... thats a good point to start and even if it takes longer than expected, as long as it's stable and fun on release, I am happy... unpatient, but happy.

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BuckGodot

Join Date 11/2009

+73

The problem with the ticket thing is, I THINK, trying to upload too large of a file. Anything over 20 meg or so and I have problems on occasion. I almost never have problems with files under 20 meg in size.

I would suggest creating the inital ticket without the Stardock Support Zip file and then upload it once the ticket has been created. Alternatively, open up the zip file, take out one of the larger files (say the save file created), and then send that file separately in thread created by the ticket.

Is it a bit of a pain? Actually, yes. And it's something that Stardock should look at.

As for the rest of your comments, sonoyuu, well, Early Access IS Early Access. If you are unwilling to pay for something where one KNOWS there will be aggravating bugs... then don't play, or pay for, Early Access games. It's a trade off. You get the game early and help shape devlopment. OTOH, occasionally there can be things that will be breaking for you personally. If you're not willing to make that tradeoff.... Well, don't. No one forced you to pay for Early Access, after all.

+1

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Hello BuckGodot,

Quoting BuckGodot,

reply 15

The problem with the ticket thing is, I THINK, trying to upload too large of a file. Anything over 20 meg or so and I have problems on occasion. I almost never have problems with files under 20 meg in size.

I would suggest creating the inital ticket without the Stardock Support Zip file and then upload it once the ticket has been created. Alternatively, open up the zip file, take out one of the larger files (say the save file created), and then send that file separately in thread created by the ticket.

Thank you for this information. One of my saves zipped is 20MB on it's own. I will try submitting the crash data first and follow up with the save games if the opportunity presents itself.

Quoting BuckGodot,

reply 15

Is it a bit of a pain? Actually, yes. And it's something that Stardock should look at.

It is exactly the kind of thing that discourages someone from participating in a Beta, is if there is no avenue for feedback. If there is a file size limit, they should at least say so in the post. Still I appreciate the information.

Quoting BuckGodot,

reply 15

As for the rest of your comments, sonoyuu, well, Early Access IS Early Access. If you are unwilling to pay for something where one KNOWS there will be aggravating bugs... then don't play, or pay for, Early Access games. It's a trade off. You get the game early and help shape devlopment. OTOH, occasionally there can be things that will be breaking for you personally. If you're not willing to make that tradeoff.... Well, don't. No one forced you to pay for Early Access, after all.

To a degree I agree with your point. Still, I think the frustration for some people is that there are some significant problems that have ALWAYS been present in this iteration of Galactic Civilizations. I have stated my appreciation more than once in this forum for what I do see. CTD and freeze ups that can be replicated late in the game are a little aggravating when you still see them a year later and on various hardware platforms.

I still look forward to seeing where it will go, but like many I am getting a little impatient

Regards,

sonoyuu

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BuckGodot

Join Date 11/2009

+73

Quoting sonoyuu,

reply 16

Thank you for this information. One of my saves zipped is 20MB on it's own. I will try submitting the crash data first and follow up with the save games if the opportunity presents itself.

One other thing you can try, if your ISP/email provider allows it, is when the ticket is created, an email will be sent to you. If you respond to that email through your ISP/email provider with a post that has an attached file (say the too large save file), it will accept any size file you upload. This bypasses whatever hiccup is causing files that are too large to be accepted by the esupport system of Stardock. Basically the only limit being the one your ISP/email provider has on uploads.

The only other alternative is something like dropbox or the like. If you have dropbox (or something similar), you can just put the save file there and tell Stardock to grab it since you can't get it to them by other means.

And perhaps mention that they should look at their esupport system to see if it is in fact not accepting files of 20 meg or more.

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The standard work around for large files is to upload them to a hosting site like dropbox and provide a link to it in your ticket. That's what I have been doing and it seems to work ok. At first it seemed like extra work, but now I use it to help keep problem stuff I have created organized in one place, then just upload what I need. Dropbox can also be used to post pictures directly into this forum, so it has additional uses.

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Island Dog

Join Date 06/2003

+1046

If there is a problem with the support system, alternatively the support@stardock.com can be used though through the site is preferable.

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The issue from what I've been through, is the support tool. If you have multiple Stardock product (it does every program in one zip) the file gets so huge. I discussed it with Brad from support and we reduced a 30mb file down to 2mb. I since found it safer reply to the ticket notification with the logs.

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Hello All,

Thank you for your suggestions. I was able to submit a ticket and provide the information that will hopefully help in correcting these problems in a future patch.

I came off wrong in this thread to start because I was frustrated (especially as this problem has always been present for me). I appreciate the redirection.

@BuckGodot - I definitely mentioned my frustration with the eSupport system. I understand the need to apply a file size limit, but it might be a good idea if they make that limit larger than the max size of the save game files they want us to send. Just an opinion

Regards,

sonoyuu

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