Broken attack animations?

[vinoc]

Anyone else getting this? Pretty much what happens is that when I attack with a ranged unit, the game plays the animation but you cannot see the projectiles shooting out. Same wih naval units and seige units. I have two mods installed, info adict and colorful tech tree, but I don't see how those can affect the unit animations.

[PingvinSalat]

Does it actually work though?
I mean, the "4gb patch/hack" thingy was released like 10 years ago or, .. i remember initially using it for Elders Scrolls Oblivion - and doesnt look like its been updated a whole lot since then

[Dave89]

Thank you Exlibris for this great post !!! I know only that a 32bit process uses limited amount of the RAM, but when its possible to solve with the method you mentioned Exlibris, then why the heck the devs do not care ????

Iam still waiting for the answer of the 2k support, Iam going to post it here when received.

Please guys: the best way we get our wished game, is that WE ALL together send them a support message !!! I really want you to do this, we can do something against this ! ;)

[SpiderKhan]

Exlibris の投稿を引用：

The ONLY reason for all these graphical glitches is that game executable is still a 32-bit process. In 2015, when even mobile phones are 64-bit.

On bigger maps it reaches the 2 GB RAM limit in a few turns after loading a game and the problems begin:

1. When scrolling the map, you will constantly see the huge regions of blacked tiles instead of map textures which take a few seconds to load (even when game installed on a SSD).

2. In combat the explosion and attacking animations on enemy units are completely missing after 2 GB RAM limit is reached. The only way to fix this is restarting the game, but it will help only for a few turns. Save/Load won't help at all.

Developers informed since the game release about all these issues and even promised to look at them, but nothing has been fixed even after the Rising Tide expansion. Here you can find the related thread on civ forum with answer of the Firaxis representative "charrison": http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13535695&postcount=7

In fact, there is a way how to make a 32-bit process using up to 4 GB of RAM on 64-bit systems, but Firaxis haven't implemented it yet. The executable should be compiled with a "Large Address Aware" flag and it will solve all the mentioned above problems. Here you can read more about this flag in game-related terms: http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=199993

But developers are not doing this for Beyond Earth! Why? Nobody knows.

If there is some good programmer in this thread, he can try to modify the game executable manually for enabling Large Address Aware. I have tried doing this via a "4GB Patch" utility, but game won't launch and shows error after this (so make backup before doing something): http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

Also, please inform developers about this possible solution.

I made use of the utility, and didn't have a crash at startup. Anyway, from my results playing on a standard sized map with 7 civs that I explored relatively quickly (I even got temporal calculus pretty early) it seemed to do a lot to delay the problem. I had full animations for quite a while compared to without it, but the end result was eventually the same. the black squares also still showed up, but they disappeared much more quickly in the tune that I probably woudln't have noticed them if I wasn't looking for them.

today I learned level 3 cruisers shoot missiles from their sides when you do a ranged attack close up. Had no idea they did that. too bad that was one of the first things that bugged off when it started to deteriorate, that was one of the cooler looking things. It was turn 138 at harmony 8 when it reached where it typically does, though city missiles still seemed to work properly. Typically before this it would go out way faster. I was also playing on a frigid biome which means far fewer aliens, so that may have been a part of it. I acted super aggressively towards the wildlife and others to try and watch for when the stuff bugged out. the bullets lasted a really long time and still seemed to be active when I quit out, including the plasma bullets from my screamers. long range attacks from cruiser level 3 completely bugged out. I didn't get to try out the land units because I was playing as the NSA to make exploring the map as fast as possible easier (getting out those really early easy patrol boats), and because I like the civ more than Chung-Su, so I could see how quickly I could affect the game, and I never settled a land city nor felt like I needed to make any land units other than explorers. I could see enemy gunners tho and they didn't bug out (cuz bullets I guess), but no mortar units to see if they worked properly or not (the AI is way too slow on Gemini)

again, doesn't seem like a total fix, but it did delay the issue for me. Could have been a fluke, but that's my experiences after most of one game (138 turns).

[Dave89]

Fightersword の投稿を引用：

Exlibris の投稿を引用：

The ONLY reason for all these graphical glitches is that game executable is still a 32-bit process. In 2015, when even mobile phones are 64-bit.

On bigger maps it reaches the 2 GB RAM limit in a few turns after loading a game and the problems begin:

1. When scrolling the map, you will constantly see the huge regions of blacked tiles instead of map textures which take a few seconds to load (even when game installed on a SSD).

2. In combat the explosion and attacking animations on enemy units are completely missing after 2 GB RAM limit is reached. The only way to fix this is restarting the game, but it will help only for a few turns. Save/Load won't help at all.

Developers informed since the game release about all these issues and even promised to look at them, but nothing has been fixed even after the Rising Tide expansion. Here you can find the related thread on civ forum with answer of the Firaxis representative "charrison": http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13535695&postcount=7

In fact, there is a way how to make a 32-bit process using up to 4 GB of RAM on 64-bit systems, but Firaxis haven't implemented it yet. The executable should be compiled with a "Large Address Aware" flag and it will solve all the mentioned above problems. Here you can read more about this flag in game-related terms: http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=199993

But developers are not doing this for Beyond Earth! Why? Nobody knows.

If there is some good programmer in this thread, he can try to modify the game executable manually for enabling Large Address Aware. I have tried doing this via a "4GB Patch" utility, but game won't launch and shows error after this (so make backup before doing something): http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

Also, please inform developers about this possible solution.

I made use of the utility, and didn't have a crash at startup. Anyway, from my results playing on a standard sized map with 7 civs that I explored relatively quickly (I even got temporal calculus pretty early) it seemed to do a lot to delay the problem. I had full animations for quite a while compared to without it, but the end result was eventually the same. the black squares also still showed up, but they disappeared much more quickly in the tune that I probably woudln't have noticed them if I wasn't looking for them.

today I learned level 3 cruisers shoot missiles from their sides when you do a ranged attack close up. Had no idea they did that. too bad that was one of the first things that bugged off when it started to deteriorate, that was one of the cooler looking things. It was turn 138 at harmony 8 when it reached where it typically does, though city missiles still seemed to work properly. Typically before this it would go out way faster. I was also playing on a frigid biome which means far fewer aliens, so that may have been a part of it. I acted super aggressively towards the wildlife and others to try and watch for when the stuff bugged out. the bullets lasted a really long time and still seemed to be active when I quit out, including the plasma bullets from my screamers. long range attacks from cruiser level 3 completely bugged out. I didn't get to try out the land units because I was playing as the NSA to make exploring the map as fast as possible easier (getting out those really early easy patrol boats), and because I like the civ more than Chung-Su, so I could see how quickly I could affect the game, and I never settled a land city nor felt like I needed to make any land units other than explorers. I could see enemy gunners tho and they didn't bug out (cuz bullets I guess), but no mortar units to see if they worked properly or not (the AI is way too slow on Gemini)

again, doesn't seem like a total fix, but it did delay the issue for me. Could have been a fluke, but that's my experiences after most of one game (138 turns).

@Fightersword: I have another "task" fou you :P Could you load a savegame witch already has about 100 or 200 turns and report here if it still works ? You started a new game from what I ve read in ur post ?

EDIT: Ive donwloaded the tool, patch my exe file, but in the task manager its still shown as a 32bit application. Is this normal ? Iam going to post my experience when iam done. But its fine for now, no errors or game crashes

[SpiderKhan]

Dave89 の投稿を引用：

Fightersword の投稿を引用：

I made use of the utility, and didn't have a crash at startup. Anyway, from my results playing on a standard sized map with 7 civs that I explored relatively quickly (I even got temporal calculus pretty early) it seemed to do a lot to delay the problem. I had full animations for quite a while compared to without it, but the end result was eventually the same. the black squares also still showed up, but they disappeared much more quickly in the tune that I probably woudln't have noticed them if I wasn't looking for them.

today I learned level 3 cruisers shoot missiles from their sides when you do a ranged attack close up. Had no idea they did that. too bad that was one of the first things that bugged off when it started to deteriorate, that was one of the cooler looking things. It was turn 138 at harmony 8 when it reached where it typically does, though city missiles still seemed to work properly. Typically before this it would go out way faster. I was also playing on a frigid biome which means far fewer aliens, so that may have been a part of it. I acted super aggressively towards the wildlife and others to try and watch for when the stuff bugged out. the bullets lasted a really long time and still seemed to be active when I quit out, including the plasma bullets from my screamers. long range attacks from cruiser level 3 completely bugged out. I didn't get to try out the land units because I was playing as the NSA to make exploring the map as fast as possible easier (getting out those really early easy patrol boats), and because I like the civ more than Chung-Su, so I could see how quickly I could affect the game, and I never settled a land city nor felt like I needed to make any land units other than explorers. I could see enemy gunners tho and they didn't bug out (cuz bullets I guess), but no mortar units to see if they worked properly or not (the AI is way too slow on Gemini)

again, doesn't seem like a total fix, but it did delay the issue for me. Could have been a fluke, but that's my experiences after most of one game (138 turns).

@Fightersword: I have another "task" fou you :P Could you load a savegame witch already has about 100 or 200 turns and report here if it still works ? You started a new game from what I ve read in ur post ?

EDIT: Ive donwloaded the tool, patch my exe file, but in the task manager its still shown as a 32bit application. Is this normal ? Iam going to post my experience when iam done. But its fine for now, no errors or game crashes

it should still be a 32 bit application. you're just upping the cap for how much RAM it can sue from what I understand.

yeah I started a new game and it's on turn 138 now, which is when I stopped. I could load it up later and play some more and see how long it lasts.

[Dave89]

Okay, Iam done with testing. I have loaded my old savegame which was was on turn 246. After about 10 turns animations were off :/ This tool seems not to work.

Without this tool and starting a new game I can progress to turn 100 without any limitations, after that reaching turn 100 and more it starts to fail, so it makes no difference with or without the tool. When loading a biger map with already more turns played the RAM or memory is somehow restricted...

[SpiderKhan]

I blow through civ BE games and it seemed to help some, though I stress again it's not a fix.

If you open a larger map with more turns there's more going on so it would of course climb up to the crunch point faster.

I looked at it in CFF explorer before I patched actually and it already had the allowance to go over 2 gigs checked, so IDK.

[Dave89]

In my tests it showed me that the game uses about 2,3 GB of RAM and more, so the tool works. There were a few GBs left for usage, system mem + others included, but the game did not want to use it. In conclusion after a couple of turns on my loaded savegame (bigger map) it just refuses to make profit of the left RAM, animations were as usual gone :/

It just makes no sense to me. I still think it must be some lines and codes in the engine. Iam not a programmer, but it seems they'd have to rebuild the game engine as a 64bit process or similar, what means a lot of work.

Rising Tide is released, they have more time to eliminate bugs & glitches, so I really hope we get some information on that.

Iam still waiting for the answer of the 2k support. As soon as I get it, I'll post it....

[selereth]

This is all assuming that some sort of RAM restriction IS the cause for the combat animations to start bugging out, logically it makes sense although nobody knows if this was intended by the developers or not. It certainly does NOT make sense for the devs to implement a feature where if the game starts to max out its allotted RAM usage the animations start to disappear, the animations are an integral part of the game and it seems like they went to a lot of trouble to design the animations (they're better looking and flashier than Civ V's, that's for sure) so it's some sort of unintended glitch, to conclude.

Either way, they must have really borked the code for the engine to start doing this.

[Fuko]

I really don't get why this is still unaddressed.

Let's look at every game ever. Wouldn't it be humorous, in Starcraft, Warcraft, League and Dota, all projectiles and hit effects disappear within a few minutes of playing. What about Supreme Commander? Total Annihilation? Hundreds of units firing at a time. Did their projectiles and hit effects disappear?

What about the Total War series, where thousands of units are firing at once. Do their projectiles and hit effects disappear within 5 minutes of a battle?

The 4x games from Stardock, a company with tiny development budgets. Sins of the Solar Empire, Galactic Civilization, Fallen Enchantress, do their projectile and hit effects disappear?

Who in Firaxis is making the decision to ignore this bug? Hollywood has figured out long ago, that special effects ALONE can sell a movie. What action movie has a rocket with no projectile, no smoke, followed by no explosion and complete silence? Does Firaxis think that people don't notice something this glaring and obvious?

Who is making this decision? How can this possibly be an acceptable bug when I can't recall a single game where this would have been seen as acceptable?

Even a tiny studio like Paradox or Stardock would prioritize a fix within a few months. It is glaring, unprofessional, and obvious.

The fact that projectile and impact effects are present in every game, something that has been programmed and reprogrammed in countless different engines without problem, tells me that the problem here isn't the bug difficulty. The problem is that the developers have their heads in the sand.

[mastarfin]

Exlibris の投稿を引用：

The ONLY reason for all these graphical glitches is that game executable is still a 32-bit process. In 2015, when even mobile phones are 64-bit.

On bigger maps it reaches the 2 GB RAM limit in a few turns after loading a game and the problems begin:

1. When scrolling the map, you will constantly see the huge regions of blacked tiles instead of map textures which take a few seconds to load (even when game installed on a SSD).

2. In combat the explosion and attacking animations on enemy units are completely missing after 2 GB RAM limit is reached. The only way to fix this is restarting the game, but it will help only for a few turns. Save/Load won't help at all.

Developers informed since the game release about all these issues and even promised to look at them, but nothing has been fixed even after the Rising Tide expansion. Here you can find the related thread on civ forum with answer of the Firaxis representative "charrison": http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13535695&postcount=7

In fact, there is a way how to make a 32-bit process using up to 4 GB of RAM on 64-bit systems, but Firaxis haven't implemented it yet. The executable should be compiled with a "Large Address Aware" flag and it will solve all the mentioned above problems. Here you can read more about this flag in game-related terms: http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=199993

But developers are not doing this for Beyond Earth! Why? Nobody knows.

If there is some good programmer in this thread, he can try to modify the game executable manually for enabling Large Address Aware. I have tried doing this via a "4GB Patch" utility, but game won't launch and shows error after this (so make backup before doing something): http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

Also, please inform developers about this possible solution.

1 - Nothing to do with 32 bit process or the ram. Galactic Civ III a 64 bit game with no 2 gig ram limitations has the same blackened tiles that take a second or so to clear.

2 - I've played more than a few games out past 600 turns and not once have I had the missing attack animations. Prior to RT I did have missing attack animations.

[Dave89]

@Mastarfin: So do you think its a bug or on intended limitation, so nearly everyone can play the game, even on a bad system ?? Its really confusing, because after all tiles has been discovered there are only the animations that would eat up memory, ram or gpu ram.

Again: Plz guys send them their complaints and feedback, one person can not change anything here. We paid for this game, we love this game, so get up and state your point, send 2k your experience.

Maybe we will hear some answer one day, but how long will it take?

[mastarfin]

It's a bug.
Beyond that I couldn't even come close to knowing why it happens.

[Tyronius Biggums]

Opened ticket with 2K last week no response since I sent them my files and screenshots.

[Dave89]

Tyronius Biggums の投稿を引用：

Opened ticket with 2K last week no response since I sent them my files and screenshots.

Me too. No response since a week. There was an update yesterday, I read through the patch notes, but nothing about this bug.

@ Tyronius Biggums: Did you get a confirmation on your mail account after opening a ticket?
I did not even get that, so frustrating. What is this all about? The developer team is not a small one, so at least one person should be in charge for answering the customer's questions!?