posted 03-27-99 09:12 AM ET        

voodoo,

You're a God! I downloaded that utility (MemTurbo), and let me tell you one example of the improvement:

I also have 128MB of RAM (running on a 450Mhz Micron machine). I figured that no matter how bad a given program or Windows itself is, that would be enough room to play for hours without a slow down. Not true.

For example, somewhere after 30-45 minutes or so, the objects in the workshop would spin (you know, the 3d preview ones) at a jerky rate of about 1/2 their usual speed.

After using the Ctrl-Alt-M hotkey to defrag the memory, the spinning went right back to normal! Now, MemTurbo itself describes this problem as the fault of the program, not Windows. It says that programs like SMAC are "behaving badly" by not cleaning up their own garbage left in the memory. As others have guessed, it does seem that SMAC is "leaking memory."

Who knows. Maybe MemTurbo is an Activision-funded program designed to make SMAC look bad. Maybe. But I do have eyes and most of my brain.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit proof(?) that SMAC deserves some criticism for its programming. Without a third party shareware utility to defrag the memory--which SMAC should be doing on its own--I would continue to suffer these quite annoying problems (which were replicated throughout almost all aspects of the game, not just the workshop, until I rebooted the system). I would also continue to hear from innumerable SMACophants that the problem was somehow mine and not SMAC's.

I can't wait to hear from them how the problem still IS mine, but that will come soon enough, I'm sure. ("Well duh, dude, that's what you get for buying a new machine!"--whatever.)

Perhaps this is only a problem on high-end machines, since most of you don't seem to encounter this.

Firaxis: Could you please check into it? This might be an issue of greater importance to the future of this game as 128Mb RAM becomes the norm. And if you do find a memory leak on higher-end machines for some reason, please give all the credit to voodoo.

posted 03-27-99 10:40 AM ET            

http://www.memturbo.com/productinfo.htm

It seems like a great utility. I hope it helps somebody.

posted 03-27-99 11:42 AM ET            

It is a flaw that you would expect from relative programming inexperience in the Windows environment.

Now one thing I would like to know is why it takes 720K bytes (!!) of data to synch up a 2 player multi-player game?!?

That is 2 1/2 times the size of a save file from a regular SP game. And 20 times the size of the same .SAV file ZIPped. How SMAC handles data transmission in MP games is an area where programming could be "spruced up" considerably, especially considering there are public domain ZIP utilities.

Just write the needed MP data to a file, ZIP it and send it, let the client computers UNZIP it and verify the contents. This would be a quick and easy way to at least speed up the painfully slow beginning synchronization.

With all its flaws, I still love this game. Suffering from -4 sleep. Just wish it could be better. And _RIGHT NOW_ darn it!

posted 03-27-99 12:41 PM ET            

I also have MemTurbo, and have found it sooooo helpful for other games in the past that I paid the fee.

I also have problems with SMAC slowing down, locking up, etc., after which my mouse refuses to move more than say one inch/minute across the screen (even after SMAC has been C+A+D'd out of).

MemTurbo does NOT solve this problem for me and I have to reboot. Often I will have to reload the -5 year to -10 year autosave and replay several turns to get past the turn that is locking up.

I have a k6-2 300 with 64mb of ram (I think I said I had a p2 300 at some point on this board by mistake, but was a mistake that I didn't bother to repost and correct until now, I haven't paid for the premium pentium since I had an old p66), so player2 is in this case not correct. I also have a Hercules Stingray 128/3D for display and a SB AWE 32 for sound, in case this helps anyone figure out the problem.

I enjoy the game enough to 'play through' these problems, but they do get frustrating.

posted 03-29-99 05:16 AM ET            

Yin must have been SMACdoped in the end, or he exhausted his energy reserves (Power overload?), cuz I'd excpected to see him jumpin' jaws'n'claws at your throat.

I'm downloading memturbo while I type this, I remember I used such utils in Win 3.0 (!), didn't feel I would need'em again in W95, PII333, 128Mb Ram, till now.

I was a bit overly enthusiastic after I patched with 3.0. I looks faster indeed at first, but in the long run I found I had to reboot (I reload a lot, even with IM).

MariOne

posted 03-29-99 07:25 AM ET            

I just wanted to give somebody else a chance at him first. I mean, for God sakes, I even said:

"I can't wait to hear from them how the problem still IS mine, but that will come soon enough, I'm sure."

I'm surprised it took so long. What the hell else am I to do people? I have the latest drivers for EVERYTHING! Even my drivers have the latest drivers.

I have a new machine. Every piece of hardware in it is industry-leading. I comb their update sites for any news, any hint that the problem somehow lies with me.

Well, you know what? I don't buy that **** anymore. These problems with the game slowing down are SMAC's and SMAC's alone. Maybe most players don't get as bothered by a little system slow down now and then. And I'm not saying it ruins my life or anything.

What I AM saying, and what makes me keep posting, is you people who keep blaming the gamer for these problems--I'm sick of it. Tired of it. At first it was kind of cute, but now it's just silly. (True, the same thing has been said about me on many occasions)

But, hey. Where you stick your nose is your own business. Plus, the obvious idiocy of it all gives me something to write about.

posted 03-29-99 11:35 AM ET         

Sid and Brian are the best game *Designers* of all time!

Yin is correct in posting this thread. Though I haven't noticed it on my machine (I only get to play 1-2 hours at a time though), memory leaks can occur and can be *very* difficult to ferret out. I'm assuming Firaxis is aware and working on it and we'll see some improvement in 4.0

posted 03-29-99 02:01 PM ET            

Anyone who has COMPLETED a game of SMAC has seen the list of people that worked on it. That was a lot of places to screw up the cardinal rules of "for every new, you must delete" (coders that allocate memory know what I mean). These things do happen in the most coordinated of teams, possessing no time constraints, with the best QA checking and verify their work. No one is perfect. I understand it quite well. But I have seen and experienced way too many signs of poor coding techniques to be reasonable on this issue. No coder on the SMAC team would ever get hired at MY company. Your product is your best resume, and they have NOT done well enough to work here, at least, not without someone looking over their shoulders constantly.

As for slow downs, I get those all the time in SMAC, Yin. I have a Pentium II 400Mhz system with 128 Meg ram, several GIG of continuous free space on my HD, latest and greatest... etc etc etc. I know the slow-down is purely due to their code. When I run SMAC, I don't hear or see any indications of swap-death that others describe. Purely In-Memory problems, which points to bad coding practices. Whether you blame the Game Code or the 3rd Party Graphics engine, I as a CONSUMER blame Firaxis. They built their product. As I have previously stated elsewhere on this forum, I am so disatisfied with the OVERALL quality of SMAC that I have been spreading the word to my friends and peers to not get it until its on the super cheap shelf. You know, that $3 to $15 price range. You can bank on the fact that I will NEVER buy another Firaxis product for more than $10 or $15 bucks.

If your are going to play in a sewer, Yin, expect to get dirty. With the overall poor quality of SMAC code, I am surprised it runs at all, let alone as well as it does.

posted 03-29-99 04:02 PM ET         

Darkstar let's get something straight it doesn't leak memory for everyone so it's not a basic new without a delete problem.

It could be one or both of the following;
1. driver memory leak - fairly common for people with the latest hardware & drivers.
2. new w/o delete in some hardware specfic portion of the SMAC code.

Now instead of pontificating why don't you find out what the problem is?

posted 03-29-99 06:35 PM ET            

I CAN go into serious address by address, operation by operation of the SMAC code. You can FIND where they allocate memory, and never deallocate it. Mind you, this is NOT the driver code... that's a little harder to DEBUG as I need to drop my Driver Developer Kit on my system before I am confident that what my tools are reporting are true. The whole thing REEKS, and I wouldn't take the contract to clean the code and bring it into standard maintence terms for a million dollars. That's serious as well. The code has multiple paths for the same operations, which is ALWAYS a bad sign.

Now, I am not going to defend DirectX, which is known to have problems. And my graphics drivers MAY have a (or many) problems, but the fact of the matter is that SMAC is a poor excuse for a product from consumer point of view. If it had any real competition the way RTS games currently have, it would disappear into the depths of the bit bucket. However, unless CTP proves to be a bigger kick in the pants than expected, that won't happen.

My complaint isn't with the Design. The Design is nice. The Gameplay isn't the greatest of all time, but it should turn into a standard.

Its implementation though is using poor code. Damien it DOES leak on everyone's system. The trick is that most people are blaming everything but the problem child. If any other professional software developers wish to take this up, I am willing to listen how SMAC isn't responsible for its poor code discipline and general crappy performance and consistancy. If I find anyone defending the CODE, I would have to suspect that they are a member of the coders that WROTE the pee poor code. Or are trying for a job at Firaxis. Which is it Damian? :-)

Now, I bet they are doing A LOT of rewriting of code as we speak. Why? To address the maintence nightmare that probably lurks behind the name, SMAC. Doing that makes it easier for them to find their bugs and smash them. Its business standard practice these days to through out an absolute mud pie covered in pretty chocolate icing, and to go back and replace the mud with the actual CAKE, without acknowledging publically that is how the game is played. Firaxis was only given as long as it HAD been to produce SMAC as it was a Brian and Sid product.

If you want to continue to defend the code, take it up with Sid and Brian who have EACH admitted that the code behind SMAC is a lot more MUD that the DIAMOND it aught to be. And that is being fixed. On a monthly release schedule of ENHANCEMETS.

posted 03-29-99 07:13 PM ET            

Will you be my new best friend?

I've been dogged by ultra Firaxis kiss-ass computer geeks for so long that I'm crying right now.

A voice of reason--AND he can sling computer jargon back at the enemy.

As of now, Darkstar, for every Forum code-defending kiss-ass you destroy, I'll enroll you in the "Jelly of the Month Club."

Don't laugh--it's the gift that keeps on giving.

posted 03-29-99 07:22 PM ET            

I'm no expert on programming - but I can do it, with a good manual and a bit of time. And this game - well, it feels a bit like the original Fallout, to be honest. Great idea for a game - pity about the bugs.

posted 03-29-99 07:32 PM ET            

If you have a second physical hard drive, putting the swap file on the first partition of that drive helps, as well... (Be sure to defragment your drive after the reboot; Win98's defrag utility and Norton's Speed Disk both place the swap file at the front of the drive if you do this..)

posted 03-29-99 07:42 PM ET            

This is all based on Win98. Win95 should be nearly the same:
1. Right click on My Computer on your desktop.
2. Choose Properties from the pop-up list.
(Alternately, you can go to the System properties from the Control Panel.)
3. Choose the Performance tab at the top of the System Properties window.
4. Click the Virtual Memory button at the bottom right.
5. Choose "Let me specify...".
6. If you have only one drive, leave the hard disk set on C:. If you have two, choose the faster drive, or if they're fairly equivalent or you are unsure of their speeds, the second. (Stick to C: if you're worried about system tweaks.)
7. Set minimum to at least 128. If you have less than 64M of memory and plenty of drive space, 192 or 256 may not be a bad idea.
8. Set maximum to the same number you chose as minimum.
9. Click OK.
10. Click Yes.
11. Click OK.
12. Click Yes to reboot.

When you come back up, run Disk Defragmenter, Speed Disk, or whichever defragmenting utility you prefer.

(Note: If you have Norton Utilities and have run the Norton Optimization Wizard, it may have already done something similar to all this.)

posted 03-30-99 04:15 AM ET            

Thanks for the info. I'm going to try that tonight when I get home.

In the spirit of helping people, here is a great site:

http://www.windrivers.com/

Many of you have probably found this site already, but in case you haven't, here's a bit of what you'll find:

* A one-stop spot for finding all the latest files for updating EVERY piece of harware/software you can imagine (I used to find all these one at a time, site by site).

* A great collection of resources. MemTurbo is there, for example, along with other cool ways to make a virtual cache, etc.

* Perhaps more importantly, they have a Forum like this for asking questions (sorted by type of problem) about whatever issue related to keeping your computer running well. That is a great resource.

posted 03-30-99 07:42 AM ET            

it would be nice, if anyone who tried Xentropys virtual memory advice could reprort his experience right in this topic.
many thanks and along and peaceful living shall be his reward

posted 03-30-99 10:02 AM ET            

I like your approach better. Let's just stick with the crap program as it stands.

Amazing that a game entirely built on the allure of the future and progress draws players who are so worried that pressure from the gamer's end is somehow going to push the poor, hard-working, underpaid Firaxis people into a programming mistake, or make them so mad they'll publish a sh!t game next time to teach us a lesson.

Guess what? They're teaching us some lessons now, I assure you.

[in your best nasal voice] "All they want to do is make us happy, and look how we treat them. Leave them alone!"

This is a wakeup call, Firaxis. People are on to your crappy code and Patch-a-SMAC tactics. You know, on the CTP Forum Brian arugued months ago that Activision was the untried team that is most likely to make the lesser game.

Lesser how? There's not much Activision could screw up that isn't already screwed up by the "veteran" Firaxis team.

I'm glad they lost the license. Here they had a great opportunity to really do something bold, to really show the rest of the industry how to program. And what? Mediocre at best. Criminal--perhaps.

You Firaxis kiss-asses are all a bunch of panzies. When that company folds, I'll try to remind all of you SMACophants of how you coddled the game and tried to squash criticism because you have some fairy emotional ties to the "real" people at Firaxis.

The only thing real about them is they had better damn fast figure out how to stop the bugs, memory leaks and overall lackluster gameplay.

Or, they could listen to you "Don't criticize Firaxis or I'll poke you with my slide ruler" geeks who have endless tolerance for shoddy work and zero ability to try to take things to the next level.

My God! That's the weakest little wheeze of a post I've ever read: [again, talk through the nose] "Gee, I hope all this complaining doesn't make them put out a forced buggy patch trying to fix problems that never existed..."

posted 03-30-99 10:59 AM ET            

"I like your approach better. Let's just stick with the crap program as it stands."

Fine you don't agree with what he says, why not act like a complete arsehole and rip the piss out of him? Works for me, it's useful and constructive and a great way to get people to like you. I am a programmer and I know that rushing fixes can break stuff that already works but like you I disagree that Chillum has a fair point. Firaxis should rush out the fixes make more bugs that way you can post more ranting threads on these forums! Fantastic! I don't know about the rest of the forum posters but I know I love reading your own inimitable style of oversimplistic ranting.

"The only thing real about them is they had better damn fast figure out how to stop the bugs, memory leaks and overall lackluster gameplay."

That's the only real thing about them? Are you sure that's what you mean? "they had better damn fast figure out how to stop the bugs, memory leaks and overall lackluster gameplay" because the rest of them is some ethereal fantasy that doesn't really exist? Wow. What a concept to think about.

"You Firaxis kiss-asses are all a bunch of panzies. When that company folds, I'll try to remind all of you SMACophants of how you coddled the game and tried to squash criticism because you have some fairy emotional ties to the "real" people at Firaxis."

Please tell us where you are going to post this smug 'I told you so'. Presumably, when Firaxis folds, as you so confidently predict, this Forum will cease to exist. I'd hate to miss your incisive wit and light hearted humour in your triumphant speech telling us what fools we were enjoying the game which, even though I haven't had any problems with, I should be regailing Firaxis with complaints about.

Oh yeah:

"You Firaxis kiss-asses are all a bunch of panzies."

Refreshing to hear such original and cutting insults. I winced when I read the word kiss-ass, really cut to the bone that did, I don't even think it was directed at me but still, ouch.

posted 03-30-99 11:26 AM ET         

there's a simple way to test what part of the system is leaking memory.
1. check memory/system resource used.
2. run SMAC until it slows down, etc.
3. check memory/system resources used.
4. close SMAC
4. wait for Windows to deallocate all memory allocated by SMAC (which it *will* do)
5. check memory/system resources used.

if the figures from 5. are greater than from 1. then it's probably a driver problem otherwise it's probably a SMAC problem.

posted 03-30-99 05:48 PM ET            

I know it probably won't work--but you should see a few of the e-mails I've gotten from Firaxis. Interesting reading.

MikeH II,

I'm glad you enjoy the game. I do, too--most of the time, but I don't think it's going to stay on my computer for years like the other civs. Will it stay on yours?

I'm also glad you haven't had any problems--but go look at the trouble-shooting section. It's pretty busy, and some of the problems can only be related to SMAC and nothing else.

The most vile creature on this forum is the person who says, in essence, "I don't have any problems with the game, so it must be your fault. Leave Firaxis alone."

That kind of thinking should get a person a good beating. But, since I only have the alphabet do work with, I'll every once in a while roll out a verbal IRA-style thrashing just to keep the natives honest.

posted 03-30-99 05:58 PM ET            

Given also how much I've enjoyed playing the game in the last six weeks, I'm also willing to give Firaxis the benefit of the doubt - just. The Borehole cluster is cool - but not the way the interlude about it appears two turns into the game. And I'm becoming increasingly concerned about the whole scale of the messed up code thing. Did you know the weapon graphics are linked to weapon damage instead of a set list. Try it. Change the value of a particle impactor to 3 in Alpha.txt and have a look at your brilliant new LASER RIFLE? Huh?

SMAC is a brilliant, addictive game, not much deeper than CivII but still an improvement, which is saying a lot. As I'm sure most people would agree. But this only makes it worse when you get stupid bugs and page faults (what is a page fault, anyway?) interrupting the game.

posted 03-30-99 08:00 PM ET            

I don't have those problems on my computer. Have you tried defragging the hard drive?

Just kidding!

Actually, I never thought it would feel so bad to read a post that confirms my worst suspicions. Why?

Despite all my ranting, I really want this to be the greatest game ever. I was convinced that Firaxis, if anybody, could do it. But some of the almost childish mistakes and blatant disregard for the finer details of the game (your combat posts have been very enlightening) make me wonder:

Are they insulting us, indifferent, sorry, surprised--what? I would really love to know how the Firaxis team feels when they read a post like yours. I mean, I'm just a "troublemaker," but you have really delved into this game. You have really worked hard to be one of the game's biggest authorities and fans.

If they alienate players like you, there's big trouble down the line.

Please, everybody, don't get me wrong. I am not happy about these problems. If Firaxis can put out stuff like this, we're pretty much assured other companies will be no better. Any gamer, whether this particular game works fine on his machine or not, should worry about the market in general and not just happily ignore other people's problems.

Why? Because an industry that doesn't get sufficient feedback (criticism) when things go wrong can hardly be expected to make things right.

Maybe the fire hasn't hit your house yet, but it's down the street. You might want to help put it out before you get burned.

posted 03-30-99 08:26 PM ET            

I expierence 'NO' slowdowns at all. I am not saying that its not true that you are not but you may want to try to resolve the problem yourself before crying to Firaxis about it. There are several things you can do. Before we proceed you need to ask yourself a few questions first.
1.) Do I have one or two harddrives?
2.) If I have one harddrive, how much space
do I have on it?
3.) If I have two harddrives, how much
space is on each?
4.) Do I have Windows manage my memory?
5.) If I manage my memory, how much did I
allocate for 'swap file size'?
6.) Do I have SMAC on my bigger harddrive,
or smaller harddrive?
7.) When I play SMAC how many programs are
running in the background
(Ctrl+ALT+Delete)?

(Tip #1.)
-Right-Click on 'My computer'
-Click 'Properties'
-Click on tab 'Performance'
-Click on button 'File System'
-Under Settings and Typical Role of this Computer choose 'Network Server'(this makes computer run "MUCH" faster)
-Under Read-Ahead Optimization move to 'FULL'
-Say yes to restart

posted 03-30-99 08:42 PM ET            

I appreciate your well-intentioned advice. A few people who are totally unaware of what they are doing might benefit from it.

In my case, and I'm sure in Shiny's case, too, you're giving basic lessons to some people who have a pretty thorough gasp of what's going on.

Don't join the "It's the gamer's fault" crowd. They are proving themselves to be the biggest idiots to hit this forum since Yin.

Sincerely,

posted 03-30-99 09:20 PM ET            

I've never really complained because to tell the truth I _expect_ games to give me trouble. They've been giving me trouble for about 11 years now (back then it was using edlin to modify autoexec & config now it's directx driver chinese-fire-drill), and I don't expect it to change any time soon. Yin's right though, maybe we should expect things to change...

(In Firaxis' defense, I will say that they have the best customer support I've ever seen from a computer game company & I'll continue to support them.)

posted 03-30-99 09:31 PM ET            

I'm not really upset about anything actually IN the game, per say. There will always be things that could have been done better (combat system included!), but for whatever reason didn't get changed. And different people have different views - I think the cloning vats project is unbalanced. Firaxis may have included it as a catchup device for other factions late in the game - if you've fallen behind in development, you can build this and quickly regain lost ground. That's a design issue.

SMAC has reasonable graphics (I'd say good but for performance issues), a very firm base in CivII, and adds some nice features. The social engineering and design workshop, for instance.

Moreover, SMAC has, by current standards, an alarming good A.I. One of the fears I had about CTP was that the A.I wouldn't be nearly as good as SMAC. This seems to have held up. SMAC and Halflife between them have reminded me what a good A.I can be capable of.

Just the bugs, man! SMAC is the gaming world's equivilent of the absent minded professor - brilliant in places but unreliable.

What now? From Darkstar's speel, it sounds as if it could take months to, heh, 'get the code up to code'. Done with an Enhancement every 3-4 weeks, that's a lot of Borehole clusters.

posted 03-30-99 10:06 PM ET         

for example my Win98 box used to crash all the time with a corrupt registry error; so did I go complaining to MS that they wrote buggy code that never worked and it couldn't possible be my system? Nope, I figured out the problem and added another fan to the case so that everything worked fine.

posted 03-30-99 10:10 PM ET            

Don't you see that your kind of thinking is what helped bring those problems in the first place? Sure, I COULD fix every damn problem, and I have on MANY occasions.

posted 03-30-99 10:43 PM ET            

I read a lot about all the problems people are having running this game. the only bugs i have found are in the actual game (like free pressure domes). the only sound problem i have is when i forget to disable norton anti-virus before starting the game.

someone mentioned to reply in this thread about any experience they have with the suggested actions mentioned above. I have not had the need to go into my computer and adjust things, but I DO run norton optimizer on a regular basis. at least monthly. I didn't even have many probs with demo 1.0.