VenusEnvy
09-29-2006, 01:34 AM
...should NEVER be in the final release of any software!
At the end of this message are some suggestions. But first I b***h make observations.
Rant:
I appreciate the effort of the technicians here in the forum. Kevin especially; he has been tireless in trying to find fixes for the Sierra Caesar community. BUT I am sick of Sierra and its sudsidies releasing 'final products' with so many game killer bugs! I am especially dissapointed because there is already a hasty x.1 patch that doesn't even try to address these issues. Where is the readme for that patch anyway? The game has been released for TWO DAYS (one in Canada) and already almost ALL the technical issues are the same (unknown) root problem. Are you telling me that Sierra didn't see this in beta testing? Was there really ever even beta testing?
Quit saying that these issues are is my hardware, my drivers, my setup, my fault. I have run many, many, many games on this system (which goes above and beyond the requirements for the game) and NEVER had these many hard locks. Do your R & D, Sierra, and make the game compatible with standard setups BEFORE market. (ASUS board, AMD processor, Radeon video - what can be more standard besides cookie cutter Dell?)
If you could return and refund software, I would have taken Caesar IV back within six hours of buying it. Since that isn't the case because software laws protect the developers (piracy) but not the consumer (unfinished products), hopefully Sierra is diligently working on *.2 to address all these lock-ups. Why hasn't that been mentioned here on the forum? I wouldn't be so ticked if Sierra took a minute just to say "Listen, people, we realize we kinda screwed up and Caesar is TOTALLY buggy and we are working hard to develop a pacth fix. Please sit tight." They aren't even doing that.
There's my rant. I'm especially ticked because I was so excited to buy Caesar IV because Caesar III was the first computer game I ever bought. I bought it for $79.99 back then, but at least it worked out of box. Sierra, you f***ed up my anniversary present! (That part's sarcasm, people)
Until then though, here are a few work-around solutions that that cured some, but not all, of the bugs that I and you have seen:
• Do the obvious: check and update your drivers, update windows xp, update directX. Make sure you meet the minumum requirements (I mean REALLY meet them) and give the computer as much space as possible to work with this program. The graphic engine in this game is really resource intensive (it really shouldn't be - these aren't award winning graphics) and if your computer is more than just over two years old, chances are it's not going to work.
• If you have two drives or a partitioned drive, install Caesar on the SAME drive as your OS. Caesar seems to have a lot of processes dependent on system files and it makes the program really sluggish when it has to drive jump.
• Put ALL graphic settings in the game to bare minimum, regardless of how good your computer might be. Lower settings means using less processes means less opportunity for the game to freeze on a bug.
• Make your desktop resolution the same as the game resolution. This can fix loading bugs.
• Stop all other programs from running. Stop virus programs, Outlook, MSN Messenger, so on, so on. This frees up resources and some of these program have a bad habit of interrupting other processes (think MSN popping up evertime someone comes online. I noticed that one of the bugs in Caesar is that it freezes with these interruptions in the background.
• Stop all peripheral processes in task manager. Printer software, extra video software (such as Catalyst Centre) BUT not driver processes. This frees up resources.
• Right click on desktop. Select properties, settings, advanced, troubleshoot, hardware acceleration. Put your hardware acceleration to full because if you do not Direct 3D will not run and Caesar needs this to work. Also, if your game hard locks and you have to do a cold reboot, repeat this process on restart because I noticed that hard locks are, for some reason, disabling Direct 3D.
• Go to sytem properties. Select Advanced, performance, settings, advanced, virtual memory, change and then give as much as much virtual memory as posisble (but not more than 4 gigs as that's just useless).
• If you are being stupid and you have pirated, cracked or otherwise modified Caesar IV then the game will not work. Sierra has some of the best and most integrated copy protection on the market (next to Codemasters) and, I guarantee, if you have done this you have corrupted game files.
• On the note of shady practices, if you are running any emulation devices, turn them off as I recall a ghost Sierra process that hated my Nero InCD at one point and made a game not work and it took me forever to figure out what it was.
Ok, so that's a super long post. I know that it was quite a rant, but I am also one of the only community members that has taken the time to try and troubleshoot, so please don't b****. I hope that this helps someone but, ultimately,..
SIERRA/TILTED MILL HAS A
RESPONSIBILITY TO RELEASE A PATCH
TO ADDRESS THESE ISSUES
AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
At the end of this message are some suggestions. But first I b***h make observations.
Rant:
I appreciate the effort of the technicians here in the forum. Kevin especially; he has been tireless in trying to find fixes for the Sierra Caesar community. BUT I am sick of Sierra and its sudsidies releasing 'final products' with so many game killer bugs! I am especially dissapointed because there is already a hasty x.1 patch that doesn't even try to address these issues. Where is the readme for that patch anyway? The game has been released for TWO DAYS (one in Canada) and already almost ALL the technical issues are the same (unknown) root problem. Are you telling me that Sierra didn't see this in beta testing? Was there really ever even beta testing?
Quit saying that these issues are is my hardware, my drivers, my setup, my fault. I have run many, many, many games on this system (which goes above and beyond the requirements for the game) and NEVER had these many hard locks. Do your R & D, Sierra, and make the game compatible with standard setups BEFORE market. (ASUS board, AMD processor, Radeon video - what can be more standard besides cookie cutter Dell?)
If you could return and refund software, I would have taken Caesar IV back within six hours of buying it. Since that isn't the case because software laws protect the developers (piracy) but not the consumer (unfinished products), hopefully Sierra is diligently working on *.2 to address all these lock-ups. Why hasn't that been mentioned here on the forum? I wouldn't be so ticked if Sierra took a minute just to say "Listen, people, we realize we kinda screwed up and Caesar is TOTALLY buggy and we are working hard to develop a pacth fix. Please sit tight." They aren't even doing that.
There's my rant. I'm especially ticked because I was so excited to buy Caesar IV because Caesar III was the first computer game I ever bought. I bought it for $79.99 back then, but at least it worked out of box. Sierra, you f***ed up my anniversary present! (That part's sarcasm, people)
Until then though, here are a few work-around solutions that that cured some, but not all, of the bugs that I and you have seen:
• Do the obvious: check and update your drivers, update windows xp, update directX. Make sure you meet the minumum requirements (I mean REALLY meet them) and give the computer as much space as possible to work with this program. The graphic engine in this game is really resource intensive (it really shouldn't be - these aren't award winning graphics) and if your computer is more than just over two years old, chances are it's not going to work.
• If you have two drives or a partitioned drive, install Caesar on the SAME drive as your OS. Caesar seems to have a lot of processes dependent on system files and it makes the program really sluggish when it has to drive jump.
• Put ALL graphic settings in the game to bare minimum, regardless of how good your computer might be. Lower settings means using less processes means less opportunity for the game to freeze on a bug.
• Make your desktop resolution the same as the game resolution. This can fix loading bugs.
• Stop all other programs from running. Stop virus programs, Outlook, MSN Messenger, so on, so on. This frees up resources and some of these program have a bad habit of interrupting other processes (think MSN popping up evertime someone comes online. I noticed that one of the bugs in Caesar is that it freezes with these interruptions in the background.
• Stop all peripheral processes in task manager. Printer software, extra video software (such as Catalyst Centre) BUT not driver processes. This frees up resources.
• Right click on desktop. Select properties, settings, advanced, troubleshoot, hardware acceleration. Put your hardware acceleration to full because if you do not Direct 3D will not run and Caesar needs this to work. Also, if your game hard locks and you have to do a cold reboot, repeat this process on restart because I noticed that hard locks are, for some reason, disabling Direct 3D.
• Go to sytem properties. Select Advanced, performance, settings, advanced, virtual memory, change and then give as much as much virtual memory as posisble (but not more than 4 gigs as that's just useless).
• If you are being stupid and you have pirated, cracked or otherwise modified Caesar IV then the game will not work. Sierra has some of the best and most integrated copy protection on the market (next to Codemasters) and, I guarantee, if you have done this you have corrupted game files.
• On the note of shady practices, if you are running any emulation devices, turn them off as I recall a ghost Sierra process that hated my Nero InCD at one point and made a game not work and it took me forever to figure out what it was.
Ok, so that's a super long post. I know that it was quite a rant, but I am also one of the only community members that has taken the time to try and troubleshoot, so please don't b****. I hope that this helps someone but, ultimately,..
SIERRA/TILTED MILL HAS A
RESPONSIBILITY TO RELEASE A PATCH
TO ADDRESS THESE ISSUES
AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.