Activation, patches and expansions

from Stardock Forums

Hello,

   I bought Galactic Civilizations II Dread Lords from the bargain bin at Target yesterday.  ($9.95!!!)  I installed it, and played it a little last night.  I have played it before, and it was just as great as I recall it.  However, it is a little buggy and kept freezing on me about 45-75 turns into the game.

     My next step was to download the most recent patch I could find.  After I did so, and installed the patch, it kept wanting me to activate.  However, after seven entries with the serial number, I am still being told that there is a problem with the serial number.

    Of course, I can deinstall everything and reload, but then I am left with a buggy game that only plays for about 50 turns. 

Here is my question.  I really want to try Dark Avatar and then Twilight of Arnor.  I am planning to purchase them via Digital Download from www.galciv2.com. 

   Does either of those two expansions fully patch Dreadlords upon installation?  Or do I need to patch Dreadlords before I purchase either?  Also, is there a patch for Twilight of Arnor?  I am having a lot of trouble with Impulse, so I am worried if I drop $50.00 to buy these expansions that I won't be able to patch them.

     Any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated!

10,772 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

What is refusing your serial number? Impulse or activate.exe?

The expansions have their own exe, so they include any bugfixes, but depend on Dreadlords data files. I don't know wether some Dreadlords patches add datafiles that DA/TotA need.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I believe it is activate.exe

 

Impulse does not even work for me.  It simply states that it is connecting, but never does.  When I try to update, it tells me that I am not connected to the internet, which is ludicrous, because I am.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Downloading the expansions would require Impulse to be functioning properly on your machine anyway, so your best bet is to contact support@stardock.com first.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Myrkator, reply 2
I believe it is activate.exe

 

Impulse does not even work for me.  It simply states that it is connecting, but never does.  When I try to update, it tells me that I am not connected to the internet, which is ludicrous, because I am.
End of Myrkator's quote
Grab the lastest build here: Impulse Client - Full

Make sure that BITS download service is turned off by clicking the Orb in the upper left, Preferences | Connections

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Okay, that did it for Impulse.  And I have Dreadlords and Dark Avatar up and running.  However, playing in the 'sandbox' mode, or non-campaign, it is still freezing up on me about 30-45 turns into the game.  Any thoughts?

 

 

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Update your video divers

 

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Try going to Documents\My Games\GalCiv2 and open the Prefs.ini file in Notepad.

Change DisplayWidth and DisplayHeight to whatever your screen resolution is set for, save the file, and then try again.

If that doesn't work, set Fullscreen=0

 

You can also do this at Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatar

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks.  There has been some improvement.  I can now play out normally to about 300 turns.  At that point, I start getting Out of Memory errors when I try to save.  I am using 32 bit Vista and I have 2048 MB RAM.  It seems that an increase in virtual memory is in order.  What should I increase the maximum to?  And is there a figure to place the initial size at apart from the minimum of 16MB?

 

Thanks!

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The general rule of thumb for pagefile size (if you don't use the auto-setting) is to set it at 100-150% of your physical ram size.

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting kryo, reply 9
The general rule of thumb for pagefile size (if you don't use the auto-setting) is to set it at 100-150% of your physical ram size.
End of kryo's quote

This was also the general rule of thumb back when people weren't running around with 2 to 8GB of RAM.

I'd say at this point in time 75% to 100% is a better recommendation, so long as it's at least 1GB.

-

The other point that never manages to be addressed is the changing size of your pagefile-it's better to have it at a set size than to have it increase (and decrease) based on how much is in it.

You're probably getting the OOM errors because you're reaching GC2's 2GB limit (it's a 32-bit application), but as for why you're getting that much RAM usage, I don't know.

You could of course try posting your debug.err, found in \My Documents\My Games\GC2TwilightArnor (or GC2DarkAvatar or GalCiv2).

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Myrkator, reply 8
I start getting Out of Memory errors when I try to save.  I am using 32 bit Vista and I have 2048 MB RAM.
End of Myrkator's quote
Quoting Sole, reply 10
You're probably getting the OOM errors because you're reaching GC2's 2GB limit (it's a 32-bit application), but as for why you're getting that much RAM usage, I don't know.
End of Sole's quote

there's a few things I can think of to improve the situation :

-1st if playing on gigantic or immense map sizes you may try decreasing map size depending on your preferences

-2nd to my knowledge ALT-Tabbing out of the game multiple times seem to increase gc2 ram usage, if you're doing this you might want to refrain.

-3rd err there's no third point since you have only 2GB of ram ^_^'