anyone have problems with Civ VI memory leaks leading to crashing

[madeirabhoy]

haven't played civ vi for a few months but definitely did play it on this 2017 iMac. with only 8gb and I always leave it open rather than quitting so its open for days, weeks, without problems. I have rise and fall but not gathering storm.

so the other day I opened it, started a new game, big map but not tons of nations, fairly normal. only played a few turns then left it open. the next day my computer was crashed and there was a window saying all memory was used quit some apps to free up space. but I couldn't do anything as it was crashed and locked.

so I restarted. opened civ vi. started a new game, earth map. and had activity monitor open. it starts out at 680mb use.

but the time the game is on though it's 2.84gb. I played a few moves and then thought maybe I should make the screen smaller and turn off some of the graphics options. surely that will decrease the memory.

by the time I've turned the graphics down from 1920x1200 to 1600x900 and turned off FSAA and shadows and things and started a new game in Europe true positions, memory is up to 4.8gb. two turns in its 5.2gb. I haven't even touched it since as im watching football but without even pressing anything its slowly creeping upwards. now at 6.19gb. sorry make that 6.23gb. and increasing by around 100mb a minute.

5 mins later, 6.55gb and I haven't pressed continue.

 

[Falhófnir]

Well, mac games in general tend to be ports, and with the odd exception not especially well optimised ones either, so I can't say I'm especially surprised. I only have Civ V for mac, and it runs alright though has a tendency to be a bit unstable/ crash mid game onwards once you have quite a few things to keep track of. I don't find turning down resolution or graphics settings helps a whole lot with this, it's just a game that doesn't use resources efficiently on mac full stop.

 

[madeirabhoy]

Well, mac games in general tend to be ports, and with the odd exception not especially well optimised ones either, so I can't say I'm especially surprised. I only have Civ V for mac, and it runs alright though has a tendency to be a bit unstable/ crash mid game onwards once you have quite a few things to keep track of. I don't find turning down resolution or graphics settings helps a whole lot with this, it's just a game that doesn't use resources efficiently on mac full stop.

This is unplayable though.

 

[Big Bad D]

Personally I have had no such problems with Civ VI.

 

[madeirabhoy]

Personally I have had no such problems with Civ VI.

lucky you. I can get it using more memory than I actually have, without even opening a game.

 

[jeanlain]

What OS do you have? The game has been updated to use a more modern graphic technology if you have the latest macOS.
And have you contacted the game developers about this issue?

 

[madeirabhoy]

What OS do you have? The game has been updated to use a more modern graphic technology if you have the latest macOS.
And have you contacted the game developers about this issue?

Mojave latest update, on a 2017 imac, playing through steam.

I have opened a ticket with aspyr. jeese their support website needs a bit of support itself. couldn't even get it to work on safari so had to use chrome, and you complete a report and then you cant see if they've answered unless you log in, click on your profile. anyway.... gave me the stock list of things to try, including reinstalling the game.

I opened a freshly installed game, to the opening splash screen, didn't even press new game. it crept up, 100mb a minute. within two hours it was up to using 9gb of memory, I only physically have 8gb.

 

[madeirabhoy]

okay solved it myself, with a nod to jeanlain for the hint.

the game defaults to metal, and always leaks memory for me.
if on startup I change it to openGPL it works fine, 3.85gb and stays there.

 

[jeanlain]

Good. But Aspyr should fix their Metal code as openGL is being deprecated by Apple.

 

[catskinsox]

Good. But Aspyr should fix their Metal code as openGL is being deprecated by Apple.

When did they add Metal? I had no idea. Their FAQ still says they do not support Metal. I haven't played the game much for a while, and it was honestly one of the reasons. The performance was kind of crappy. I just played for a while and the improvement was very noticeable. I didn't have any memory issues with my 2017 21.5" iMac, but I also have 16GB in it. I did get one graphical glitch when doing a city ranged attack, but it went away and I didn't experience anymore in other city ranged attacks. Anyway, it was quite enjoyable playing with Metal.