PC Advice

chocoballs · November 12, 2001, 14:52

Hi people!

I'm playing on a below spec PC (400MHZ) on huge maps.

by the time i hit the 1300's, i'm looking at 15 minutes between turns. aside from turning off enemy and friend animations and not playing on huge or buying a new PC

, is there any way I can tweak the performance of the game?

you never know but someone might

thanks all

Swissy · November 12, 2001, 18:17

400Mhz isn't below spec. And there isn't anyway to tweak the game beyond what you have done. Have you tried tweaking your computer. Depending on the version of Windows you have, you may have alot of background clutter and mermory leaks. Are your drivers upto date, most importantly your video driver.

I need more info on your system. How much RAM, what size HDD, what version of Win? What else is running when you play? Most computer users have no idea what useless garbage is running in the background, and how much system resources are wasted.

Venger · November 12, 2001, 18:22

15 Minutes? Are you sure !?!?! That's absolutely unacceptable on a 400Mhz machine. I run a dual 850 and get maybe a 15 second delay between turns...

Venger

SITS · November 12, 2001, 22:42

There was a thread in the Civ3 Help forum where Soren (Firaxis) said you can insert a command in the text files to have no sound which can increase performance.

chocoballs · November 13, 2001, 00:54

100%

i end my turn and can honestly go do some chores before the computer is done.

have a look at my save game
i'm playing hammurabi

the hard drive isn't churning. nothing's really happening visually but a good 10 to 15 minutes later, it's my turn again.

everything seems fine. the cpu is calculating a lot of stuff but it take brutally long on a huge map with 16 civs once we've all reached about 10 to 15 cities each.

yin26 · November 13, 2001, 01:13

How many other programs do you have running in the background ... the tray icon stuff? Things like virus scanners etc. etc. can eat up your CPU cycles. Have you ctl+alt+del'ed all the programs running?

I do this even on a P3 850 with 256 RAM when I play games. It helps me to trouble shoot, too, in case I run into problems like yours.

chocoballs · November 13, 2001, 01:17

thanks dude. but no luck. everything under the taskmon is closed except explorer. i'm running XP as well.

that may very well be the problem.

yin26 · November 13, 2001, 01:23

Ah, XP! Yes, see the Help forum. Entire threads on that topic.

Basilisk · November 13, 2001, 01:59

Originally posted by SITS
There was a thread in the Civ3 Help forum where Soren (Firaxis) said you can insert a command in the text files to have no sound which can increase performance.

yep tehre was.
here it was - i printed it off so i'm just copying it out.
- If you have a machine with near-minimum specs (especially on the memory side) and are experienceing slowdowns, try adding the line "NoSound=1" to Civilization3.ini. This will not only turn off sound but prevent the game from even loading any sound to memory. Of-course, the game will be soundless. but some people will prefer this if it speeds up the game... -

Urban Ranger · November 13, 2001, 02:15

What model is your processor? Pentium? PII? PIII? K5? K6? K6-2? K6-3? K7 (Athlon)? Cyrix MII?

chocoballs · November 13, 2001, 02:35

Intel P2 - 400Mhz
nvidia geforce 2
128 ram
10 gig space available

Swissy · November 13, 2001, 05:20

Originally posted by chocoballs
nvidia geforce 2

There are problems with the newest nVidia drivers (Detonator 21.83). It appears they don't mesh well with DirectX 8.

I have seen this happen with other games, I had a Savage 4 running Win ME playing CTP2. As the game went on it seem to take longer and long AI turns until it eventually froze. Changing the video card solved that (savage 4 was never really supported adequately for Win ME). So check your video drivers. I hear the nVidia drivers on the XP disc work ok, but the newest ones at the nVidia website are no working correctly.

CAB · November 13, 2001, 06:36

I use a PIII450 MHz computer, with 300MB memory and an ATI Rage video card.
On huge maps with 16 civs I have in the later game about 30 to 60 seconds between turns, so I have no big problems and my system are not so different from yours except for the memory.

cort · November 13, 2001, 06:50

Originally posted by CAB
I use a PIII450 MHz computer, with 300MB memory and an ATI Rage video card.
On huge maps with 16 civs I have in the later game about 30 to 60 seconds between turns, so I have no big problems and my system are not so different from yours except for the memory.

how late in the game?
i have PIII733 256MB RAM (no nvdia) and it takes >5 minutes on huge map & 16 civ since late medieval.

General Ludd · November 13, 2001, 09:51

Why are people concerned about video cards? Slow turns have absolutely nothing to do with video cards, it has everything to do with processer speed. This isn't a FPS where you have all those fancy pants graphics slowing you down, this is a TBS where the computer has to process the computers moves.

Grumbold · November 13, 2001, 10:03

That is not strictly true. Civ 3 does have graphical requirements that are not completely undemanding, unlike prior Civ games thank goodness. It is true to say that processor, memory, operating system, CD speed and system configuration are likely to have equal or greater impact. However any really good advice should be pushed over to the Help forum, where it stands a chance of lasting on the main page and/or being collated into the general mass of expert opinion for use by players having difficulties.