Recommended settings for low-end computers?

[Verrucosus]

Having finally started my first game of the Colonization remake, I would like to play a few games before commenting on the substance of the changes.

For the moment, it seems to me that the game runs quite a bit slower than Civ4. In particular, there is a noticeable delay when opening a report and an even longer delay prior to diplomatic contact. I recall members' reports about similar problems in BtS.

Now, I am not really in a position to complain, because my trusty old laptop barely meets the recommended system requirements (1 GB memory, 128 video card) and the processor is even a bit slower (1.6 GHz instead of 1.8 GHz).

What settings would you recommend for this kind of system?

[PrinceMyshkin]

I am sitting on a high-end laptop.

I can tell you on thing: every 30-40 turns change your resolution, and put it back again. I usually change the AA from 0 to 2 and the opposite.

You will find a huge improvement in terms of speed. The game seems to saturate the video memory for some reason, and by changing resolution you reset it.

I play on 1900x1200 resolution with everything on max (well AA is kept between 0-2, AA not very relevant at so high resolutions... doubt eye can spot it). Other than that everything else runs very smoothly here.

[Verrucosus]

I'd never have thought of that, thank you! I'll try it when I get back to the game. Is it sufficient to simply change the resolution on the options screen and immediately switch it back or do I need to restart the game after each change?

Needless to say, my resolution is the lowest possible. For some reason, the installation has set graphics to "high" by default, but that must be some kind of mistake for my computer. (It was set to "medium" in vanilla Civ4.)

Again, thank you for commenting. Any further advice on how to improve performance is very welcome.

[PrinceMyshkin]

You don't need to restart!

I also need to check if alt+tab has the same effect.

I am pretty certain there is a huge bug in their engine, which overflows video memory.

... or could be my driver, but this never happened to me before.

Do you guys have the same problem? Slowly degrading performance, which improves every time you change resolution?

[Verrucosus]

In my case, it's not slowly, but rapidly degrading. From (very limited) testing, PrinceMyshkin's method of increasing resolution and immediately lowering it back seems to have an effect, but on my computer only for a few turns.

Given my laptop, I'm quite willing to accept less than smooth performance, but the delay before diplomatic contact is annoying. It's more serious than in BtS because in Colonization I am constantly talking to and trading with other leaders, not even counting almost or entirely useless conversations like Indian gifts or royal demands.

I am not sure whether I will be able to work around this, but for future releases I recommend to include low-performance settings like the text-only diplomacy option back in Civ2.

Anyway, I'll keep looking for other tweaks that might help.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Hmmmm I found a new method. Try to press alt+tab.

If more people have the same problem, we asre talking for a badass bug... which saturates the video memory.

In my case I alt+tab every 20min and play on a video memory 512MB beast.

[Hermann the Lombard]

On my extremely low-end computers (where the game says it won't run) it will run with an extremely degraded map, and leader images that sometimes consist of only floating eyeballs and buttons. It's rather amusing but very tedious.

On that machine, Alt-Tab (or the Windows key) toggles me out to the desktop, but often crashes when I try to toggle back in.

[Verrucosus]

Hello Hermann the Lombard, good to see you again. I have fond memories of an extremely detailed game report you wrote in one of Velociryx's old Civ4 workshop threads. Did you have similar problems in Civ4? (I'm asking because minimal and recommended system requirements are the same.)

Prince Myshkin, I've tried alt-tabbing to the desktop and back. As with resolution switching, it seems to help a bit, but only for a couple of turns.

Does anyone else have the impression that changing the in-game graphics options does not seem to have that much of an effect on performance?

[Hermann the Lombard]

Good to see you too!

I don't think I tried Civ4 on this laptop, likely it would have been just as bad, or worse.

[wodan11]

Col has MUCH lower requirements than CIV mostly because it has much fewer game elements (read: smaller dynamic database, fewer polygons, smaller map)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Alt + tab or changing resolution resets the memory, every a few turns do it again.

I play on high end and I can do it every 30min or so...

It's a bug guys there is a memory flood somewhere.