Can you turn off certain animations?

[DaShi]

To make the game run better for lower spec. machines and for those who want to run larger maps.

I'm assuming there are some animations that run constantly, like water and planes circling cities. Can you turn some of these things and others off to improve performance?

[alva]

You can with some things which seem to improve things.

I doubt it will help you alot though. I know I wouldn't want to play it with your card.
I let several games pass by last year because I couldn't handle them, I could now but well, now there is Civ4.
That's me of course, don't let that stop you.

[DaShi]

I haven't got the game yet. Is pixel shading all that great?

[alva]

It's not really a question of that particular feature being great - again, for me - it's that your card will be slow, no matter what.
I'm not looking for fantastic graphics,
cute and immersive will do,
however I do want my PC to react whenever I do something...I don't want...can't stand having to wait 5 minutes just because I'm scrolling 2 inches to the right.
I'll accept it if I were to play an enormous huge gigantic map but not with a standard one, which is what you are looking at with yours.

[Jon Shafer]

There is an option to turn off animations - it can help out a fair amount as animation is one of the more expensive graphical features particularly when you get a lot of it on one screen.

[kimmygibler]

What about the needless tile animations?

[Googlie]

Some of the animations are great, though (albeit in the "eye-candy" category):

• when the birds fly from a forest as your scout/warrior lumbers in
• footprints in the sand and snow
• and, yes, that spitfire circling the base

Or is it just me?

[GeoModder]

The most noteworthy effect cancelled are the fires when the mine carriage unloads...