General System Slugginess after playing Civ4

[Tis I]

This is somewhat unusual and i'm not sure how to describe it properly but after playing civ 4 and then exiting, everything seems to be noticeably slower. Firefox and Internet explorer load pages much much slower and media player is somewhat unresponsive.

However task manager shows that civ 4 has shut down(at least it doesn't appear in processes or applications) as well as showing processor utilization and available ram numbers close to normal for having just started up the computer.

Restarting the computer returns everything to its normal vigor. This isn't really a bug just kinda wierd...

btw, i'm on a Pentium 820 with 1 gig of ram.

[DRoseDARs]

Had the same thing. Hope it's something they're addressing in the first patch...

[FinnishGuy]

Civ4 bits are hanging around in Windows disk cache?

[baboon]

It probably has something to do with that memory leak in Civ4. I expect them to fix it with the upcoming patch.

[wilebill2]

Reboot Windows. Many have reported a memory leak that makes Windows build a huge spool file, including me on one occasion. Rebooting Windows will clean up your spool file if that's the problem.

Try running without anything running at the same time and take everything out of the background you don't need like messenging, browsers, anything in the right hand tray. Try turning off real time virus file checking only for gameplay. Turn off real time adware checker if you have one only for gameplay.

First patch should fix this if it is a program memory leak.

[Stuie]

If you play long enough, the game will reboot your system for you.

[alva]

This is somewhat unusual and i'm not sure how to describe it properly but after playing civ 4 and then exiting, everything seems to be noticeably slower.

How long afterwards are we talking here?
I used to have this with C3, less so with Civ4.
Of course it will during first few seconds* but everyhting returns to normally very quickly I find. Let it close properly...


* not a good time to start up new programs as you will get the effects as moving 2 large to another drive or partition (start to move one, move another while the first one is being moved, trying it you'll see what I mean, takes alot longer as moving them together) -

[Werdna]

same thing happens to me. After I close Civ4, my system is so slow. It takes a minute to open IE or any other program. After 10-15 minutes of using the sytem, everything goes back to normal.
I think Civ is using all memory it can, and windows swaps all other background programs system programs to swap file and after you close Civ, it loads it all from swap file, thus the slowdown.

[Yolky]

same thing here. i just play for one turn, went on the internet to check something out, and it was so fricken slow. Had to reboot computer and everything was ok.

This is Firaxis fault here. Can't blame the spec of the computer since all you are doing is turning it off. Hopefully this will be addressed in a patch. I have a 2.8 ghz computer PIV and it runs really slow after playing ONE TURN?

[Mace]

I noticed this too. Civ4 appears to not fully unload itself.

I'd also think that the problem is far less noticeable if you have 1 gig of ram or more...