Wow Slowdown :(

[-Ab-]

i like this game so far,especially Mr Spok but even with all the GFX on low its still terrably slow
if i trade a map that uncovers the whole world the game freezes for a time and after that the fps are low i think cause its slow jerky and annoying to play
is there anything i can do to ease the strain ?
any ini tweaks ?
my gfx card is a gf4 4400ti so i guess thats teh problem

[uberloz]

Mine is extremely slow and jerky also, and thats with a pny gf 5750 pci e and 512 mb ram on a 3.2ghz p4 on all the lowest settings.

I'm leaning towards it being a bug.

[stormwriter]

haha, yep, as soon as i get someone's World Map in a trade, my system is 2-3 times slower. Then, there's nothing you can do to speed it up again. I should probably have more RAM, but it's perfect UNTIL i get that dumb map.

[Common Sensei]

I got the game on release day. My operating system when I first had the game was Windows 2000 SP4. A few days ago, I changed over to Windows XP, getting SP2.

After switching over to XP, I noticed that the game ran much, much more smoothly. I changed nothing else other than the OS.

Probably doesn't help directly, but it's an observation of mine.

[spy14]

Changing to Win XP from Win 2000 is one of the best things you can do - Win 2k is a business OS primarily, and is geared as such, XP is far more powerful for recreational purposes.

Depends if you can stand the thought of Mr Gates getting even more of your money though

[Common Sensei]

Originally posted by spy14
Changing to Win XP from Win 2000 is one of the best things you can do - Win 2k is a business OS primarily, and is geared as such, XP is far more powerful for recreational purposes.

Depends if you can stand the thought of Mr Gates getting even more of your money though

Well, the computer used to do dual-duty for (development) work and play, but it's not used for development anymore, thus the switch.

[Falconius]

Yes, getting the world map is a big no-no. My games become unplayable at that point.

What's odd is that it slows things down that are completely unrelated, like looking at the stats screen, or any of the screens for that matter.

But even if I avoid looking at any screen (and avoid diplomacy altogether), the AI turn times go from being about 20-30 seconds to 5 minutes plus.

[GeoModder]

My systems' performance got way better when playing on a small map... first game was on a standard map and that was slow in the modern age.

Even the viewing of completed Wonder movies became much more enjoyable by playing on a small map.

[Provost Harrison]

I had some shocking problems like this and this is on a GFX5900. I had the newest drivers available and the game crashed every 10 minutes, if that. Really unstable. I put them back to an earlier version I had kicking around and it was a bit more stable but slow, and I got some BSODs now and again under it. I changed to a driver that was inbetween those two (78.08 IIRC) and it works like a dream now, rock solid. Christ knows what was going on there...

[ledhed]

I dont know about you but I did not buy this game to only be able to play it on a small map .

[Raion]

One slowdown occurs after the Diplomacy Screen, so Alt-Tab out to the Desktop will seemingly clear the lag as someone else mentioned (I just tried it and it does work). However, I use 'single unit' graphics and if too much playing slower, turn off Animations and Effects, but that will distract from all the graphics moving around in the game.

Have not hit the map problem yet, but perhaps that also can be solved by Alt-Tabbing out of the game to the Desktop and waiting a minute or so, and then returning to the game. I do not know yet about that though!
The game does take a better computer since the movie files (*.bik) files are full-screen and not like a wide-screen movie so the game takes more processing power than some other games I have.

What is wrong with Windows 2K except for the ms-dos compatibility. I had XP on my computer, and I bought Windows 2K, because it takes less memory to run, uses the same drivers for the hardware as XP, and runs okay for me for all the games I have, which means that XP is a memory hog and takes a lot more memory to run. I have 512mB of memory, and yet, I seen games take as much as 423mB of memory if needed (only 64mB are needed for the OS) while one would have to have probably 1gB of memory for XP to run that OS faster than what it is!

And I can change a video card when I want to if needed without consulting Microsoft about the change!
(and when I first had my computer Microsoft was only giving 3 months to change any hardware, thus my decision, and all the drivers I needed for my hardware that Windows 2K did not have -- came from XP which is still sitting on a hard-disk partition -- for the most part, because there were some blue files because of being from the computer manufacturer that may be lost, unless the Restore CD, restores those files.) At least I do not have to buy -- more memory -- to make the OS run faster!

[spy14]

I'll be putting this game through its paces soon enough on a Radeon 9600XT - the card will handle RTW and Doom 3 on full graphic settings easily, will be interesting to see what happens when I run Civ on it!

[spy14]

Originally posted by Raion

What is wrong with Windows 2K except for the ms-dos compatibility. I had XP on my computer, and I bought Windows 2K, because it takes less memory to run, uses the same drivers for the hardware as XP, and runs okay for me for all the games I have, which means that XP is a memory hog and takes a lot more memory to run. I have 512mB of memory, and yet, I seen games take as much as 423mB of memory if needed (only 64mB are needed for the OS) while one would have to have probably 1gB of memory for XP to run that OS faster than what it is!

Hi, i'm not up to speed with the technical reasons as to why, but i've seen/spoken to various sources who have always told me the same - although XP is technically more of a resource hog, the architecture of it makes it a far more powerful system for the likes of games. Hopefully someone else can explain the details

[Falconer999]

Originally posted by spy14
I'll be putting this game through its paces soon enough on a Radeon 9600XT - the card will handle RTW and Doom 3 on full graphic settings easily, will be interesting to see what happens when I run Civ on it!

I have a 9600XT and 1gb of RAM and game runs smoothly at 1600x1200, all details on high and 2x anti-aliasing. Except, as noted above, when you get to the point where the World Map is revealed. It isn't a video card issue. I believe there is a memory leak that is opened up somewhere at this point.

I've done a little testing with windows task manager and before the world map, I'll check and see how much memory is being used, then after the world map is revealed. Once it is revealed, as time goes by the memory used just mushrooms.

[-Ab-]

hmmm interesting
yeah could well be memory leak then
i have a gig of ram and i know my card is old and not really up to it but i have noticed the strange slowdowns that happen
turning the tile square grid on or off or both on and off will sometimes cure it
the game also slows badly if you try to do stuff while its auto saving

be interesting to play with 2 or more gigs of ram (i wish)

bah game has just given me a lesson on religous intolorence

the ai seems agressive enough anyway