Analyzing Civilization IV Performance

[nbarclay]

The official Civ IV site lists minimum and recommended hardware requirements, but does not provide a really good feel for what kind of performance can be expected on what kinds of systems. I'd like to ask people who are running Civ IV successfully what kinds of systems they have and how well the game performs on their systems (e.g. whether scrolling the map is slow, whether there is any jerkiness, whether the movies play smoothly, etc.). That information could prove useful both for people who are unsure whether the game would work acceptably well on their systems and for people who are considering upgrading in search for better performance.

Answers to the following questions will be appreciated from people who are running successfully. This is NOT intended to be a bug report thread, so please don't report unless you're having enough success running Civ IV to provide useful information on how the game performs.

1) What kind of processor do you have (including speed), and how much memory? (For those who don't know, this can be found by going to the Control Panel and selecting System.)

2) What graphics card are you using? (This can be found by going to the control panel, selecting Display, going to the Settings tab, clicking Advanced, and clicking the Adapter tab.)

3) What is the highest resolution you've played at successfully, and have you tried higher resolutions but had problems?

4) What kind of performance are you getting from your system?

5) Have you felt a need to lower image quality in order to improve performance, and if so, what were your results?

Edit: 6) What map sizes and types do you play, and if you do, does your performance differ significantly depending on map size and type?


Warning: Do not interpret the reports in this thread as a guarantee that if your system has substantially the same specifications, it will deliver the same performance. It is not impossible that differences in hardware and software configurations that are not covered in this thread could result in significant performance differences between superficially identical machines, or that people could post erroneous information. In addition, much of the judgment regarding how well the game performs will be subjective, so issues that one person regards as too trivial to be worth mentioning may be a significant annoyance to sommeone else. So use the information here at your own risk.

[Venger]

1) Dual Athlon MP+ running at 2.2Ghz (3000+) with 1GB RAM

2) Nvidia 5900XT

3) 1024x768 (not very stable at higher resolutions, may not be res related)

4) A mixed bag - from a reboot, loading Civ3 with medium graphics on 1024x768, I can sometimes play for hours on end. But there are crashes to BIOS, and there are times where the system starts to bog - moving near the poles sometimes, or one unit on the map that I lag when I move the view near it, but works better far away...

5) Yes, I believe I am getting better results on medium

Venger

[nbarclay]

Venger, I was thinking the highest Athlon MPs went was 2800+. Are you running an overclocked system, or did AMD slip something past me when I wasn't looking?

[Mike4879]

Intel Pentium 4 3.06ghz HT
1GB DDR2700

Nvidia GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB

1152x864. Will work at 1280 but not much incentive.

The game runs smooth on regular maps. On large theres some slowdowns. On huge there starts to be some "huge" problems, especially when navigating the map or zooming out. Crashes, etc.

I reduced the quality of the in-game video settings, but it seemed to do very little. I actually noticed very little difference. I overclocked my video card (1933 score in 3dmarks03 vs. 1723) and I did notice minor improvement. I definately don't recommend that method.

[milachy]

1. P4 2.53 500 FSB 1.5GB PC1600 RDRAM

2. BFG 6800 GT Overclocked

3. 1680 X 1050 on dell 20in widescreen

4. Running everything on high with no slowdowns

5. none necessary

[CrONoS]

I dont have a high end computer but it works!

1: Pentium M 715 (1.5ghz) = P4 2.1 GHZ, 512 Meg RAM DDR2, Intel Centrino 915

2: Intel GMA 900, Shared memory ,128 meg. But it takes only the memory the software needs.(8 megs fixed, 120 dynamically change)

3: All resolution is working, all detail on is working.

4: Pretty slow. Really choppy when I got advanced in the game.

5: Now I play at 1024x768, Detail to Low, Animation are On. The game play smoothly until the 18th century,after is really playable(for me), but i've got 7-8 fps.

I've see a really good Thread on civfanatics. One guy tested the games on 3 different system. His results are pretty well interesting. Where is the bottleneck!!

CIV 4 Performance Analysis

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137394

[robyn 3576]

1) P4 2.4 GHZ 512mb ram
2)Geforce FX 5200
3)Play at 1024x768 Have never tried others.
4)Always play large maps. The only problem I have had is that it sometimes locks up when loading a savegame. This has only happened twice in 40+ hours of playing. No jerkiness, movies play fine.

[asleepathewheel]

Re: Analyzing Civilization IV Performance

1. Pentium D830 (Dual Processor, 3.0ghz)
3GB Ram (I forget which speed)

2. nVidia GeForce 6800

3. I play at 1280 x 1024 with anti-aliasing at 2x High on all levels

4. Perfect performance on standard maps. slight slow downs on huge maps, does not inhibit gameplay, no strange artifacts introduced.

5. No

6. Large, Huge, mostly pangea and terra, almost always 18 civs. A bit slower towards the end of Terras, but not too irritating.

[Backpack]

1) 1.8Ghz P4, 1024 MB RAM

2) Nvidia 6200 (4x/8x AGP) w/128 MB (AA=0, Quality Settings all at High)

3) 1600x1200 (Successfully defined as a 1 hour+ session without Crash) - (I have also crashed at 1600x1200, 1280x1024, and 1024x768)

4) (Other than crashing/video issues) Just fine. Scrolling in the game feels a little laggy at 1600x1200 in the later years of the game

5) Haven't touched image quality. Parhaps after the patch I will experiment here

6) Normal and Duel, though once things finish stabalizing and I know my way around the game - I fully intend to try out some huges.

[mhenstri]

1) AMD XP2100+ OC'd 2600+ 1GB DDR400

2) nVidia 6600GT 128mb

3) 1280x1024 (LCDs max res) / no AA / All on high

4) Large maps, no slowdown or probs for me.

[evizaer]

1) Pentium IV at 3.06GHz. 1GB of RAM

2) nVidia GeForce FX Go5700

(NOTE: i define "plays well" as all animations looking fluid and UI response time being below .5 seconds. I define "Playable" as animations being somewhat choppy and UI response time being no more than 1 second.)

3, 4, and 6)
1440x900 fullscreen is playable as far as i can see. No crashes. Higher than a standard sized map is unplayably laggy. I haven't played through a game long enough on this resolution to see if the endgame gets unplayable.

1024x768 in windowed mode plays well up until the modern age on standard maps, where i start seeing graphical problems (text and icons randomly dissapearing until i restart the game). Game'll run well if i reload until i encounter another leader, then it starts getting choppy. I haven't tried playing on Large or Huge maps for anywhere near a full game. There was noticeable choppiness, though, after 10 turns on a large map.

5) I turned all graphics levels to "low", turned on single unit models, turned off effects. That is the only way the game remains playable for extended periods of time (over 30 minutes of gameplay).

[Proteus_MST]

1) AMD T-Bird 900 MHz with 512 MB RAM

2) Asus 7100 (Geforce 2 MX with 32 MB)

3) 1024 * 768 is the Resolution I play most of the times, but I also successfully tried 1280 * 768 with all Graphics Settings set to High

4) At the beginnings of a game there are absolutely no problems, but in later stages of the game, especially after you discover large parts of the map, the game runs slower and slower (sometimes taking 5-10 minutes to compute a turn)
After discovering larger parts of the world scrolling around the map also startsto become much more sluggish.
But what seems to need the most system performance are the wonder movies and diplomacy screens.
The Wonder movies caused some crashes to desktop for me before I turned them off and if another leader wants to contact me during the turns this means that the processing of the turn takes longer than usual.
Game also seems to slow down after prolonged time of play (for example some hours continuously which means that processing of turns might get even slower (up to 20 minutes); if I restart the system the game runs faster again.

5) I normally play on low graphics quality with units being displayed as a single unit. Only for Screenshots or for earlier stages of the game I turn on additional effects

6) normally Large, but also huge map sizes with 8 Civs. Haven´t tried the smaller maps (isn´t my style of play ) therefore I can´t say anything about them.

[King Thor]

1) Pentium 4, 3Ghz, 1.5GB of RAM
2) ATI Radeon X300 with 32MB on board Memory, and 128MB through Hypermemory
3) 1680x1050 with no problems . crashes, or slowdowns. My monitor doesn't support a higher resolution so , haven't tried anything higher.
4) Performance is perfect, apart from a bit of choppiness in the intro animations. But I haven't gotten to around 1800 AD where most people's problems show up.
5) Nope.
6) So far I've only played the standard sized maps

[tiny toad]

I installed under an athalon 1.7 gig 512 meg ram XP Home SP2 and an Nvidia64meg i got stuttering intro music and wonder music and the game `politley` told me i was under spec so it disabled certain graphics settings. I went out an bought a nvidia256 meg graphics card and this fixed my stuttering sound???
Re-set graphics to high and am loving it........great game

[Stuie]

1. Athlon XP 2700+ @ 2.2ghz, 1gb of RAM
2. ATI Radeon 9600 128mb
3. 1280x1024 (highest possible on my monitor)
4/6. Standard map - no slow down. Some inexplicable CTDs in the very late game (two in the final 20 turns).
Large Terra map - slow as a dog in the 20th century. Ran "ok" up until then.
5. I put the graphics on "medium" - not sure if it will help, haven't tried another large map yet.