Sluggish Game

[dakk005]

i actually have the sound disabled... i messed with it a lil. when it plays the movies for the wonders the video is choppy and the sound pauses with the video. so i just shut it off

[Targonis]

People, people, people! I read this thread, and wonder if any of you have considered the differences between Civ 4 and previous Civ games before complaining about performance issues.

First, the game uses a real 3D game engine, which means that the detail and complexity of drawing the screen is MUCH higher than in previous games. It's also why you can zoom in and out now, which you couldn't do in the previous games.

Now, with that said, look at your computer systems and consider the speed of the components.

The NVIDIA Geforce ti4200 was on the lower end, compared with the 4600 for that generation. While it was a good card at the time, that was quite a while ago.

The Geforce FX 5200 was the LOW end of the Geforce 5000 line, which was KNOWN for poor shader 2.0 performance. In fact, the entire 5000 series had very poor Shader 2.0 performance compared to the ATI Radeon 9500 and up cards. Note the Radeon cards below the 9500 didn't support DirectX 9 in hardware, but the performance of the Radeon 9000/9200/9250 and Gefore FX 5200 were so low in the first place, you wouldn't want to run a game with Shader model 2.0 effects anyway. The cards just couldn't handle the demand.

So, for video, you would want at LEAST a Geforce FX 5600 or Radeon 9500, preferably cards above this level.

For CPU(processor), the Athlon Thunderbird core was also great in it's time, but remember that not only has the clock speed gone up since those days, but the design has been tweaked over the generations. It's why, clock for clock, an Athlon XP would still perform better than the Thunderbird core processors. With the release of the Athlon 64, followed by socket 754 or 939 Sempron, there is an integrated memory controller on the CPU that makes the chip FLY when playing games or running other applications compared to the older processors. As a result, don't count on an OLD chip to run new applications quickly.

On the Intel side, the Celeron was always a low end chip. Even the Celeron D, which was a step up, still was a cut back version of the Pentium 4. Clock speeds can't be counted on to make complex applications run well if the chip itself can't handle the demands. The Pentium-M has potential, but since it's primarily a laptop chip, games may and will generally be limited by the video in the laptop.


Clock speeds don't tell the whole story when it comes to performance.

Now, Civ 4 is the most complex Civ game yet when it comes to the AI. You HAVE to expect that this new game will run a bit slow if your computer isn't at least two years old if not newer. What was a top-end chip when it was released isn't going to seem all that fast three or four years later. Expect the game to take a long time between turns while the AI is controlling the other civs.

A new motherboard costs perhaps $100 or so, CPU perhaps $125 to $150 for an Athlon 64 3000+. Memory will run you $50 for 512 megs of PC3200 memory that isn't the cheap stuff.

I'm sorry folks, but that's not a huge amount to spend to upgrade a custom built machine to a reasonable level if you already have a decent video card. A decent vid card for Civ 4 won't run you more than $150 that won't be bottom of the line. Money may not grow on trees, but if you work for a living, you SHOULD be able to save up enough for these components over the course of a year if you can save $20/week, which isn't THAT hard for those out of school.

[Hernadir]

Dear Targonis,
Even if you have some points you are not mentioning the poor preformance of this game. There is a preformace problem, no question about it.

A frend of mine just built a new computer with a ATHLON 64 X2 4800 CPU and top of the line nvidia grafic card in SLI mode (dont know whar model of the card) and 2 GB memory.

His computer preformance is astonishing in every game he have tested. BUT when he are playing civ4 on huge map he are having huge preformance problems.

So there is not only hardware problem.

[pramjockey]

Originally posted by Hernadir
Dear Targonis,
Even if you have some points you are not mentioning the poor preformance of this game. There is a preformace problem, no question about it.

A frend of mine just built a new computer with a ATHLON 64 X2 4800 CPU and top of the line nvidia grafic card in SLI mode (dont know whar model of the card) and 2 GB memory.

His computer preformance is astonishing in every game he have tested. BUT when he are playing civ4 on huge map he are having huge preformance problems.

So there is not only hardware problem.

Have to agree. My system (specs above) runs other games very well. Civ4 is the only one that causes me problems.

Here's hoping that the patch makes things right.

[ktsai1283]

Thanks for the helpful responses, Cambo and Targonis.

I expected CivIV to perform much better than it does... I don't know, maybe being able to play modern games (Call of Duty 2, for example) smoothly at 800 x 600 resolutions with some details turned on has "spoiled" me, in a sense, making me believe that my computer isn't THAT slow!

I have money to spend on upgrading my computer now, but I might want to wait until it is closer to the release of Windows Vista (maybe DirectX 10 will be released by then?), assuming I can wait so long.

I'm sorry this is slightly off topic, but what do you guys think? Are there newer technologies on the horizon worth waiting for? I can tolerate the performance I'm getting from this computer for probably another 6 months or so...

Thanks.

[pramjockey]

The thing with waiting for the next technology is that there's always a next technology. It's just the pain with owning computers that the instant you buy something it's been replaced with something faster/better.

[Brendo]

I am having the same problem and I think my specs are somewhere near the top of what is required. Latest drivers installed

Dell 8400
P4 3.6Ghz
1G Ram
Nvidia Geforce 6800 256Mb RAM on Pci express x16.

Maybe its a low end PC, Nvidia and ATI problem - not much hope then:-)

Brendin

[Brendo]

I am having the same problem and I think my specs are somewhere near the top of what is required. Latest drivers installed

Dell 8400
P4 3.6Ghz
1G Ram
Nvidia Geforce 6800 256Mb RAM on Pci express x16.

Maybe its a low end PC, Nvidia and ATI problem - not much hope then:-)

Brendin

[Targonis]

I agree that the game performance could be improved on a bit. I was primarily addressing those with lower-end systems who were complaining about the performance, not those with a high end system.

My own system isn't the fastest out there, though it's decent. Athlon 64 3200+(socket 754 version, stock clock at 2.2GHz), Radeon 9800 pro, 1 gig PC3200 memory. With anti-aliasing turned off, the performance really doesn't seem all that slow considering the video card and what's available these days. Let's face it, a 9800 pro isn't on par with a Geforce 6800, 7800, or for that matter, a Radeon X800, X850, or X1800.

One thing that you may want to try is going for high settings, but with anti aliasing turned off.

[g_storrow]

I am having a strange problem. I installed the game on a Compaq nc 6000 and it worked fine after I put the graphic quality down to medium for my first game. Then a little bit of the way through my second game the game moves incredibly slowly and I keep getting the countryside going very brown. Any ideas?

[cordas]

Originally posted by Targonis
I agree that the game performance could be improved on a bit. I was primarily addressing those with lower-end systems who were complaining about the performance, not those with a high end system.

My own system isn't the fastest out there, though it's decent. Athlon 64 3200+(socket 754 version, stock clock at 2.2GHz), Radeon 9800 pro, 1 gig PC3200 memory. With anti-aliasing turned off, the performance really doesn't seem all that slow considering the video card and what's available these days. Let's face it, a 9800 pro isn't on par with a Geforce 6800, 7800, or for that matter, a Radeon X800, X850, or X1800.

One thing that you may want to try is going for high settings, but with anti aliasing turned off.

Telling people with low end systems to upgrade their PCs because they are slowing down is rather silly when people with high end too bleeding edge machines are also having slow down problems.

Personaly I am having problems with my XP2500, 1GB ram and 9800pro (128mb), I also have just put a clean install of XP on my machine and have all the relevant updated drivers and stuff. So OK my machine is old and has fallen out the bottom of the cutting edge bracket. However I have taken saved games from my machine and put them on my mates XP64 3500, 2GB ram and 6800 ultra 256mb ram and guess what..... a couple of turns into the game and that machine finds itself wading in custard.

Fraxis need a bit of a kicking they have released a game that ain't really ready yet. This game seems to have a number of memory related problems as well as a few crashing bugs (1/3rd of my games end due to the machine being unable to load saved games without rebooting.)

[Weiß Wurst]

Originally posted by Cambo67
It's NOT a memory leak. It's just that the graphics for old units are not removed from video memory once they are no longer required. When you load a saved game, the models/textures for the current units are loaded, and not the stuff for the old units. The renderer has probably not been coded to release the memory from old units. Hint to Firaxis - add this to the patch, please!



Cambo

I think I might have to disagree with this, while it sounds promising, the problem with slowdown, at least for me relates almost always to the playback of movies in wonders and diplomatic sessions. Sometimes you can watch 2 or 3 movies and no problem, then for no particular reason, the game will drop frames immediately and stay that way until a restart of the session. That's why I think it's a memory leak associated with the movies, not just old units, because it can happen at 2000BC or 1970AD or anywhere inbetween, it seems completely random as to when it will begin.

THoughts?

[Cambo67]

Hmm. Not sure there, but then I have updated the sound and video libraries that come with Civ4 with the ones from www.radgametools.com (Bink and Miles Sound System), following the instructions in one of the other posts, so I haven't had any problems with the videos.



Cambo

[Brendo]

The suggestion earlier about upgrading the sound card drivers was a good one for me. I can now get maybe 50 turns before it slows down again.

Save, Quit to Main Menu, Load game brings it back for another 50

To me, its a bug, lets wait for the first patch and hope it fixes it

Brendo

[PhillipAWyllie]

I get ~10fps when I start a new game and I'm just looking at the screen. Also it seems that it's stuck on the high quality renderer( changing this option has no effect in quality or speed). Secondly on a Radeon 9200SE(128Mb) I get the same speed!. I can run Doom3, San Andreas, Thief 3 faster than this.