Sluggish Game

[Grunkle]

Hi there,

I'm running Civ 4 on a Pentium 4, 1.8 Ghz with 1 GB ram and a Geforce FX 5200 (256mb).

Everything works, but the game itself has a really low framerate (6-10, i'm guessing) when I'm on the map. Scrolling is sluggish. This is exactly what you'd expect when your machine is barely on the minimum requirements. Except that my machine should run this easily.

Aside from that, what is so difficult about processing a 3d map, it can' t be very taxing to a computer these days...

So I have no CTDs or anything, but the game is *not* enjoyable this way. I tried everything I found on this forum, but nothing helps.

[Cambo67]

The FX5200 has notoriously slow shaders. Try using nvHardPage (downloadable from www.guru3d.com and other sites) to "downgrade" the shaders to an earlier version. Should get quite a boost ;-)



Cambo

[Grunkle]

Damn... it works! I don't understand why, but it does. Seems to me Nvidia needs to hire better people...

Thanks.

[Cambo67]

Heehee. The 5200 is the bottom end of the 5 series FX cards, and is hobbled by the low clockspeed and low memory bandwidth (mine had 64-bit memory!) The V2.0 shaders need more bandwidth to work efficiently, so you're better off downgrading.

Personally, I just went out and bought an FX5700LE for £40, and passed my FX5200 to my sister, who had been struggling along with a TNT2!!!!



Cambo

[sxrahman]

how about GEforce TI 4200

I am having the same slow interface which eventually leads to being kicked out to desktop for low virtual memory... these are my specs...

AMD Athlon XP 3000+ processor (2.17 Ghz)
512 Memory (going to upgrade to either 1Gig or 2Gig)
Nvidea Geforce TI 4200 with AGP8X

I shouldn't be having these problems but I do... It is an awful load time.. (5-8 mins) and then a rather slow end turn sequence (3-8 mins)

Any suggestions?

P.S. all my drivers are updated and currently running Windows XP service pack 2.

Thanks.

Ever learning,
Sharior

[Cambo67]

sxrahman, check your motherboard specs - you may not be able to go to 2Gb RAM. I know I can't with my nForce2 board (EP-8RDA), as it will only take 512Mb DIMMs max, and has just 3 slots (currently using 2 x 512). Make sure you are also using the fastest speed of RAM usable, but don't worry about the CAS. ie DDR400 RAM in my case, set up in Dual Channel mode, so they are accessed in parallel.

How much RAM does your video card have? I'm guessing probably 64Mb. Civ4 really needs more than that for all the textures it uses. Part of your long load times are probably due to the video card storing textures in system RAM (that mysterious AGP Aperture in the BIOS). I'm guessing also that your card only uses AGP 4X, too. AGP 8X would, of course, half the time for stuff to go backwards and forwards between system RAM and the video card....

With the price of video cards now, I would suggest getting at least a Gefore 5700LE 128Mb. That's what I've got. Cost me £40 in a local shop over here. I'm sure they are going to be about $40 on the other side of that wet stuff between us ;-)

BTW, my current system is; Athlon XP 2800+ (2.1GHz), Geforce 5700LE 128Mb, Epox EP-8RDA nForce 2 mobo, 2x512Mb DDR400 RAM, 2x120Gb HDD, 1x80Gb HDD, DVD, CD-RW, DVD-RW.



Cambo

[sxrahman]

My motherboard (MSI KM4M-V) can hold upto 1 Gig Ram chips at 333 (so basically a PC2700 chip) But I only got 2 slots so max I could do is 2Gig... which is way more than any game would need at current times... I will look into the Geforce FX 5700, My current video card, the Geforce Ti4200 is 128MB...

So hopefully the memory upgrade does the trick... * crosses fingers* and hopes it fixes it and the patch comes in soon.

Ever Learning,
Sharior

[ktsai1283]

My system:

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4 GHz (266 FSB)
768 MB PC133 SDRAM
GeForce4 Ti 4600 (128 MB RAM)

Everything works, but I was just wondering... Is it normal to not have any performance differences (as in loading times, speed of scrolling, animations) when I switch between 1600x1200 and 1024x768 resolutions? Do I have a bottleneck in my system that's not due to the graphics card?

I'm using 1024x768 because it's the only resolution that I can use that solves the stuttering sound problem during the opening movie sequence and wonder movies a lot of people on this forum seem to be having.

[Cambo67]

ktsai1283, Screen resolution isn't too much of an issue with a game like Civ4. Quake 4, OTOH.... ;-)

Civ4 doesn't need fast refresh rates to look good. About 15-25fps is probably fine, as there isn't too much movement. The real probable seems to be the texture and 3d model handling - there's too much for many of the video cards that your average Civ player is going to have.

The RAM in your system will be quite a bottleneck, as it is (only) PC133. Not much you can really do about that, short of replacing your RAM with DDR400, which would mean replacing your motherboard (unless you have one of those rare mobos with PC133 and DDR memory slots - I know Soyo made one....). If you were to do that, you might as well replace the CPU at the same time. Does seem a little drastic, though there are some good deals out there on CPU/mobo/RAM bundles. UK readers might want to look at www.novatech.co.uk - they are pretty good. Ordered a 550W PSU a couple of weeks ago, and it arrived 3 days later, even on the cheapest delivery charge.

Overall, your system specs look well balanced, if a little dated. Unfortunately, these things don't stay still for long



Cambo

[pramjockey]

I think it's beyond the systems involved. My rig has similar problems, but it appears over time. I'll start off fine, but a few turns in and I'll slow down. If I reload from that point, it is OK again, but then slows after a bit, so I know it's not that it's too much going on, but some sort of software memory leak or something similar.

My specs:

Athlon 64 4000+
Asus A8N-SLI Premium with latest Bios
1GB PC 3200 RAM
GeForce 6800GT SLI with 256MB RAM
Win XP Pro SP 2
Audigy 2 ZS

All my software is as up-to-date as possible.

[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

[pramjockey]

Interesting.

I've been trying to figure out what's going on, but I obviously missed that one.

No fix other than a patch I assume?

[Cambo67]

Or, when the game starts slowing a little, save, exit to main menu, and load ;-)



Cambo

[dakk005]

ok im having sliggish gameplay and it is crashing after most turns. im using nvhardpage SE build 2 and here are my specs

3.2 intel
1GB RAM
Nvidia 5600go 128MB (comes with Alienware laptop)
Win XP

I know i meet minimum req but it is getting pretty annoying

one reason i think the coding for this game is pretty crappy is that it jumps up in fps on me like outta the blue. ill be playing at like 5-15 fps and its goin all slow and all of a sudden it will jump up to a normal framerate. I been trying different tweaks but it seems to make it run more crappy. any help would be greatly appreciated!!

[Cambo67]

Check your soundcard, possibly....

Also, on the sound tab of the Civ4 options page, try the different sound systems. The default is "stereo", iirc. Set mine to EAX3, as I has a Soundblaster Audigy (with the latest drivers from www.soundblaster.com).



Cambo