ugh... savegame load time

[tai4ji2x]

first time i've bothered to get to the gunpowder units, and my god, these load times are HORRIBLE! i often have to wait 3 minutes (once as long as 6 min) just to load a saved game.

huge world, 15 civs

P4 2.8 GHz, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9800pro 128MB


MORE PERFORMANCE TWEAKS, FIRAXIS, PLEASE

edit: oh, and time in between turns is pretty bad too!

[Kuciwalker]

Get a better computer.

[tai4ji2x]

oh, real mature

[Cordelayne]

"Get a better computer" is an obnoxious answer! My computer exceeds the RECOMMENDED specs for Civ4. It has no save and load problems with ANY other game. On Civ4, I never play larger than Standard maps, usually Tiny or Small.

And still, the game is really intolerably slow at loading saved games. In fact, I think it's slower to load a game after one has been playing a while than it is to load one for the first time.

I tolerate this--so far--because this is Civilization, and I really like the new balance of everything with Civ4. But I do think that slow loads are a really serious problem. Much of that is the kludgy use of XML and Python scripts. The machine shouldn't have to parse everything every time it loads.

[Dis]

it helps reduce the urge to reload after bad combat results.

[tai4ji2x]

thank you cordelayne

you're right, of course - the recommended specs on the box (http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/support_msr.htm) are:

Processor:
1.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent

Memory:
512 MB RAM

Video:
128 MB Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel & vertex shaders)

so, even though my CPU and memory are "above-spec" i have these slowdowns even on non-huge maps once i get into the medieval stage.

[phlucas]

Re: ugh... savegame load time

Originally posted by tai4ji2x
first time i've bothered to get to the gunpowder units, and my god, these load times are HORRIBLE! i often have to wait 3 minutes (once as long as 6 min) just to load a saved game.

In my experience, exiting the game, restarting and loading a saved game is much, much faster than reloading during the game; on large maps, ca. 30 seconds compared to more than 2 minutes. (2 GHz Athlon, 1.5 GB RAM)

[tai4ji2x]

Re: Re: ugh... savegame load time

Originally posted by phlucas


In my experience, exiting the game, restarting and loading a saved game is much, much faster than reloading during the game; on large maps, ca. 30 seconds compared to more than 2 minutes. (2 GHz Athlon, 1.5 GB RAM)

yes, i've found this to be true as well, but not as drastic - e.g. maybe 3 min. w/ restart vs. 4+ min. in-game

[tai4ji2x]

Originally posted by Dis
it helps reduce the urge to reload after bad combat results.

yes, but this problem also seems to extend to the AI turn (after you press "END TURN").

[Datajack Franit]

to be honest, I noticed the opposite! loading time seems to be shorter when loading in-game, and your computer isn't that cool after playing for 3 consecutive hours

[Zan]

What I find strange is you don't say anything about the speed of your HDs. What makes you think the slow loading is because of your processor instead of because the game simply needs to load a lot of data?

[Cordelayne]

Zan, I don't remember the specs, but I have a high-end SCSI hard drive. You've got it completely wrong. It's not the AMOUNT of data that is being loaded. For crying out loud--I had Civ3 games on huge maps that needed to load 50 times the data of my average Civ4 loads, and did so crisply.

We're not mentioning that, because that is not the point at all. The point, in my opinion, is all the parsing that the load procedure uses. It is amateurish for a high-end game like this. There are, for example, recursive techniques combined with various kinds of preloading strategies that can make saves MUCH faster. Like, what is done on almost all other high-end games. They've just done a VERY crappy job on this so far with Civ4.

[tai4ji2x]

Originally posted by Zan
What I find strange is you don't say anything about the speed of your HDs. What makes you think the slow loading is because of your processor instead of because the game simply needs to load a lot of data?

yeah, like cordelayne said...

anyway, my HD's are all Western Digital Caviar JB (8MB Cache), 7200 rpm. sure, it's not SCSI or RAID, but i doubt that they're the main bottleneck here...

[mattcj]

Don't know guys... sure you don't have something else on your machine that's bogging things down? I play standard sized maps, 2.8 gigs with 512 megs ram and radeon 9800 with 256 megs, and save games don't take longer than about 30 seconds to load.

[Russian_King]

i got a 3.36 P4, 512 ram and a SATA maxtor 200 GB hdd and my loading times are fine! i load standard maps in seconds! multiplayer even faster sometimes!
u have to remember that loading games accesses ur Hard drive more than ur cpu, so if u have a Parallel ATA HDD that could be the very reason u have long load times! otherwise i suggest u reformat, ur comp may be clogged up!
my max load time was not enough for me to go to the kitchen to pour a glass of orange juice, and that was on a large map. sorry guys, a 2.8 prescott is fine, its prolly ur hard drive and configs. plus, cIV is better than civ3 in this perspective anyway so praise it!