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My system is pretty average (Athlon 1.7, 1 GB RAM, GeForce FX 5200), and before patch 1.52 I was experiencing generally bad performance (the game was running slow, jerkiness on animations and on scrolling map), even though I never had crashes or CTDs or any graphical corruption.
I've been tweaking it a little bit and I managed to improve the frame rate considerably, although the stuttering movies are still a nuisance (and I think that only a new patch from Firaxis could fix this).
So, here's what I did:
- I installed patch 1.52 (duh);
- I installed the newest Nvidia drivers (81.98);
- Adjusted the graphics to "low" (with "low resolution textures" activated), but unchecking "Single unit graphics", "Animations frozen" and "Effects disabled" - I like some eyecandy too!
- Finally, and the most important thing: I downloaded and installed RivaTuner, which allows me to change some graphic settings in my card that would be otherwise unavailable from the tab on "Display properties".
On the "Main" tab in RivaTuner, go to Driver settings -> Customize -> DirectX -> Shaders and change the values there from "no override" to "force 1.1". Click OK and restart your machine.
I got a huge boost in frame rate when I did this, and I guess that disabling shaders completely would be even more of a boost, but I haven't done this because I play other games and this change would affect them too.
So, a fair warning: unless you know what you're doing, do not go changing everything in your card with RivaTuner, because this will affect your global card settings and may have unpredictable effects over your system. Also remember that these changes will apply to your whole system, and this could degrade the performance in some games. If you want a deeper explanation about what some of your graphic card settings do, tons of sites can help you understand it, such as Guru 3D.
So, this is it: newest patch, newest drivers, low graphic settings and setting up the card to force 1.1 shaders. Hope it may be helpful to those who are experiencing a bad performance.
I've been tweaking it a little bit and I managed to improve the frame rate considerably, although the stuttering movies are still a nuisance (and I think that only a new patch from Firaxis could fix this).
So, here's what I did:
- I installed patch 1.52 (duh);
- I installed the newest Nvidia drivers (81.98);
- Adjusted the graphics to "low" (with "low resolution textures" activated), but unchecking "Single unit graphics", "Animations frozen" and "Effects disabled" - I like some eyecandy too!
- Finally, and the most important thing: I downloaded and installed RivaTuner, which allows me to change some graphic settings in my card that would be otherwise unavailable from the tab on "Display properties".
On the "Main" tab in RivaTuner, go to Driver settings -> Customize -> DirectX -> Shaders and change the values there from "no override" to "force 1.1". Click OK and restart your machine.
I got a huge boost in frame rate when I did this, and I guess that disabling shaders completely would be even more of a boost, but I haven't done this because I play other games and this change would affect them too.
So, a fair warning: unless you know what you're doing, do not go changing everything in your card with RivaTuner, because this will affect your global card settings and may have unpredictable effects over your system. Also remember that these changes will apply to your whole system, and this could degrade the performance in some games. If you want a deeper explanation about what some of your graphic card settings do, tons of sites can help you understand it, such as Guru 3D.
So, this is it: newest patch, newest drivers, low graphic settings and setting up the card to force 1.1 shaders. Hope it may be helpful to those who are experiencing a bad performance.
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