Right Specs, Still Slow?

[Shock2998]

Hello all!

I finally got the game. I waited until I'd heard that all of the problems had pretty much been solved.

However, I can't figure out how to keep the game from running so slowly.

My comp can handle it...not a problem. The vid card I'm using is a Radeon 9250.

I've tried turning textures all the way down. Same with mipmap settings. I've tried setting the graphics in the game to the lowest setting and disabling any extra stuff.

But the longer I get into the game, the more it slows down. Right now I'm in the Medieval Era and the thing is running at a snail's pace. Even scrolling across the map is choppy and takes forever.

Any idea on what I can do to enhance performance?

[Metaliturtle]

more ram? patch the game?

Send me $9000 and I'll come try fixin' it for ya!

hehe

seriously though, patching the game fixed 85% of the slowdown on mine which is just above minimum specs.

[Shock2998]

Ah crap, my bad. I should've mentioned that I installed the 1.61 patch. Still, no dice.

I'm just wondering if there is some setting in my Catalyst Control that I can manipulate to fix the problem.

RAM isn't a problem either, as I'm over the recommended system specs.

[Sabre2th]

Make sure you don't have AA/AF cranked up...that will kill you on an older card like that.

[Shock2998]

My filtering...I have set on "Let App Decide", but Aliasing I have set to "performance" and on its lowest setting.

I have absolutely no problems running ANY other games. I'm also a Guild Wars player and even with the new installment in that series (Factions), have had absolutely no trouble and it runs like a charm.

[Shock2998]

Let me explain a little bit more here.

After lowering all of my graphics settings and stuff on my card, Guild Wars looked like crap...and ran like crap.

But Civ IV was no different. Still choppy and slow.

There was no discernable change in the graphics quality or the performance of the game itself.

The movies in the game run beautifully well without a hitch, but the title screen movie comes to a standstill...and I have to click to get it to the game load screen.

This is all very, very wierd. It's live Civ IV is ignoring any changes I make to my video card.

[Shock2998]

I don't mean to keep posting up this thread with any updates to my own problem, but I just found something else that helped me out....a little bit...although everything is still odd....

I went into the "config" file and changed the "memsav" value to "1".

This stopped the choppiness from scrolling everywhere but any jungle areas. If there's a large amount of jungle terrain (I almost always play in a tropical setting...and have for every installment since it was an option), then everything slows down considerably...ESPECIALLY if I have a worker or two in those areas clearing out paths.

Does that make any sense to anyone?