How do I get it to load faster?

[MinorAnnoyance]

Recently in another discussion someone mentioned the 30 seconds it takes Civ4: BTS to start, which I found surprising since mine takes five minutes. Also in a discussion about how long a game lasts people who play marathon on a huge map who say the like to micromanage were finishing in half the time it takes me to play out a normal speed, standard sized map. So obviously something is slow with my computer. Here's what I'm running:
Pentium 4 1.6GHz, 512 MB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 graphics card. I can't find where it will tell me how much video ram I have.
The easiest and cheapest thing to upgrade would be the RAM, so will that work or is something else slowing it down?

[snoopy369]

RAM would certainly help, and at 512M you might well be running into a limit there where it's swapping things to the HDD already. Do you mean 'load' as in 'start the program' or 'load a save/begin a game'. Finally, does it take significantly longer to load a late game save than an early (say 3000 BC or something) save? All of those things point to memory - the more units there are etc., the longer it will take to load under low RAM conditions (well, longer always, but MUCH longer with low RAM).

In general, 512MB RAM is the absolute minimum for CIV4, and 1024 (1GB) is really what i'd consider the well playable minimum. Your graphics card isn't too hot either - close to the minimum - but RAM is probably your first bet to improve performance.

If it takes a long time to boot the program up in the first place (not loading a save, just to main menu) then your HDD space could be low, or you have too many background programs and it has to swap everything to memory. With the 5 minute time you quote though that sounds like you're talking about loading a save.

[logicman49]

Snoopy is correct! I just recently went from 128mg to adding 2g. I left the 128mg in and now the game flies and I added back all the little graphic thingees, too. I had the same issue you had and as the game got bigger things got slower. I was rebooting but it didn't help. I think the 2g was about $200 but it was a few months ago so I could be mistaken in the cost.

[Quillan]

I agree that you definitely should upgrade to a minimum of 1 gig of RAM, but in your case I think your processor is the big bottleneck. 1.6 Ghz on an old Pentium 4 isn't much compared to any recent models. Those date back to when the Athlon Thunderbirds were running rings around the Intel CPUs. Not knowing what socket type you have on the motherboard, however, I can't say whether upgrading just the processor is even possible. You've got a basically 7 year old processor there, so I'd say it's time to start thinking about a newer computer.

[Solver]

He probably has a Socket 478 there, but even if he had a 775, he still wouldn't be able to get a new CPU running well on a motherboard that old.

5 minutes is too long to load, unless we're talking about a save on a huge map, not the game itself. Still, you likely are low on memory and swapping a lot.

Generally speaking, it's time for an upgrade if you can afford it. 512 MB RAM is playable pretty okay unless you play the larger maps, and the FX 5200 can also handle the game (snoopy, ya know, Civ4 doesn't quite tax the GPU), but it's the combination of all these that leads to a slow experience. I'm guessing it's one of the first Pentium 4 processors, probably a Northwood core, which don't even have hyperthreading. In other words, that's a slow CPU by today's standards - it's not just the load times, late-game turn times are probably also going to get ugly.

If you can only afford to upgrade one part, go for RAM. You can do that without the need to upgrade your motherboard or anything else, RAM is cheaper than the other components and even an increase from 512MB to 1GB will give a notable performance improvement.

[snoopy369]

5200 is pretty minimal, and it does too tax the GPU ... how many of the tech support requests have been ultimately caused by GPU overheats

That said, i'd say fix RAM and CPU first, as you do. 5200 is no 440mx (abs min spec), but 5200 is the worst of the 5000 series, isn't it ... and those 5000s were pretty iffy. (That said, I think I had a 5600 or thereabouts when I started civ4, and that ran fine ... but 5200 was behind those I think.)

[Solver]

5200 supports pixel and vexel shaders. Neither are required for Civ4 to run, so I'd say it's not really minimal, a GeForce 4 MX would be. The problem is that the 5200 is damn slow... but even with such a slow card, the delays in rendering are likely to cause less trouble delays due to memory caching and general turn processing.

I started Civ4 myself on a very unusual, almost unique , 5200/5700 hybrid. Ran well enough. I'm not hard to please when it comes to performance, but video card sure wasn't my biggest problem back then. But yeah, the entire FX series is weird. Sadly. Though it doesn't really show with Civ4, it shows with other games. FX series has support for 2.0 shaders, on paper, but in practice they slow down to 1-3 FPS as soon as any scene is rendered with 2.0 shaders. Only the later releases of FX series could render 2.0 shader scenes at anything resembling normal performance, and even then nothing great...

[Wiglaf]

I have found that having a woman handy makes the loading times fly by. In addition please focus on reading or check your email while it is loading.

Long load times are a great way to get involved and accomplish things in your gaming time.

[Willem]

Originally posted by MinorAnnoyance
Here's what I'm running:
Pentium 4 1.6GHz, 512 MB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 graphics card. I can't find where it will tell me how much video ram I have.
The easiest and cheapest thing to upgrade would be the RAM, so will that work or is something else slowing it down?

It looks to me like you pretty much need a whole new computer. Everything you have is old and underpowered compared to today's systems. Getting more RAM would certainly help, but your processor and video card are pretty much inadequate for any of today's games. Don't even think about getting Neverwinter Nights 2 with a GeForce 5200.

[Makahlua]

RAM is, like everyone's said, one of your biggest culprits, but I recently upgraded my gfx from an onboard 6150 chip to the 8600GTS. And while expecting a nice boost on more -obviously- graphics-heavy games, I was pleasantly surprised to get a quite nice boost to Civ4! My mid/late game lag has (mostly) been replaced with smoothness

So don't overlook graphics if you upgrade soon!

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Solver
5200 supports pixel and vexel shaders. Neither are required for Civ4 to run, so I'd say it's not really minimal, a GeForce 4 MX would be. The problem is that the 5200 is damn slow... but even with such a slow card, the delays in rendering are likely to cause less trouble delays due to memory caching and general turn processing.

All I know is that back when Civ4 came out, many people with 5200s had serious issues that I had to help tech support (even those with enough RAM/CPU power), enough that I read "5200" and say "eek". I saw more success with some of the 4000/400 line than with the 5200s.

[Solver]

That's because the 5200 is buggy or, rather, just implements its functions poorly. Say, if the game decides to use shader versions of graphics with the 5200, there's a hundred ways for something to go wrong. It's a special card

[Targonis]

Originally posted by Solver
That's because the 5200 is buggy or, rather, just implements its functions poorly. Say, if the game decides to use shader versions of graphics with the 5200, there's a hundred ways for something to go wrong. It's a special card

The entire Geforce FX 5000 series of video cards were poor performers when it came to DirectX 9. This is why the Radeon 9500 and above were so much better during that generation, DX 9 performance.

So, while the 5200 was able to do DirectX 9 in hardware, performance was pathetic.

But, for more helpful advice to the original poster...

Because your computer is very outdated by the standards of today, you would be better off putting your money into a new computer than you would in upgrades for your old computer. A new tower, even with crappy integrated ATI or NVIDIA graphics will still have better graphics abilities than your current machine while giving you a faster hard drive, CPU, and more memory. And you can get the replacement tower for only $550 or so(2 gigs of RAM, dual-core CPU).

Just make sure the machine you get has a PCI-Express slot so you can upgrade the video later if money is a concern.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Targonis


The entire Geforce FX 5000 series of video cards were poor performers when it came to DirectX 9. This is why the Radeon 9500 and above were so much better during that generation, DX 9 performance.

So, while the 5200 was able to do DirectX 9 in hardware, performance was pathetic.

But, for more helpful advice to the original poster...

Because your computer is very outdated by the standards of today, you would be better off putting your money into a new computer than you would in upgrades for your old computer. A new tower, even with crappy integrated ATI or NVIDIA graphics will still have better graphics abilities than your current machine while giving you a faster hard drive, CPU, and more memory. And you can get the replacement tower for only $550 or so(2 gigs of RAM, dual-core CPU).

Just make sure the machine you get has a PCI-Express slot so you can upgrade the video later if money is a concern.

Generally agree, but for the integrated video.

DO NOT EVER BUY A DESKTOP WITH INTEGRATED VIDEO, if you are using it for gaming. It won't work for gaming, and integrated video causes all sorts of conflicts with real graphics cards.

$550 gets you a fine computer WITH a video card... take a look at the technology forum (in Off Topic), one of the guys there just got help building a computer for under $500 after MIRs (under $600 before) with a great video card (8600GT) and some excellent specs.

[Solver]

I think Targonis was referring to integrated nVidia graphics specifically. Those exist and they do have acceptable performance. Relatively acceptable, of course - if possible, always get a real video card.

And yeah, Sloww's a sucker. He got a really good deal there.