The screen lag needs to be fixed!

[Willem]

Evere since BtS, I get a few seconds delay whenever any kind of screen opens up. This includes the diplomacy screen that comes up when another civ is asking /demanding something from me.

I was just playing a game with Bismarck asking me for all sorts of favours and because of that delay, his screen would not open up until it was time for me to end the turn. Well so many times I'd press the Enter (to end turn) button only to find that I had agreed to something Bismarck wanted from me, though I have absolutely no idea what that was. By pressing Enter it skipped to the confirmation screen so I don't have a clue what he wanted from me. This pretty much makes the game unplayable for me as I'm lost some control over my diplomacy.

I tried to turn off the Wait at End of Turn option, but it didn't make any difference. I was still required to press the Enter button.

[Willem]

Well that's just great! I can't even uninstall BtS without screwing up my Warlords. Now I'll have to install the whole thing again. I think Civ 4 is going to be sitting on my shelf for awhile until all the remaining problems in BtS are fixed by Firaxis, not just by some community member.

[Willem]

OK, now that I've got that rant out of my system, I'm finding it's working better having "Wait at end of turn" turned off. At least I can't accidently hit the Enter button until the AI has done their thing and actually contacted me, which means the screen has to come up before I can do anything. It's going to take some getting used to but in a way I prefer doing it that way. It did get a bit tedious having to constantly hit the Enter button all the time. Now I have periods where I just have to move my units and wait until the AI has done it's thing.

I'm not exactly sure how it works frankly. Sometimes I have to hit Enter, and other times things just move along on their own. I'd appreciate it if someone would enlighten me.

[Reiko]

That happens to me too but I give it a second before hitting enter.
I can't play with the "wait at the end of turn" turned off.

[Supr49er]

If you hit enter too fast you will see the "greed will be your downfall" reply, and you don't even know what you turned down.

It's hard to slow down - sometimes you get into a rhythm hitting the keys.

[Snotty]

play with the 'always war' option on. No more diplomacy troubles!

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Snotty
play with the 'always war' option on. No more diplomacy troubles!

[Willem]

Originally posted by Supr49er
It's hard to slow down - sometimes you get into a rhythm hitting the keys.

That's the problem I was running into, I just got used to automatically hitting the key at a certain time. It kind of becomes second-nature after awhile, but then you might end up hitting it at the wrong time. I'd hate to find myself in a war because I inadvertantly accepted to join a civ in it's war against my neighbour. I've also started having my game auto-save after every turn too, as an added precaution.

I sure wish Firaxis would just fix it though. I was really tempted to just go back and play Warlords and forget about BtS. At least I didn't have the problem in that XP, screens opened up almost instantly. I don't really understand what would cause something like that to break in an expansion.

[snoopy369]

I'd be curious if Warlords behaved itself now for you... the thing is that there was a significant change in DirectX calls (i'm not sure how significant, but it's the reason the old directx version crashes occurred when the initial patch came out) right around BtS's release. It's possible your video card doesn't correctly implement something from that directx version, and you need to upgrade drivers (or downgrade...)

[Willem]

Originally posted by snoopy369
I'd be curious if Warlords behaved itself now for you...

I've already tried it, no problems at all. If I open up any type of screen it's almost instant. The issue is strictly with BtS. I had considering transferring all the civs/units and buildings over to Warlords, but it seemed like way too much hassle trying to get rid of the XML functions that Warlords doesn't acknowledge. I'm pretty sure it can be done but it would be quite a bit of work.

[mkorin]

I think we may be talking about two different problems. The screens opening slowly when you pick them and the end of turn being too slow so that you hit enter too fast. I've had the first problem since BTS, but the second since Civ IV came out. You can see visiably see that the end of turn waits a few seconds before it goes on with wait at end turned off. Thus, I think it is two different issues.

Thanks to whomever suggested turning off wait at end of turn, that fixes the problem for me. Yes, I have to get used to doing things at the begining of my turn as opposed to the end, I can adjust.

It will still wait at the end of the turn if you had no armies or workers etc giving you control of the game.

Mike

[Willem]

Originally posted by mkorin
I think we may be talking about two different problems. The screens opening slowly when you pick them and the end of turn being too slow so that you hit enter too fast. I've had the first problem since BTS, but the second since Civ IV came out. You can see visiably see that the end of turn waits a few seconds before it goes on with wait at end turned off. Thus, I think it is two different issues.

No I'm not talking about two different things. I'm aware that the End of Turn lag you mention has always been in the game. But the screens opening up too late is something new to BtS. I never had an issue with a diplomacy screen opening up after hitting the "end of turn" button before. The screen would always pop up before it came time for me to hit Enter, and never forced me to screw up in this way.

[Ultimo]

I believe I've found a workaround for this screen lag problem by setting the following in the CivilizationIV.ini file:

HideMovieBackground = 1

Makes a huge improvement for me. And I think this is my first post here so hello all.

[Supr49er]

Welcomet to Apolyton, Ultimo!

[Scooby_Doo]

Has anyone tried Ultimo's fix, does it work?