64 MB of RAM Don't Cut It

[MBloomIII]

Up until today when I installed an additional 128 MB of RAM, Civ III was dragging worse than Apolyton. I have a Pentium II system with 64 MB of RAM, an 8 Gig hard drive, blah, blah, blah, all the things listed as a minimum needed to play Civ III. Actually I think 32 MB of RAM may be the listed minimum. Anyway, the game was taking 2-3 minutes between turns in the early game stages and up to 5-10 minutes per turn in the middle ages. Needless to say, I haven't gotten past that point yet. But no longer. I just started a game earlier and the additional RAM make all the difference in the world. The game plays smooth and quickly like it should. Now maybe I can get the hang of this thing.

[Green Giant]

Wow thats an ancient computer, you might want to consider making a large upgrade soon while everything is cheap.

[player1]

If you have just turned off the music, game would run just fine with 64 MB RAM. I know. At least at standard maps with 8 players. And maybe large maps.

And huge, but only early game.

P.S.
my conf:
333Hmz Celeron 64 MB of RAM, 8GB hdd and Intel graphic.

[C0ckney]

I have 64mb it runs ok for me (even on huge), I do have a PIII 450 in there which helps a bit.

[MBloomIII]

My problem was the program was eating up virtual memory and the hard drive was running almost constantly while the game was playing. And yes, it is an ancient computer at about 4 years old, but for what we use it for it is fine. Except Civ III of course, which the memory upgrade took care of.

[player1]

THE KEY IS TO TURN OFF THE MUSIC!!!

Then game will not need swap during a turn (only while waiting a new one or never). Which increases game performane considerably.

Decoding MP3 needs lots of memory. That's probably a reason why game swaped so much for you.

[Grrr]

I don't see your problem, Civ3 works fine on my PII366 with 64MB ram, 6GB HDD, and 4MB S3 Trio graphics, I must agree however that it runs slowly on my P90 with 16Mb ram with a 1GB HDD and a 1MB graphics card, but fine on small worlds.

[Zanzin]

On my old computer, P2 350, 64mb of RAM, the game was almost unplayable with the music on. Turning it off definately helps, but when you get towards the later ages....argh!!!

What really helps is getting more RAM. 512mb DDR-RAM, and an Athlon XP 1700+......well, things are a lot better, basically!

[Grrr]

Originally posted by Zanzin
On my old computer, P2 350, 64mb of RAM, the game was almost unplayable with the music on. Turning it off definately helps, but when you get towards the later ages....argh!!!

What really helps is getting more RAM. 512mb DDR-RAM, and an Athlon XP 1700+......well, things are a lot better, basically!

Of course they are better, but for the time being my machine (see above) is fine, I don't know wassup with yours?

[aebbeka]

A REALLY old Computer

I have a friend (yes it really is a friend, not me) that has a Pentium ONE, 166 MHz, with 64 meg RAM.

He is currently addicted to Civ2 and is dying to play Civ3, but thinks it will be unbareably slow on his computer. Is it super slow? Has anyone tried it on that old of computer? My guess is that it would probably lock up a lot.

[Grrr]

Re: A REALLY old Computer

Originally posted by aebbeka
I have a friend (yes it really is a friend, not me) that has a Pentium ONE, 166 MHz, with 64 meg RAM.

He is currently addicted to Civ2 and is dying to play Civ3, but thinks it will be unbareably slow on his computer. Is it super slow? Has anyone tried it on that old of computer? My guess is that it would probably lock up a lot.

Yes it is possible, if one overclocks it to about 300mhz, however, I don't give the processor much working life. Civ3 will run normally on such a slow processor, however is very vulnerable to crashes and glitches, and can stuff the whole computer up.

[simwiz2]

i have 366 mhz, but its a CELERON and not a pentium II, so the game is really slow and locks up in diplomacy alot. i have 64 Mb ram and all other sys rq.

[SlowwHand]

Try playing on 32 mb of RAM. Thats' what I have right now.
Want to talk lag?
Also 366 celeron, but I think RAM is the main problem.
It's playable, but I'll be glad to see the game whenever I upgrade RAM.

[Navyman]

If you are having a problem with the slowness of the game then get the "nocd" patch and play it that way. Makes a lot of diff.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by simwiz2
i have 366 mhz, but its a CELERON and not a pentium II, so the game is really slow and locks up in diplomacy alot. i have 64 Mb ram and all other sys rq.

I, too, have a Celeron, but with only 32mb RAM. It's slow, but works. Turns on a large map take a long time, but that's not so bad. In the pauses I've caught up on letter writing and some reading I'd been meaning to do before the Civ3 needle got stuck in my arm.

All told, I'm thinking about buying another 32mb...