Why does it take so long??

[Stuie]

Originally posted by alva
Huge games can take up to 700MB of virtual MEM!!!
Take a look at task manager, you see.

That's another good point. I've configured virtual memory so that 1024MB are reserved. If your virtual memory is low, that can slow you down, too.

[kcbob]

My Civ III games were turning into dogs until we had some friends over for Thanksgiving. I mentioned to one how my PC was acting up and he took a look at it. Imagine my surprise when we found two viruses and 195!!!, yes 195, spyware components courtesy of Kazaa. We cleaned it all up and it was like buying a new computer. You might try looking into that.

[Dr. A. Cula]

If you're playing with auto-save turned on, like I do, you might want to take a look at how windoze is managing your hard disk. Imagine my surprise when I discovered stupid WinMe had no idea how to use DMA on my hard disk!

[theNiceOne]

I don't really understand the slow games that people complain about. Granted, I normally play on standard maps, but my last game was on huge (16 civs) pangea map. It ended with a space ship win for me , with 8 civs left.

I guess that the last turns had less than 30 secs waiting time between the turns (not counting visible enemy movement which goes fast when I hold down shift, or my build choises), which is fully playable, and not even irritating.

So what monster machine do I have? It's a laptop, 1 GHz P3 with 256 MB RAM (with a onboard graphics processor that uses the standard RAM). Not much to brag about, but it can still play huge games without much problems.

[alva]

It ended with a space ship win for me , with 8 civs left.

Try the same game, but leave all 16 alive, you might notice a small difference

[alva]

Imagine my surprise when we found two viruses and 195!!!, yes 195, spyware components courtesy of Kazaa.

I use both spybot and Adaware at least 3 times a week.

I've configured virtual memory so that 1024MB are reserved.

Setting your virtual partition too big, can slow your PC down too btw, a lot in fact. If you 512 MB a VM partition of 300 MB should be enough.

For people with '98 or ME never use more then 256Ram, there is no point in doing so. Both the OS's can't handle it.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Stuie


That's another good point. I've configured virtual memory so that 1024MB are reserved. If your virtual memory is low, that can slow you down, too.

Another thing too, your OS. I'm getting a little better performance ever since I upgraded to XP Pro. Not a lot, but every little bit helps.

[Willem]

Originally posted by kcbob
My Civ III games were turning into dogs until we had some friends over for Thanksgiving. I mentioned to one how my PC was acting up and he took a look at it. Imagine my surprise when we found two viruses and 195!!!, yes 195, spyware components courtesy of Kazaa. We cleaned it all up and it was like buying a new computer. You might try looking into that.

Yes Kazaa is bad for that. Try Bearshare instead. You'll probably like it better overall, much more user friendly IMO.

[Willem]

Originally posted by alva


I use both spybot and Adaware at least 3 times a week.

Adaware caused me some serious headaches when I mistakenly erased something I shouldn't have. I won't trust it again. It's classification of what is spyware seems to be rather broad IMO. You need to be careful with it.

[kcbob]

Adaware is what we used and we were pretty careful about what we deleted. As for a substitute for Kazaa, a guy yesterday told me about a site called 'lime' something. I wrote it down but it's at home. I'll check tomorrow.

[alva]

Never had any problems with adware, ATM it isn't updated anymore. So you do have to be carefull in that area.

Kcbob: limewire?
Kazaa is filled with spyware: use kazaa lite ++

Now lets get back on topic, and not turn it into a fileshare/spyware thread

[kcbob]

Limewire sounds right.

Back on subject... I have noticed one thing. When the AI is taking its turn, if you hold the Shift key down, the graphics fly by. That helps some.

[Willem]

Originally posted by kcbob
Adaware is what we used and we were pretty careful about what we deleted. As for a substitute for Kazaa, a guy yesterday told me about a site called 'lime' something. I wrote it down but it's at home. I'll check tomorrow.

LimeWire. I've tried it, I like Bearshare better. You should get both and compare.