Speed up your game (and Windows 95/98 ...)

[ghen]

Hmm.. no shell=linux.exe?

Just kidding I'm on a 333 celeron so I can still laugh at you, but not to your face I'll check it out next time I play.

[Martin the Dane]

Good idea
Have to by the linux version though, not to mention install Linux. If I did I might end up replacing all my programs with Linux versions, and I can't afford that right now. (I know I can get lots of free linux software)

[Martin the Dane]

Speed up your game (and Windows 95/98 ...)

I have had some problems running civ:ctp on my 200 MHz Pentium (Yes they are still arround )
One thing is that successive loads slows down the game. Well that's not realy a problem, just quit the game, restart and load the game from the startup menu.

No, what I have found out is that if you run Program Manager as shell in stead of Explorer you get: 10+ MB free RAM, a more stabel system and a much higher speed.
This is not recomendable if while using IE or Outlook Express, as they seems to be much slower under Program Manager.

To do this open up your system.ini file and change the line 'shell=Explorer.exe' to 'shell=Progman.exe' and restart Windows. You will have to make all your icons from scratch, but it's worth it.

(I've made a little program that can be called from Autoexec.bat during boot so I can select wich shell to load. It'll be on my homepage later tonight)

[ghen]

Well I tried it out, and it sure does make it a bit faster.. I now see half the bombards the computer makes instead of a quarter.. Not sure if it's worth the double reboot though

[Martin the Dane]

Double reboot??? Try the utility I posted on my home page, then you just choose the shell at boot. (Se my original post for the address it's only 5.5k)

And it does make a lot of difference on my 200MMX but I'm willing to swap processor if you want to try something slower ROFL

[This message has been edited by Martin the Dane (edited March 06, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Martin the Dane (edited March 06, 2000).]

[pauli]

martin, how much memory do you have? i'm running on a 200mmx with 128, so memory savings aren't too critical for me, but cpu time may be...

have you compared litestep to progman by any chance?

[Martin the Dane]

No haven't tried Lightstep, since I don't have it (that I know of). Is it free? if so where do I get it?

I have only 72 Mb of memory, and available physical memory is important. I have a laptop, with 32 Mb RAM and a Celeron processor, and that's not enough to run the game, unless I want to make myself a cup of tea, every time I move something, and have lunch betwen turns LOL

[pauli]

http://www.litestep.net http://www.litestep.com

litestep is free, and pretty easy to use. the most obvious change from explorer is the big wharf it sticks on the right side of your screen. in my experience, litestep isn't economical below 1024x768, and since i run at 800x600, i don't use it. check out those pages. i don't know if it uses less memory than progman, but i do know it has quite a bit more functionality.

if you do give it a shot, let us know if it makes ctp faster

[ghen]

Yup, double reboot. I keep my computer running continuously, so when I want to play CtP with progman thats one reboot.. then when I switch back to go cruising the web thats another.

[Martin the Dane]

Thank's for the links Pauli. I'm afraid it will cost me quite a few hours of sleep but I'll test a couple of versions, and poste the results.

And ghen, there is a way of swiching shell without rebooting, but I don't remember how to go from Program Manager to Explorer. From Explorer you should be able to do it by just logging-off and on again, but I havn't tried it. Should have mentioned that.

By the way MarkG, what about a sleepy smilie. zzzzzz

[Martin the Dane]

I'm back from testing, my results are a little ambigiouse (how do you spell that???)

First of all I must say that the differences were not extreme, except when moving units through space.
LiteStep is fastest when moving units through space, while Progman is fastest on the surface and displaying menues, shifting map possitions etc.
Some unts however moved fastest under Explorer.

The good results for Progman required that the compuret was booted to Progman. When I changed from Explorer to Progman, simply by logging out and back in again, Progman was significantly slower than with a clean boot.

One last thing is that the game speed decreased notesabely after 5 reloads, of the same saved game. I' did not try successive aves and reloads, but my experiance is that it will decrease game speed.

I have not however optimized my Litestep, as I have my Explorer, so there might be some speed gained by doing that.

Unless someone has any good ideas I guess there is not much else to say here.

If anyone wants my test results thay are on a pice of paper at home, and I'm not planing to type them up.