Intolerably slow turn times, and rebase animations.

xandos

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 16, 2013
Messages
6
Hi guys, been lurking around here for a while, first post.

Machine specs as follows:
i7 920 2.67GHz
24GB RAM
Win7 64
ATI 6850

Towards late game turn times are getting ridiculous. I understand (if not forgive) the reasons for this, no multithreading in AI, use of LUA scripts etc. I play with movement and combat animations disabled, on large immortal maps with 12+ civs.

Turn time towards the late game can be in excess of two minutes per turn - which is a bit of a joke really. I've read about a replacement LUA dll which claims to maybe speed things up a bit but have read mixed opinions and warnings that it doesn't work. Anyone here with good experience of it?

I noticed in a game playing last night that the AI was rebasing all of it's air units every turn - and it plays animations for this regardless of animations being turned off even in strategic view. If this also goes on in the fog then this could explain at least some of the late game turn time. I've searched with no avail for a way to turn off the rebase animations, could anyone give me any pointers?

I sometimes overclock my machine but I also use it for rendering which can be dangerous to overclock with (introduce errors, overheating etc.) and would rather not have to do this to play a game which is basically a big database.

Has anyone had any joy in other ways with 'optimising' this utterly unoptimised beast? (less civs and smaller maps not a solution)

Love the game by the way, even if I sound frustrated. Thanks for reading!
 
It is a good machine.

Video card should be able to eat CiV for breakfast. I have no graphics related stutters during play, it's simply the process of updating the game state / AI every turn. Very much a CPU processing bottleneck.
 
I usually get up to a minute maximum in those conditions (Immortal with 14 Civs late game). I have a 2.30Ghz CPU. It's worth checking out your CPU speed using a benchmarking tool like CPU-Z CPUID. I discovered that my CPU was not passing the 1200Mhz mark because of my laptop built-in settings.
 
It is a good machine.

Video card should be able to eat CiV for breakfast. I have no graphics related stutters during play, it's simply the process of updating the game state / AI every turn. Very much a CPU processing bottleneck.


I don't suggest stutters, but I have a 2GB video card and my computer still displays events after they have happened.

I play different maps but I don't see times of two minutes- though it seems like it.
 
I have checked cpuID while playing, and it was running at 2800mhz. I've now overclocked it to 3200mhz resulting in the save I was testing reducing from 90 seconds to 80 seconds... Perhaps my earlier statement of two minutes was a little pessimistic.

I guess I'll try turning down the resolution (2560*1440) to check the graphics card even though I'm 99% sure that's not it.

[edit] Changed res down to tiny, zero impact on turn times.
 
Yeah, so back to the original post, has anyone had any luck with that LUA dll replacement?

And anyone know of a way to turn off aircraft rebasing animations?

Any other tips 'n' tricks?
 
And anyone know of a way to turn of aircraft rebasing animations?
+1. And what about disabling aircraft animations but still getting all other animations? 16 bombers attacking one by one takes forever, but I still want to watch the other animations. Anyone? Fall patch Firaxis?
 
I have checked cpuID while playing, and it was running at 2800mhz. I've now overclocked it to 3200mhz resulting in the save I was testing reducing from 90 seconds to 80 seconds... Perhaps my earlier statement of two minutes was a little pessimistic.
80 secs is not too uncommon for those settings, I would say. Depends on the amount of city states you have. And, sometimes there's a bottleneck Civ taking like 50-75% of the entire turn time.
 
In my googling prior to posting I saw that there was a mod that sped up the aircraft attack animations, though as I play without animations now that wasn't any use to me...
 
Yeah, so back to the original post, has anyone had any luck with that LUA dll replacement?

And anyone know of a way to turn off aircraft rebasing animations?

Any other tips 'n' tricks?

I can't help with anything like LUA. However, just a quick question re aircraft rebasing- is this connected with your turn times? To me they always seem to happen immediately (unlike an aircraft attacking a submarine).
 
Nope, even with animations turned off it takes about 1 second per aircraft rebased, even in strategic view (you see the little icon fly along). When the AI is swapping 20 aircraft between cities (pointlessly) in your view the game just sits there waiting for you to watch them all going back and forth, before carrying on calculating the rest of the turns. It was easily taking 10 seconds a turn at one point in this game.
 
I don't doubt you, but it seems so odd. I play on a laptop with a lot less grunt than your system and have never experienced the issues you have.

Hopefully one of the more technically capable posters here can help you. Good luck.
 
Hey AI, there's no rule that states you MUST move EVERY unit every turn. If you wouldn't do the dance every turn then maybe the times would decrease a lot :lol:

That's what I think the main issue is, especially like you said once the AI gets lots of planes. And yes they need to optimize multithreading, or until then you're just better off with more raw speed and less cores.
 
would it not be awesome if the animation showed an armada of bombers bombing simultaneously in formation instead of ten planes that comes and goes, which would require some simple animation work to make combat animations be more dynamic
 
The problem with game speeds is one unit per tile. That's why the ai ismovinh every turb it to try and stop them causing illogical blocks, like not being able to go to war with soneone because even tho you got open borders, your neighbour has a line of troops stopping you getting to the war theatre
 
Fellow Civver,
I have 1Gb video and 2.5Ghz and 4Mb RAM (yes, four!).
Game is slowest after about 1800 AD, but I never wait more than 30 seconds for next turn, and I'm not pulling your chain dude.

You have a memory leak somewheres is my guess.
 
would it not be awesome if the animation showed an armada of bombers bombing simultaneously in formation instead of ten planes that comes and goes, which would require some simple animation work to make combat animations be more dynamic

What would be nice is if you could bomb in groups instead of single bomb runs. would save tons of time. A 3 plane per city max and allow group bombings that increase damage by bombing in groups would be excellent
 
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