How does BNW effect performance?

Playing Gods & Kings, my computer could just barely handle the map size I like to play on. I'm considering buying BNW, but first I'd like to ask how it effects performance. Is it about the same? Thanks in advance

edit: here are my specs:

There are two factors. Processing time for AI moves on BNW I think will become legendary - I have seen complaints of AI moves taking up to 20 minutes. On my i5 6RAM GTX 650 I felt seriously put out when AI turns were taking 40 to 50 seconds. I posted about it and some people came back to say BNW was FASTER but in the month or so since then, I have seen dozens of complaints. I dealt with my problem by turning on Quick Moves and Quick Combat, so it's not so bad. Add to longer processing times the fact that the tech tree is designed to be longer, slower, so playing a Marathon game as I always do, can prove a real endurance test. I imagine it would become terribly tedious on a computer at the low end of the spec requirements.

I don't think there's a huge difference other than that

1) there's more stuff to do in the late game and

2) you're less likely to quit in the late game because the late game is more interesting in BNW.

A side effect of this is that late game turn times take a very long time, and when you add in the slightly more late game stuff from BNW, that increases late game turn time slightly. If you're playing on a huge map with 22 civs, that can make late game turn time pretty ridiculous.

Quick movement and combat can combat some of this, and I now turn those on unless I'm fighting a war that I am in danger of losing, and I want to be sure I know what happened (ie: what planes attacked, whether they're in intercept, what's fortifying, etc). Still, if you're playing on a 22 civ map late game, it can be a good idea to do something else in the process of your game, otherwise it can get boring pretty quickly while you wait.

Does BNW add multi-core support? My proceesor is a few years old, but it is a quad core. Thanks in advance

Yes it does support multicore.

The game performance suffers badly when you minimize the game. Seriously, the GPU usage goes up well beyond 90% when minimized.

That is a serious problem because it can overheat your computer. Either play the game or turn it off. Don't minimize it.

Be warned.

Note that I base this off my computer, a 560+Nvidia running latest drivers on W764.

EDIT: To answer your question I wouldn't play the game unless I had 4GB. An old quad core could mean slow turn times.

glider1 said:

Yes it does support multicore.

The game performance suffers badly when you minimize the game. Seriously, the GPU usage goes up well beyond 90% when minimized.

That is a serious problem because it can overheat your computer. Either play the game or turn it off. Don't minimize it.

Be warned.

Note that I base this off my computer, a 560+Nvidia running latest drivers on W764.

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Hey Glider1, I'm looking foward to trying your mod. Did vanilla Civ5 have multi-core support?

Hey Marshall to the credit of the developers, BNW probably uses less computer resources than the original vanilla civ5. The original civ5 did support multicore but not multithread. The point is that the developers want BNW to work on tablets, and so they are trying to make the game not use any more resources than necessary.

glider1 said:

Hey Marshall to the credit of the developers, BNW probably uses less computer resources than the original vanilla civ5. The original civ5 did support multicore but not multithread. The point is that the developers want BNW to work on tablets, and so they are trying to make the game not use any more resources than necessary.

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Do you think that BNW will be any slower or faster (compared to Gods & Kings) with my specs? Thanks in advance

That computer I know well because I had similar when Civ5 first came out. If you can run G&K on it (which you can) BNW will be fine. Turn times will be slower, but they are slower for everyone may be a bit more for you because of the spec.

However if you like really big maps, I think you will still struggle with that computer. I play on small maps quick speed on high difficulty and have fun. You could consider that.

glider1 said:

That computer I know well because I had similar when Civ5 first came out. If you can run G&K on it (which you can) BNW will be fine. Turn times will be slower, but they are slower for everyone may be a bit more for you because of the spec.

However if you like really big maps, I think you will still struggle with that computer. I play on small maps quick speed on high difficulty and have fun. You could consider that.

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Thanks. I'm going to buy BNW and if it's too slow, I might upgrade my graphics card to a 512 memory (from my 256 current).

I haven't seen a performance change with BNW. However for me the various patches over time have made my turns much faster than back in vanilla.

Marshall Thomas said:

Playing Gods & Kings, my computer could just barely handle the map size I like to play on. I'm considering buying BNW, but first I'd like to ask how it effects performance. Is it about the same? Thanks in advance

edit: here are my specs:

Click to expand...

From a video card perspective there should be little or no change.

From a CPU perspective there will be more load as there is much more for the AI to consider.

A couple of things you can do to improve performance.

1. If video is struggling : Run in DX9 mode. Then use NVidia Control Panel or Catalyst or Intels Video Control Panel Program and ensure you are running in performance mode for Civ V.
2. If CPU is struggling, increase the priority of the Civ V process from NORMAL to ABOVE NORMAL (don't go above this as it may actually decrease performance). This needs to be done each time you run Civ V and is accomplished through the TASK MANAGER. This will not hurt your system in any way, just make sure you do not raise the priority above "ABOVE NORMAL".
3. Set your Virus Scanner to Game Mode, or High Performance mode (Not risky). You could also just turn off real time scanning and set your firewall to block all but STEAM and Civ V. There is some risk to doing this so don't do it if you are not willing to take it.
4. Do not run other programs at the same time (ie iTunes, IE, Messenger etc). Just run Civ V on its own and nothing else.
5. If memory is an issue, turn off some of your background process'.
6. Go into the Civ V OPTIONS tabs and reduce your graphical settings down a little.
7. Go into the Civ V OPTIONS and turn off the autosave (or at least make sure it is not saving every couple of turns, as this add significant load to your system). Think about it if you save every turn and each save takes 10 seconds then after 500 turns you have added 5000 seconds or 82 minutes to your turn times. This can be fair proportion of your gaming time if you play through turns fairly quickly.

These steps are all things I routinely do and they help with a variety of games depending on where the performance bottleneck is.

Hope this helps.

my laptop have all the requirements to handle bnw at highest, so if something is wrong is the game not the laptop. i find some issues with bnw regarding huge maps.

and i find annoying when the game have options to turn it better and people say to uncheck it to improve performance when you have a good machine.

I've basically given up playing maps anything bigger than normal. My game'll freeze up past renaissance. Same as scramble for Africa or into the renaissance scenarios. I was initially having issues late game when opening city screens as well, but I sorted it out by lowering the water graphics and playing the game in DX9 mode.

Luziadus said:

my laptop have all the requirements to handle bnw at highest, so if something is wrong is the game not the laptop. i find some issues with bnw regarding huge maps.

and i find annoying when the game have options to turn it better and people say to uncheck it to improve performance when you have a good machine.

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Mate the suggestions I made (and others) were to help, the OP. It was not a criticism. I was not saying anything was wrong with the OP's laptop ??? Truly baffled by how you got that from my response. Also the OP explicitly stated their laptop could barely handle GDS AND KINGS.

So what if your laptop meets the recommended SPECS ? What's this got to do with turn times increasing with the new expansion ? What this got to do with the OP ?

You find it annoying that one person has the audacity to recommend another make some changes to their setups to improve performance ? You have some deep transference issues going on there somewhere.

BTW Categorising your laptop as GOOD means absolutely nothing.

dashwinner said:

I've basically given up playing maps anything bigger than normal. My game'll freeze up past renaissance. Same as scramble for Africa or into the renaissance scenarios. I was initially having issues late game when opening city screens as well, but I sorted it out by lowering the water graphics and playing the game in DX9 mode.

Click to expand...

Sounds like your VIDEO card is struggling a little. Although you probably knw all of what I am going t suggest, I wll do so anyway just in case :

1. If you have an ATI or nVida card, go into Catalyst/nVidiaControlPanel and turn on all performance options.
2. In the Civ V options make sure anti-aliasing is turned off. That can be rather taxing on systems where the card is struggling, especially if it is set too high. Also it does not really add that much visual quality unless you are using a very large screen or zoomed in quite a bit.
3. Play zoomed in as close as you can handle, this will lower the GPU load as there is less to render.
4. If you have a low amount of video memory, lower the texture quality. This may or may not be that noticeable depending on the size of our screen and how far you sit back from your monitor/tv.
5. Make sure you have the latest NVidia/ATI/INTEL video driver that was designed for BNW.

That's about it, hope there is something that help you out in all that.

I should have reported this as a bug to Firaxis but was too lazy.

If I minimize the game to the taskbar, GPU load increases to nearly 100%. Even worse, if you put the computer or laptop to sleep with BNW still running, then wake the computer up, the game will run, but now GPU load has increased by 20-30% for no reason.

Gabriel Pyyrhic said:

Mate the suggestions I made (and others) were to help, the OP. It was not a criticism. I was not saying anything was wrong with the OP's laptop ??? Truly baffled by how you got that from my response. Also the OP explicitly stated their laptop could barely handle GDS AND KINGS.

So what if your laptop meets the recommended SPECS ? What's this got to do with turn times increasing with the new expansion ? What this got to do with the OP ?

You find it annoying that one person has the audacity to recommend another make some changes to their setups to improve performance ? You have some deep transference issues going on there somewhere.

BTW Categorising your laptop as GOOD means absolutely nothing.

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I think the one here who have problems is you, because I didnt even read your post, I posted about the issue and for what happens in general that is people saying to disable this and that when people have a proper machine to work the game at it full quality and performance.

If a laptop works Skyrim in ultra without any problem why should disable High Terrain Graphic or decrease Water Graphic in Civ V? this is a example, is the game problem.

The game actually causes my laptop to shut down due to the heat unless I underclock the CPU, use laptop cooling, and lower the graphics

Zenstrive said:

The game actually causes my laptop to shut down due to the heat unless I underclock the CPU, use laptop cooling, and lower the graphics

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Zenstrive, have you tried a cooling pad? I play on a laptop all the time with a cooling pad and overheating is not an issue.

I have a i7 CPU, 8 GB RAM and 2 GB video card and it handles the game okay, however end turns do slow down. I end up with a book to glance at while it powers through.

Glider1, thanks for the information about minimising. I was wondering if it did slow things down- I thought it was just me.