Anyone know how to make Civ V run more smoothly?

JeffNebraska

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Joined
Nov 7, 2001
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I have the latest, top of the line MPB (15" Corei7 with 512MB NV Graphics), but, as the map gets bigger, I am seeing a lot of chugging. What are the best tips for reducing the demands on one's graphics' card and/or CPU?

Right now, I'm running at the native resolution of the notebook, which I'm sure is part of the problem, but I'd rather not sacrifice that if I don't have to.

Just curious if anyone has spent time testing this out.
 
MBP 15" corei5. I just played a full 500 turn standard game and once I reached turn ~200 or so, the game was pretty much unplayable in 3d mode because I was watching it redraw for 30s-1min each time I moved/panned/zoomed. I had to switch to Strategic View and also had to save every 2-3 turns because the game kept crashing on me.

Unfortunately for you, in my 24 hours of experience, the biggest improvement was made by... going to windowed mode and lowest possible resolution. Next best improvement was from turning every single setting to minimum/low/off.
 
My situation is nowhere near that bad.

I turned off the ultra-close zoom feature (on the left side under v-sync, or whatever) and have been able to keep it at my monitor's native resolution (very high) with most of the graphics settings at medium. It is running just fine. I see a bit of redraw every now and then and it slows down if I zoom all the way out, but it's entirely playable.

Not sure where I'm at in turns, but I have crossbowmen now.
 
My situation is nowhere near that bad.

I turned off the ultra-close zoom feature (on the left side under v-sync, or whatever) and have been able to keep it at my monitor's native resolution (very high) with most of the graphics settings at medium. It is running just fine. I see a bit of redraw every now and then and it slows down if I zoom all the way out, but it's entirely playable.

Not sure where I'm at in turns, but I have crossbowmen now.

Heh just wait till you get to turn ~400-500 and all of the 8 civs have 10+ cities... :p
 
If you want turn times to get faster we need Firaxis to fix the Worker AI (currently the cause of most slowing.
 
I suggest you disable shadows on terrains, --> "OFF"

Because its shadows which slow down generally the speed of most games...

with my ATI HD4850 512 Mo i have all medium settings for graphics, but shadows on terrains which are sat up on "OFF"...
 
I've got a Mac Pro 1,1 with an ATI 5770... everything seems to run well, except things are very "smooth"... for instance, when I click on a city view... the transition is jerky...

Is there anything I can do to improve that? I tried turning down the quality options as well as decreasing my rez; no effect, it seems...
 
I've got the same setup. I find the game entirely playable so far. The only real cure for us is our NEXT Mac Pro. Trouble is, they'll be talking about Civ VI by then. ;)
 
I've got the same setup. I find the game entirely playable so far. The only real cure for us is our NEXT Mac Pro. Trouble is, they'll be talking about Civ VI by then. ;)

Civ VI will likely come out in five years so...
 
OMG... I'm Jeff in Nebraska too!!! And I have this very same question. This is freaky... like looking in a mirror.

I hadn't played Civ V at all for a couple months. Then I got the "free" Mac version and wanted to try it. After the patch, the game plays better and feels more "fun" but boy it is slow. I shut down the graphics and made everything low low low... but it is still slow slow slow... and I haven't even come close to finishing a game.

Running a 3.06 ghz iMac with 8800 GS. A bit older, but what is it about Civ games that makes them so intensive... they are fricking board games. Why can't they be more playable?

I am running full res... I suppose if I drop down from 1920 it will run better? But will it look awful if it isn't playing at my monitor's native Res?

I also don't know why mouse scrolling isn't working. Is this a Civ V issue or my issue? I get to the edge of the screen and nothing happens. I have to use the strategic map to move around the globe.
 
Seriously... it's taking up 131.2% of my CPU time... what is so amazing about this game that it thinks it needs that much?!
 
Seriously... it's taking up 131.2% of my CPU time... what is so amazing about this game that it thinks it needs that much?!

In Unix systems each core is 100% therefore a dual core running completely maxed out would be 200% a quad core 400% a hex-core 600% etc, understand?
 
I understand. But still... so much processing for so little.

I turned on the strategy map, and tried playing that way. It's smoother, but hard to tell what everything is... not as enjoyable. Maybe if I get used to it, it will be better. But I shouldn't have to resort to that.
 
I am running full res... I suppose if I drop down from 1920 it will run better? But will it look awful if it isn't playing at my monitor's native Res?

I tried that, as well as turning down all the graphics to Low... it doesn't seem to make a noticeable difference...
 
But will it look awful if it isn't playing at my monitor's native Res?
Run it in a window, then the pixels will be the correct size for your monitor.
 
One thing I found out last night.

I restarted my Mac and immediately played Civ 5. Performance was the best.

Cheers.
 
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