CPU usage is enormous

[prepareforwar]

hi, i'm using windows xp pro and an athlon xp 2500+ processor. also i have another portable computer which is an intel pentium IV 1800 and have xp pro installed on it. In both computers cpu usage is always above 90% while playing the game. I don't think that civ2.exe needs that much of cpu usage. As a result my athlon 2500 computer always gives warnings about temperature problems. So i checked the temperature of the CPU and it showed 60 degrees celcius!!!

Is there any patch for this problem or civ2.exe really needs that much of cpu??

[Gold Fish]

I haven't heard of anything like this, but you shouldn't have hardware problems regardless of the software you run. Perhaps its time to get a new CPU fan?

[jimmymac]

FYI

I just loaded Civ II with a recent save and Windows Task Manager. I'm sitting at "End of Turn (Press ENTER) (so nothing's really going on) and the Windows Task Manager says CPU Usage = 100%

XP, Duron 800, AGP video card.

No change. Solid green box in the tray. 100%.

jimmymac

[Comraddict]

same thing here. it uses 100% any time focus is on terrain.

[The Person]

I have the same problem. But I don't think that Civ2 takes all processor power, it just takes all available processor power (IE, it lets other programs use what they need before it takes what's left).

[ElephantU]

What else do you have running? Windows does its own "house-keeping" in the background, and most systems have several extra programs (prominently, anti-virus and networking) that run simultaneously. I've seen utilities that break down the CPU usage by program usage; try one to see how much Civ2 is really using.

[geofelt]

This is normal. CIV 2 uses all available cycles while it is awaiting input from you. If another program needs the cpu, then it will yield. Pentium 4 processors 3.2 to 3.8 mhz will consume up to 110 watts. The thermal design point for these is about 70 degrees C. It was a sloppy coding technique.

[The Person]

Yes, that fits with my observations. It tries to use as much processor power as it can, but has doesn't steal from any other applications. If it had just used all that processor time on the AI instead... (Or maybe not. It will just send its units one and one faster.)

It is clear that Civ2 was made in the days when 100 Mhz was incredibly much. (It ran perfectly on my old 100 Mhz laptop.)

[Joe_Chompa]

lol. athlon 3400 processor, 512 megs ram and civ2 is making me overheat. made it to 1200bc in a game before chugging and freezing started.

[The Person]

See? I'm really happy my cooling system works. No trouble overheating, even on my 2800+ Sempron.

But I still don't see why it should eat CPU like that. If it's gonna yield to other programs anyway, why take up all the processor power? It's not like it actully does much to improve the game. At least not on a modern computer.

[timbatron]

Hey guys,

I just saw that some people are having problems with civ2 using 100% cpu. I had that problem as well (was making the fans on some of my computers go crazy) so I wrote a modification of civ2 to fix the problem. You can get the fix at my website:

http://tim.strafenet.com/civ2.html

For any technical people curious, I patched the executable so that the two primary inner loops included a call to the Sleep Win32 function.

The new executable should work on the newest version of civ2 I think. Feel free to email me with any problems you have: tim.misiak-at-gmail. (You can thank me by clicking on the google ads! )

[Catfish]

Terrific!

Originally Posted by timbatron

The new executable should work on the newest version of civ2 I think.

Any chance you can do something similar for the newest *cough* version of Civ2, ie, ToT 1.1? My CPU and case can reach scorching temperatures during the Oz summer. If you can, I'll hump your leg click your Google ads.

[The Person]

The new executable should work on the newest version of civ2 I think.

The newest version from abandonia yes, but not with my version. I get to the startup menu, but I only get the frame before I get the message that "civ2.exe has encountered a problem, etc". I'm running WinXP SP2 on an AMD Sempron CPU, in case that helps.

[timbatron]

I dont have Test of Time, though if someone could email it to me or point me to where I could buy it cheap, I'd be happy to write a patch for it.

Is this the version most people use?

~Tim

[The Person]

I would guess most people play MGE, which is the version I tried (it's the latest if you don't count ToT).

[timbatron]

Ok, I was pretty sure the version I got from abandonia was MGE 1.3, but perhaps it isn't. If you could send your version of civ2.exe to tim.misiak-at-gmail.com it would help me figure out how to get your version working.

I just had another friend test the patch, and it's definately compatible with the version on abandonia (but perhaps only the version on abandonia!) so if anyone wants me to write a patch for a different version, they'll have to email their version to me.

~Tim

[Catfish]

I don't normally run MGE, but to test this out I installed Cedric Greene's FW to MGE upgrade 'patch'. It uses the following version of MGE:

Patch Version 1.3
Internal Version 5.4.0f Multiplayer 26-March-99

I replaced the executable and ran a standard game for a few turns. It worked fine. CPU usage drops to zero when the game's idle. It still maxes out at the end of a human player's turn - when the game's waiting for an Enter keystroke. I'll remember this for when I have the game running in the background.

Originally Posted by timbatron

I dont have Test of Time, though if someone could email it to me or point me to where I could buy it cheap, I'd be happy to write a patch for it.

The required files are a bit large for an e-mail, but I could send the executable. There used to be an MGE to ToT 'patch' available at Cedric Greene's site, but it's been down for some time now. Cedric sometimes comes by this forum, so maybe he can help out here. It doesn't really seem fair to get someone to buy a product just so they can write a fix for somebody else.

Originally Posted by The Person

(it's the latest if you don't count ToT)

In other words, it's not the latest.

[timbatron]

Thanks for the info wobbegong. I'll work on fixing the 100% cpu at the end of the human's turn.

[MikeLynch]

*bump*
Any progress on this for Test of Time? I know my fans are whirring like crazy whenever I play, and a friend of mine (with whom I intended to war in MP) is having total shutdowns which, we theorize, is due to an overactive processor.

timbatron, if you need them, I can easily transmit to you the original Test of Time executable and the no-cd-no-limits patched executable (if they are different for these purposes).

[Catfish]

I don't like your chances. I e-mailed Timbatron in November last year and offered to send him a cut-down version of ToT (around 7 MB). He said to send it over. I did. A couple of months went by and I hadn't heard from him so I e-mailed him again. Still no reply. He's probably been eaten up by real life.