Extreme Game Slowdown since the pre G&K Patch

[aaronlk]

The patch that came out before Gods and Kinds was released slowed down the game to the point where it becomes unplayable sometime around 1000-1700 AD. This has happened for at least 5 games that I've started (all the games since the patch).

I'm using Windows Vista (32 bit), 3 GB ram, HD 5570 (1 GB). Catalyst 12.6. Steam. DirectX 9. Civ version number 6.0.6002.

Lowest graphics settings. Small map. 1440x900. Civ 5 is only using 1.05 GB of RAM. I've got 20-30% of my RAM free.

The mouse starts lagging (Logitech M305 - wireless). I move the mouse and the mouse pointer doesn't move on the screen. It starts off being hard to click on things, like there is a 100-500 ms lag. Then it gets to be a 1-5 second lag. It increases until the point where I give up and exit the game. Sometimes the lag will decrease, but this is normally a short-term relief. It might have something to do with how many cities/units I have.


I have played 700 hours of Civ 5 before the patch without these problems.

I've tried reinstalling. I've tried verifying the integrity of my game files. I've tried Catalyst 12.3 and 12.6.

 

[buchengshi]

Have you disabled multi-threading?

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?123522-Having-issues-with-the-latest-patch-Read-this

Works for some people.

 

[aaronlk]

Trying now using DirectX 10/11.

CPU went from 25% to 32-44% which means that multi-threading seems to now work properly. I have a quad-core (Intel Q6600), so previously DirectX 9 was maxxing out a single core and only using 1-3% of the other cores.

Memory dropped from 1.05 GB to 800 MB!

Tentatively this seems to fix the problem. Maybe the multicore support wasn't tested on DirectX 9.

 

[aaronlk]

Using DirectX 10//11 only works part of the time. Just froze a game playing Carthaginians, small map, lowest graphics, 900 mb of RAM (70% of RAM is used), around 550 BC. Reloading sometimes helps.

I'm running anti-virus software, steam, and winamp (listening to music) in the background. I wonder if it possible to confuse the multi-thread function? When it crashes, Civ 5 is < 25% of my quad-core CPU - so it looks like it is only using one core.

 

[TPQ]

If you have a multicore CPU, you don't want to disable multi-threading in the .ini file. That is supposed to only help people with single core CPUs. You want Civ to multi-thread if you have a multicore CPU.

Sounds to me like you've got something going on in the background that previously you didn't and that this background process has just occurred around the time of G&Ks by pure coincidence. Make sure to check your running processes and see if something is taking resources up.

Alternatively, I'd suggest you get your favourite defrag program and defrag your HDD. G&Ks moved a lot of files around and I found my HDD was ~6% fragmented after installing it the first time.

Otherwise I'm not sure what to suggest other than the usual things like checking your system temps to make sure your CPU isn't throttling under load and your other components to make sure they're not getting too hot.

 

[aaronlk]

The new patch fixed it. That took a while, but I'm glad that the game is now playable again.