How to speed up Civ4?

[valve]

I'm on the verge of buying 1 GB RAM (have 512 MB) to speed up at least the loading times. Standard BTS saves load fairly quickly, but with any mod it can take as much as five minutes. And I won't even think about playing any maps larger than Large. Will extra RAM help? Or should I grind my teeth and save for a new computer - by the way I've got a puny Athlon XP 2000+ and an even punier nVidia GeForce 4.

 

[Ammar]

I'd wait for a new PC. All of your components are rather outdated - spending money on a particular one is not going to help much.

 

[Catan_Settler]

I disagree... Having only 512mb of RAM is definitely causing your loads to go slower than they ought to. The jump to a gig is like night and day with these crusty old Athlon chips.

 

[Memo]

RAM is your problem. While upgrading to a new computer would obviously help you, 1GB is far cheaper and will provide instant results.