Is your game sluggish ?

[Jh00]

Hi!

Despite some bugs, what is really depressing me is how slow the game is on my machine. Even in the lowest possible GFX setting, sometimes I get 1-2 fps. I simply gave up my last game (around 1997AD) because I couldn't even scroll the world anymore (not to mention that I never use the global view, because I can barely rotate it).

So, your experience with Civ4, from start to the end of a standard sized map, is slow too?

Don't forget to post your system configuration. Mine:
- Athlon 2000 XP
- 1 Gb RAM 400
- ATI RADEON 9800 PRO 128Mb
- Windows XP SP2
- No trojan/virus/spyware/adware or any other wares, I'm very concerned about those.

P.S. - I don't run any other program while running Civ4.
P.S.2- I voted "So slow that I can barely move the camera."

 

[CrossTheRiver]

No it crashes to the MFING desktop every 30 minutes to an hour.


It sucks. So hard to play with the DESK TOP as my PLANET.

 

[kefka01]

Just a suggestion, if you can you might want to combine the top 3 options into one selection, as they all kind of mean the same thing

 

[Phoenix_56721]

I have only played now about 5 hours ( 920ad) and have not had one bug, or crash yet. It runs real smooth, and I have a old computer 866mhzz, 512 ram, Geforce 128mg 5700 le, creative labs sound card. The sound breaks up a little during the Wonder movies but thats it (BTW, does anyone know how to turn those movies off?), everything else is fast. I can zoom from world view to close up with no lag, no lag during turns or mousing over tiles. oh yeah, I'm playing on a standard map with medium settings, on high I experience a little lag.

 

[Jh00]

Just a suggestion, if you can you might want to combine the top 3 options into one selection, as they all kind of mean the same thing

Good point, but what I had in mind was that you could play the game on "average", but it wasn't still as fast as Civ3.

I think I will record a video of my gameplay experience and post it here, maybe we can compare that with each other.

 

[Jh00]

it would be nice if people could post their system specs, so we can check what would be a "recommended" pc.

 

[rastak]

Works great on both of these systems


Pentium D 820
1 Gig ram
SB Live
ATI x700


and

2.6G P4
1 Gig ram
Audigy 2
ATI Radian 9600

 

[SimaYi]

No crashes here, only sound skipping during the wonder movies/introduction movie. Course, it reallys like really sluggish/really slow/really skippy if I play with 6+ other CIVS.

Intel Celeron 2.6GHz
512MB of RAM
128MB nVIDIA GEforce MX 4000

 

[AER]

Here are my specs:

ATI X2 3800+
1 GB RAM
Geforce 7800 GTX

This game flies at 1680x1050 with 4x AA, which is just awesome. Many modern games are sluggish at much lower resolutions than that - The highest full-speed resolution on this setup for Quake IV, for example, is 1024x768 with no AA.

I think the average Civ IV player has been spoiled by the extremely low requirements of the previous games. This is not an overly demanding game by today's standards.

In fact, with this setup I still had enemy turn delays in Civ III - Civ IV fixed that.

Another impressive aspect of Civ IV is the fact that it seems to really take advantage of my dual core CPU - this is the first game I have played that reads out at near-even levels between the two cores. It's great

 

[Hypus]

Here are my specs:

ATI X2 3800+
1 GB RAM
Geforce 7800 GTX

This game flies at 1680x1050 with 4x AA, which is just awesome. Many modern games are sluggish at much lower resolutions than that - The highest full-speed resolution on this setup for Quake IV, for example, is 1024x768 with no AA.

Another impressive aspect of Civ IV is the fact that it seems to really take advantage of my dual core CPU - this is the first game I have played that reads out at near-even levels between the two cores. It's great

Yea I think that for larger than standard and 6+civs that it's all going to be about CPU and RAM (to some extent). Your point on the dual CPU's reaffirms it. This game runs great on my pc until the number crunching gets just too much for my 1.4ghz amd. People having problems with 2.5ghz+ really need to get 1gig of RAM (if they don't already). If they have all recommended specs with a 2.5ghz+ CPU; then I hate to say they must depserately need to defrag and streamline their os (most likely WINXP). Just my 2cp--but my specs are below and the game is no lag/no slowdown until a standard sized map gets about 2/3 or more populated/developed...then it gets a bit slow--as I expect with a 1.4ghz CPU.

This game is doing some serious CPU work, (my temp shows this after a long game also ), especially with all the variables for every possible decision each turn..etc. For now I'm happy to be on small/tiny maps for now--seems to help me learn to play faster also having to defend early etc etc.

 

[Ravinhood]

I play 14 to 15 civs every game. Movement and turns are over in just a few seconds since I like to watch the computer move every unit.

I'm just running an Intel 2.4 with 1gig ram and Ultra Gefore 5900 video card, and an old Sound Blaster Gamers 5.1.

I get no slow down loading or saving or ending a game. Nothing that appears sluggish or slow at all. Runs rather smoothly from my point of view.

Maybe you guys need to defrag your hard-drive and reoptimize your virtual memory I'm running a 2500 virtual memory setting.

I also run a two hard-drive setup with nothing but the OS on one drive and all the games and programs on the other. Virtual memory is on the main drive as well. Both are just 7200rpms.

Plus since I build my own systems, that makes things better to optimize also, instead of those store bought restricted mobo's they come with.

 

[sgrig]

I have a laptop with Pentium M 1.7GHz, 512 MB RAM, and Nvidia Fx Go 5200 with 64MB RAM. Since I have a widescreen display, in order to have no distortion I have to run the game at 1280x800 resolution. I'm playing my first game currently - large map with 10 Civs, and so far I got up to 1958 AD. The frame rate is at most 1 or 2 fps, there is usually about 1 sec lag whenever I do anything, diplomacy screens and wonder videos take ages to come up, but overall it is just barely playable.

I'll try playing at 1024x768 next time although I'll get everything slightly squashed, maybe the speed will improve to something more manageable.

 

[Loka]

Gets slow later in the game (1000 AD or so?) when there are a lot of units. I had the same problem in Civ III on Huge world, but now I'm getting it on Standard world.

 

[d3kst3r]

What the hell is wrong with this game? Towards the 1700s I can bearly even move the screen. And it takes 10 minutes to load a save game. This is on a P4 2.8 GHZ with 512 DDR and GeForce FX5200.

 

[narmox]

I find that when it becomes sluggish (usually happens after diplomacy screen), changing resolution (in options->graphics) then saying "no" (or you can say yes if you like the new res) will fix the sluggishness...

 

[alco75]

I love Civ4, but there's just no excuse for its crappy performance. During the human player's turn, the game essentially has nothing to do except render the scene. No AI, no physics, nothing. Just a handful of (relatively) low texture, low polygon models to render. On my rig ...

• Barton 2500+@3200+
• 1GB
• 6800nu
• settings 1280x1024, no AA, 8xAF

... it can already drop to 25 fps and I've not yet had a game run longer than the classical age. There really is no excuse for that on a rig that nearly hits 10k 3DMark2003 points. But it's easily forgiven; Civ4 is a wonderful game.

 

[d3kst3r]

Nice tip. I think doing that will flush the memory. Somewhere within the coding of this game they forgot to add a flush memory line thus the accumulated sluggishness.

 

[Dodgy]

I think I was a little too excited when I wrote that it worked without a glitch on my laptop. I had only played through the tutorial at that point and it worked well. I dont know my frame rate exactly but it slows down remarkably at the middle of the game. What bothers me the most is the mandatory crashing. Well, I started a new map, large, me as Washington as I wanted to check out the SEAL unit. I never got to build a SEAL as the game started crashing all the time. On average I'd say around every 3rd turn, right to the desktop. I figured it was just a one time glitch and gave the game another chance.

Started a custom game, allowing to create permanent alliances. The first hour or two goes without a glitch. I am the biggest nation, I have the tech lead and I have a good list of resources on my turf. Suddenly the game starts to crash. I struggle forward, trying to keep playing. I get Communism and Catherine suggests a permanent alliance. She is second in points and I figure its a good idea so I dont have to worry about her when its time to win. The game gets even worse. Now I crash after every turn unless I give the game 1 minute to idle after it has become my turn and hope none of the other leaders would contact me after playing 3 to 4 consecutive turns without a reboot.

At the moment the DVD is in its case on the shelf. I cant finish a game. I didnt expect that when I got this laptop since I pretty much ordered it at the same time Civ 4 went gold and the system requirements were known. I though have faith in the coming patch, just have to play Battlefield 2 while waiting or at least check if it runs on this machine. "Important" system specs below;

Acer Aspire 5024 WLMi
AMD Turion 64 1.8Ghz
1 GB RAM
ATI X700 PCIe

 

[GreenMonkey]

The OP is the first user of a 9800pro 128MB I've seen to have a problem. What drivers are you running?

Game runs perfectly most of the time, gets slow as time goes on. No biggie, my other main game is Battle for Middle Earth, which acts exactly the same - it has a confirmed memory leak and CTD problems (it gets sluggish much faster than Civ does)

 

[OwnTheWorld]

I have the Radeon 9800 card, just update you drivers to the latest one from ATI and you should be running much smoother. Worked for me..