modding for reducing lag...any idea?

[thasan]

hi ppl,

does anybdy have come across of any idea to reduce the screen lag for low end graphics card??

i tried to play yesterday in my machine with integrated card and the lag sucks...honestly, there was no need for 3D as i can see now!! i am sure lot of ppl like me with a lower end graphics card are facing the same problem...

screen lag >> headache >> fear of going back to the game as a result

i dream somebody will release a 2D graphics modpack for this messy release
any idea so far if somebody is already thinking about it?

 

[NickSD]

Don't feel alone, I have a higher-end graphics card and am experiencing HORRENDOUS lag and even occasional CTDs.

Nick

 

[Rayanth]

I just LOVE the number of "my graphics card doesn't meet requirements therefore the game sucks" posts we're getting....

UPGRADE. This is 2005, not 2000....

 

[Supa]

Did you even read NickSD post ?

 

[monitor173]

Arguments aside, let's try to get the root of the problem. By the book:

Problem: the vast majority of the stutter seems to occur in or around highly forested areas. This may relate to the number of trees on screen at one time and/or the fact that they are animated (perhaps some issue related to unoptimised T&L coding?) Strangely enough, neither option seems customisable.

Plan:
(1) Game modification: find a means by which to turn off tree animation or reduce polygon clutter. In the latter case, one may reduce the number of trees OR simplify their 3d models, ideally to a simple upright 2d projection.
(2) Ask Firaxis to implement a means by which to customise these aspects of the game, or ask them very nicely (and diplomatically) if they would optimise the 3d coding in this department.

I'd appreciate further suggestions.

 

[LlamaGod]

reducing the amount of objects and removing their animations would be a good step forward.

 

[monitor173]

hm, I think I my have found the necessary file under Assets/XML/Art/CIV4ArtDefines_Feature.xml

However, changing the <bAnimated> variable doesn't seem to have any effect on the ingame animations. In addition, the lag/stutter seems to be quite variable at times. There are obviously other factors involved.

 

[drsafety]

Increase virtual memory size to 2500 megs, it improved performance for me noticeably.

 

[Psyringe]

i dream somebody will release a 2D graphics modpack

I'd like to have a graphic reduction pack too. I don't really need 3d graphics to enjoy Civ4, I'd prefer faster turn times.

However, before people start creating "low-bandwidth" graphics for the game, I'd like to throw another idea in: Couldn't we reduce the graphics the came with the game?

I don't know anything about 3d modeling, so I may be talking utter rubbish ... but AFAIK Civ4 uses standard file formats for its graphics. So theoretically it *should* be possible to write a program which reads all these graphics files in, one by one, cuts some percentage of the polygons out, and saves the files again. (Throwing out anything about shaders and animations might be a good idea too.) if someone knows the file formats well, and can come up with a "quality reduction" algorithm, this might be easier than creating such graphics by hand.

Of course, some graphics might look a little strange when we randomly pull out edges, but as far as they remain recognizable, that's fine with me ...

 

[Ralendil]

try to use the CTRL + D (or ALT... the debug windows)

I don't know how, but I have made a change to the trees by this tool, and now i have less slow periods.
Also reducing details for the graphics can help.

The options to freeze animations or to use only 1 graphic unit are not to be used, too bugguy, after you won't understand what happen in the fights...

 

[Rayanth]

Did you even read NickSD post ?

I was referring to the OP.

so far, most integrated cards have had issues...

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Just because somebody is recognizing the fact that the game is obviously buggy doesn't mean they're saying the game sucks...

I love the game, but I can't even play it because it crashes my computer every single turn... and my comp goes above and beyond the recommended stats.. I just recognize that a patch will come out (most likely this first one) that will fix the problem.

 

[davbenbak]

I also wish there was some way to turn off resource and terrain animations. Useless eye candy for XBox users if you ask me! I do enjoy the unit animations but don't get to see them because I zoom out to just below the clouded world view (another unnessasary animation, the moving couds) and have the graphics level turned all the way down just to make the lag time bearable with 8 civs on a huge map.

The manual shows that Alt-D changes player name so what does control-D do?