Problems with zooming out the map to global view

[robacus]

Hi



I am stilling having problems after path Civ 4 1.52 with zooming out to a global view, the game seems to just lag forever and it ends up being nearly 20 minutes before I can get a response from the game.



Another smaller issue I have is that once a turn is over and I end the turn the game seems to take at least 10 minutes for the computers turns to complete. I have found that if I before I end the turn, enter the windows task manager and set Civ as a high priority application than this problem is corrected. But it is very frustrating having to do this every time I want to play. Is there anyway to make sure civ starts as a high priority?



I would rather see the global view issue fixed if you have any ideas for a solution I would be greatful.



Thank you.

Small edit to this post; my friend who has this game witt a notebook thats same brand name but slightly better specs has no problems at all zooming out in the later stages of the game, almost no lag at all

 

[auldian]

These seem to be common symptoms of the game. I believe improvements to this "lag" effect and the interminable AI time are intended in the next patch.

Until then

• Enable Memory Saver in the civilizationiv.ini
• disable antivirus and firewall/internet if prudent
• at the least "exclude" the Civ IV folder trees from background virus scanning
• exit any programs running in the taskbar
• use a basic "system configuration" sound selection instead of EAX, DS3D, etc.
• Reduce graphic quality in the game's option menu to med/low/low or leaner
• use default or performance settings in your ATI CP or ATT
• disable audio in the civilizationiv.ini (last resort ... musics pretty good)

The Graphics Scaling Tool at Blue Marble Civilization IV can allow you to lean the clouds out and I've seen it mentioned that this helped the zooming lag.

One bit in your info that caught my eye was the VIA AGP driver. At VIA's site http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=3&FCat=5:

With WinXP SP2, an AGP driver from Microsoft will be used, not the VIA AGP driver in the Hyperion and HyperionPro packages. The date shown in Device Manager is taken from the INF file and not from the driver binary. The driver binary used is actually from 2004, not 2001. For experienced users, if you want to check, in Device Manager >CPU to AGP controller > Driver > Driver Details, note the file name. If you then find the file name in the Windows/system32/drivers directory you will be able to see the actual "age" of the driver in the properties of the file.

The "VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller" listed in your info should be an MS driver per this article. This may or may not be affecting your game. I've seen some computers get unstable with this condition though it's not common. You should be aware. If it's working fine, there's no need to change it.

 

[robacus]

; Allows some memory savings *** ALT-TAB WILL NO LONGER FUNCTION ***
MemSaver = 0

is this the line i need to edit? what should i enter?

 

[Zanmato]

Just change the '0' to '1' and the Memsaver will be enabled next time you start the game.

 

[robacus]

i just tryed the instuctions here twice, both times i got the black terrian problem, the second time i tryed i ctrl-alt-del in task manager and set as high proirity only for the game to crash. i will reset the value to 0 but does anyone else have any idea?

 

[auldian]

The MemSaver will disable alt-tabbing, that's expected behaviour for that fix.
Sad to know none of that helped. F11 view has cool info.