2 min wait periods between turns????

[xRamsesx]

Is anyone else experiencing looooong wait time between turns? I'm midway through industrial age playing a huge map with 15 other civs and at every end of turn I have to wait 2 mins!!!.

I know I'm pushing it but my pc is a 1.2Ghz with plenty of ram ... Is anyone else having the same problem once the game advances

 

[Anatari]

I have a 1.5 ghz with 256 ram without much wait with similar game settings in the Modern age. The wait is about 5-10 seconds between turns (In civ 2 it was instantaneous).

 

[Smitty]

Wow, I have played two games so far and have gotten beaten both times before I got to the industrial or modern ages. I hope it will not be a real long wait with a 500Mhz.

I wonder if the "better" AI has more to do with it? If so, then I can handle waiting. Look how long it takes a good chess engine and chess is a much simplier game.

 

[WarandPeace]

almost every action performed in my game is slowwwwwwwww
i have a decent pc and it gets unbearable at times

 

[Anunikoba]

I would be sure to have as much of the background software off. If you are loading up a lot of stuff at start-up, your slowness may be from that.

Also, if you are playing with 16 civs on huge maps, don't expect any speed records to be broken.

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Due to it's technical nature, I'm swinging this one over to 'Civ 3 - Problems and Help'.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

I think my 1.6 Ghz pentium 4 with 512 mb ram will cope

 

[CurtSibling]

I would say RAM is a real issue with this new incarnation of CIV.

Lucky I gots plenty!!!

 

[coustoe]

I also have a 1.2 athlon 700+ ram windows xp, first it wont run in windows xp so i have to run compatibility mode to win98, running the game on 16 civ huge map scenario post industrial and my wait times exceed 4 mins per turn. Don't know if its the compatibility mode or just the people at firaxis never learned about geometrically increasing algorythms

 

[GreenLantern]

I ran into the same problem. I started a game on the huge map with all possible civs. In the beginning, the time between turns was about 1 sec. I was playing a cultural/science development game. When I got to steam power, turns took about 2 minutes each. I have a 1.4 ghz Athlon, and I had animations turned off, so I assumed it was my 128mb RAM. But I increased RAM to 640 mb and the improvement was minor if any, so I don't think that will help most people. I checked the system monitor (Windows ME) and found that I was using 100% CPU most of the time, nothing else seemed stressed. Then I started up in diag mode with nothing else running, to get rid of background stuff, but that didn't make a difference either. So I am assuming that huge map with lots of developed competitive CIVs just takes a lot of time - say an n-squared problem. Personally, I am willing to put up with the 2 minute wait to play the big game, but I miss the instant responses of the small games and Civ II (perhaps the Mac version will be better - it was for Civ I and II).

 

[lauer]

Same here. My machine is a PIII 450, 128 MB RAM, W95 (I know, I know). The time I have to wait between turns in the midgame on a huge map with all civs is unbearable. I haven't tried a smaller game yet and I'd hate not to finish my current game. But get this, I cannot bring myself to play CivIII anymore due to these booooring 2 minute waits between turns!!!

One possible problem on my machine which I haven't checked yet is the amount of swap space available (my C: drive is rather full). On the other hand, there was this guy who has put 640 MB RAM into his machine with little noticable effect. Go figure ...

 

[lauer]

Same here. My machine is a PIII 450, 128 MB RAM, W95 (I know, I know). The time I have to wait between turns in the midgame on a huge map with all civs is unbearable. I haven't tried a smaller game yet and I'd hate not to finish my current game. But get this, I cannot bring myself to play CivIII anymore due to these booooring 2 minute waits between turns!!!

One possible problem on my machine which I haven't checked yet is the amount of swap space available (my C: drive is rather full). On the other hand, there was this guy who has put 640 MB RAM into his machine with little noticable effect. Go figure ...

 

[jason17]

I have a game where I just entered the industrial age 13 civs huge map and about to destroy 2 civs on monarch. I wish my wait was 2 mins between turns.. Mine is more like 5-6 with p3 700 386mb ram.. i gave up on that game.. hopefully some kind of fix or patch will fix it because id like to return to it sooner or later

 

[Zippo]

I experience a similar problem but it is due to the monstrous number of units moving around that I have to look at!

Are you all talking about wait times occuring from having to look at all your workers going about their business (as well as other visible units) or an additional wait time?

 

[GreenLantern]

Originally posted by Zippo
I experience a similar problem but it is due to the monstrous number of units moving around that I have to look at!

Are you all talking about wait times occuring from having to look at all your workers going about their business (as well as other visible units) or an additional wait time?

The "two minute wait" occurs with animations off while waiting for the AI calcs. We are not talking about watching your hundred or so workers moving around on automation. To me, it is worth the wait - I can still get in 10-20 turns an hour if I am quick when my time comes. It feels a lot like playing a multiplayer game with someone slower than you. It would be nice if it was faster, though. Maybe MP support will fix it someday.

 

[Zippo]

It is my impression that turning animation off only means that your CPU doesn't have to spend the extra time animating your unit's moves.... it still shows your unit moving, it just uses only the first frame of the animation rather than the entire animation.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure Firaxis knows there's a lot of complaints about it so maybe they will fix it in a patch.

 

[Kaos]

well the computer does stupid stuff like runs a bunch of unit in circles, that causes slowdowns.... even if you cant see enemy units moving, they still have to... i usually have 500+ sized armies by the end of 16player games and the cpu has 300-600 so thas why you experience it

I do hope firaxis or whoever adresses this though cause it shouldnt happen... waiting for no reason sucks. I swear I can go take showers, make dinner, and more in between turns 1800+(im usually full tech by then)

 

[Aslan]

I played a game with just 8 civs going on a large map. I have a 450MgHz K62, 128MB RAM, and I'm running the game in compatability mode in WinXP. After a while the game begins to chug...the animations are slow, and the turns take forever and a day. All my drivers are up to date and the game works great otherwise...the only other time it chugs is when the diplomacy screen comes up...there is a repetition of the message sound for a while before the window comes up with the ruler and the negotiating table. THis annoys me to no end. Patch save us!

 

[Kaos]

i just played a large game with max civs, and i would like to say the wait in between turns wasnt bad at all... what was bad was the workers being stupid and making transcontinental circles on railroads for ages before realizing they were making circles and stopping :/

 

[DrMark]

I have a P4-2 gig with 1 gig Ram and a GeForce 3 vid card. Running Windows XP pro with no problem with Civ 3. The main problem I have is the video lag between unit moves. Game runs at a reasonable rate otherwise. Why are you running in Compatability mode? Did you guys update your video drivers to the latest version? I wonder if it's due to the AMD CPU?