512meg ram not enough?

I've already cleaned the system and I have some Arctic Silver V and a nice big heatsink coming via UPS soon. I have sufficient cooling in my system and always take care of my PC.

The temperature for the CPU, at most, goes up to around 52C, and that's when I'm running programs needing lots of processing power, like Photoshop. When it comes to this game and Fable, it seems the memory and processing power gets the life sucked out of them. That's when the temp goes up.

But I'll allieviate the problem soon enough. Thanks for your concern, I appreciate it.

 

i have 1.5 gb of ram. after about 1-2 hours of playing, the game slows to a horrid crawl (this is on small or even tiny maps, it slows down considerably on larger maps). My vid card has 128mb, and an AGP aparature set at 256mb.

it's obvious this is due to sloppy programming somewhere in civ4, and not necessarily how much ram you have.

for the goofs talking about sp2 for windows - you don't patch the OS when the program is leaking memory, you patch the program.

 

The memory specs are pure cr@p.

512MBytes is not even sufficient to load the game, let alone to run it. When I start up a standard game (my system is XP/SP2) my memory usage goes up from 207 Mbytes to 576 Mbytes! You can see how much memory you have allocated by hitting Ctl-Alt-Del and checking the performance tab.

Naturally enough, memory usage continues to go up further as time goes on. This is perfectly normal since the number of objects that the game has to deal with also increases over time. This is completely aside from the question of whether the game has leaks. I have only played about half way through the game so far and memory usage is now close to 800 Mbytes.

For those who aren't aware, the OS is capable of allocating more memory than actually exists in the system. It manages this by copying information to and from the disk. Despite this, you should generally have more physical memory than allocated memory. The OS is capable using the rest for various purposes, notably a disk cache.

As soon as allocated memory exceeds system memory, you start to get in trouble. Since the OS is smart enough to swap out less used parts, this will start to manifest itself when you do something different than normal. In Civ4, this would be something like playing a wonder movie or accessing the Civilopedia. God forbid that you hit the Windows key because now it has to swap around entire programs.

As the amount of allocated memory gets larger and larger, things get worse and worse. At some point, the OS is not even capable of doing everything that you normally do without swapping stuff around. The system then slows to a crawl no matter what you do because it is spending all its time moving things back and forth between the memory and the disk. This effect is called "thrashing".

There are only two solutions: buy more memory or stop playing the game. This pisses me seriously because my laptop is only 4 months old. It was a package deal and I could only get it with 2 256MByte sticks of RAM. My computer doesn't thrash yet at 800Mbytes, but it's just a matter of time. Now I find that I immediately needs an upgrade. What's more, one of those sticks has to be thrown out.

Oh. Let me give a hint about memory leaks. If there is a leak in the game, you can "fix" it by saving, closing the game and re-loading. Be sure to close the program. At this point the OS frees all resources used, whether lost or not. To see whether there is a leak, look at the memory usage before saving the program and after re-starting it. If there is one, usage should go down significantly (a small decline is normal because objects are often allocated in a more efficient fashion when a program is re-started). If it doesn't, it means that the game is simply a memory hog and there is nothing to do other than to buy still more memory.

 

you are at 2080bc....not much is happening wait until you are at 1950ad before you feel oh so confident. thats when things start to slow down for me and thats with:

Memory: 3.5 gigs
Video: ATI X800 Pro Overclocked to 515core 551 memory
Sound: Creative Audigy2 gamer
Processor: AMD x64 3700+

 

Edit to above post:

I get slowdown, but not like you guys are talking about, i would have jumped out my window if i had to wait 10 mins per turn. I only have to wait 5 -10 seconds between turns and very very late in the game when the anouncements on the top left are popping up and when a wonder video is trying to play there is some sound studder. anyways the point is it still slows down.

 

the actual "recommended" level for Paging File top performance is 3000-4000 regardless of how much physical ram you have. that is stated in countless PC modding and gaming magazines.


for those of you unaware how to do this here are some instructions. (win xp)

click start
right click my computer
select properties
click the "Advanced" tab
Under the Performance option click Settings
Click Advanced tab
click Change under "Virtual Memory"
Under the Paging File for Selected Drive Change to Custom Settings
Change Initial Size (MB) To 3000
Change Maximum Size (MB) To 4000
Click Set
Click Ok
Click ok
Click OK
Finally Restart

After reboot it may be a good idea to Defrag your drive.


Note: this will NOT fix any of the issues though it may help them out some. as in you might be able to get further along in the game before the lag starts up


there are other tips i can give you to boost the performance of your machine to if you would like.

enjoy

 

You're gonna lose that bet though. The simplest way to prove that this is a Civ4 problem and not a driver problem is this:

It doesn't happen in other games.

 

Yes. The Windows defragger sux but one thing it does do is to lay out the swap area contiguously. Once done, the swap area never needs to be defragged again (this differs from normal files which degrade over time) so it's well worth it to get it right once and for all.

For this reason, I recommend setting the initial size (this will be the contiguous region; the rest is allocated as needed) as high as reasonable. If gaming mags say 3-4 Gigs, then set it to 4 - especially as Civ 4 appears to be a memory hog.

 

Very few problems whatsoever on standard maps, even in final turns of the game, with the following specs:

AMD Athlon 1800+, running at aprox 1550.
512 MB
ATI Radeon 8500 (64 mb) with recent catalyst (downloaded early september).
XP Service Pack 1
Everything on low detail (my video card always gets little graphic glitches if I stress it too much, that happens in every 3d game - I need an upgrade).

Only the military advisor or Alt-Tabbing takes a long time. Civopedia runs quickly, as do all the other advisors.

Rav

 

i can agree to that and there is a reason i use diskeeper 9 pro ya know

 

i hope you know by recent drivers you really mean old drivers

cat 5.10 is out came out october 12th

they tend to update their drives approx every month or so.

 

I've noticed that the game really bogs down when playing a game on anything larger than a standard sized map.

Anything standard or lower will keep the game going at a constant framerate with little to no slowdown.

 

This is not unique to this game, but reflective of the sorry state of the industry. Minimum specs are often no more than what you need to get the game to load, not be really playable, and recommended specs are usually solidly at the minimum of what you would expect the game to play well at.

Don't believe box specs.

For what it's worth, 1 gig was what you needed a couple of years ago and more to play many games, like RTS's or big turn-based ones like this one, well. All those units and stats being constantly stuffed into your computer and adjusted means constant reading and writing either into or out of memory or to/from your hard disk. Not enough RAM, and you are stuck reading and writing to the hard disk, which is incredibly slow compared to RAM. Thus, slowdowns and in some cases lock-ups, occasionally permanent ones you need to reboot to get out of. So, you needed a gig for a smooth game years ago, and now years later, a gig looks like fairly small change. You can see positive effects up to 2 gigs on some games now. The game may have problems, but not because it could be a lot smoother at more than 512 megs. Any game could be, for years now. There seems to be a memory leak, but even when it's fixed, 512 will still be closer to a minimum spec than a mid-range one.

 

I have 512MB too -

I played on a standard sized's map with 3 civs, and everything ran (relatively) smoothly. I just got to the 1900's on a large map with 8 civs, and now it's taking like 5-10 mins between turns for the AI to move.

My executable is only using around 400MB though, I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

I'd like some developer or something to actually admit that there is a problem - I hate thinking that there is some magical setting I can tweak to make it work properly.

 

Actually, I have to disagree. I had 512MB for the last 1 1/2 years, and it was more than enough for all games I played (including e.g. Doom 3). Now two weeks ago, I bought Black & White 2, and it hardly worked at all, so I upgraded to 1MB, and now it works very smoothly. I'd consider B&W2 a state-of-the-art graphics-intensive game, so I would expect its requirements to be somewhere at the higher end. Civ4 on the other hand is a round-based strategy game. While the graphics have improved, the amount of data that needs to be stored per unit/tile shouldn't really have changed that significantly from, say, Civ3, so I don't see why Civ4 should have higher system requirements than recent state-of-the-art games.

 

I'm no expert on 3D but I suspect that it is the graphics themselves which are the memory hogs. Millions of polygons.

 

I just keep coming back to Black & White 2 on this one, because it's the most recent other game that I have played. I think the graphics in B&W2 should be even more demanding than Civ4. You can have hundreds of buildings and thousands of little people on the screen at any given time. You have 3D nightmares like creatures with simulated hair in that game. Play B&W2 for an hour and then tell me that the graphics in Civ4 are likely to consume more memory. I just can't believe it. Yet B&W2 runs smoothly on my system.

But anyway, if the graphics were really the problem, then I'd have to ask: What's the point? Do people ever rotate their views, or are there really people who use the globe view or the extreme close-up views for anything else than just a wow-effect? (Yes, I admit, the globe view looks immensely cool, but does anyone actually play the game in the globe view?)

 

I meant that the graphics are the memory hog. But now that you bring it up, they probably are the performance problem too. I have some doubts about your claim that B&W2 is more graphics intensive than Civ 4. On a 150x150 map, there are 22500 squares, each of which is unique and highly detailed. That takes a lot of rendering.

I tend to agree that the eye-candy is not worth the hassle. It's cool, but 2D would have been fine for this game. In retrospect, it was probably a mistake to go 3D. It's too late now though.

 

Here are my specs
P4 3.0ghz-oc(3.6ghz)
Geil PC4400 1GB
Geforce 6800gt 256MB (oc to ultra specs)
Windowxs XP sp2
Updated Graphics drivers
2.5GB pagefile
CPU and Graphics Card are watercooled ( CPU 39c load and graphics card 38c load)




As soon as i trade for the world map the game slows to a crawl, before then everything pretty much runs well at minimum resolution on largest map. The in game movies after the the world is reveled studder and sometimes freezes the game. I have also had a crash to desktop due to low memory. I consede that I would like and might need another gig of memory to run games smoothly, but that much memory just allows you to turn off the pagefile if you want to and that is why games are smoother. Having 2 gigs would just allow windows to keep everything in RAM. The problem with CIV4 is that it must be putting game critical files in the pagefile because there is not enough RAM to keep them there, but the only way for this to happen is if the allocatable RAM is no longer available to the system to keep those files resident in RAM.

I run Doom3 at 72 FPS and Doom 3 is 4.5gigs. Doom3 doesnt make my system slowdown like CIV4 does, some of the maps on Doom3 are 500 megs and Doom3 does use pagefile and a fairly heffy bit of it. The game critical files for Doom3 are resident in RAM they are never pushed to the pagefile.

Basically my argument is that if I can run DOOM3 without crashes and slowdowns, My system should eat CIV4 as an after lunch snack

 

the page file setting has come up, and it was suggested (officially??) to set min/max to the same. in my SLOW games, i've popped out to the desktop adn seen pagefile of 750mb +. another guy in another thread said his spiked at over a gig.

this has the symptoms of a leak, but...i'm obviously just guessing.

i'm curious diamon about using the old drivers. i installed an fx5200 and newest drivers, i've read other nvid users recommend rolling back drivers to 6.x. maybe i'll give that a try b/c my low performance just sucks the fun out of the game.