All new slowdown in 2.08

[Pellanor]

I was afraid of that.

At least RAM is dirt cheap these days. $50 for a stick of 512mb.

 

[Artosoft]

At least RAM is dirt cheap these days. $50 for a stick of 512mb.

No, memory price is increasing at this moment. Maybe because Vista need 2GB for better experience?

Regards,
Arto.

 

[Artosoft]

Glad to hear that!

Weird though... maybe I have some some vagabond piece of hardware or software that's creating a major bottleneck.

I just got my new desktop last night, and Warlords runs so smooth it's unbelievable!! No jerkiness, no delays upon issuing commands, no stuttering wonder movies... this is awesome! I even have graphics cranked up to max settings too. What in the world was wrong with my laptop, I wonder! Pretty pathetic for a top-of-the-line Dell bought in 2005.

Can you detail the specs please...

Thank you.

Regards,
Arto.

 

[Charles 22]

At least RAM is dirt cheap these days. $50 for a stick of 512mb.

Mine was about $90, supposedly the best they had.

 

[kettyo]

My 1GB Laptop runs it quite well after HDD-Defrag.
(with shutting down every unnecessary apps-services-tasks and with low graphics)

 

[Danielos]

I have "only" 512 MB, and is playing huge maps on highest graphical settings. The problems usually start around 1400-1500 when most of the map is explored. Then the slowdown makes the game almost unplayable. Like others mentioned before, I usually read a book or clean my room between turns.

Is 1 GB enough if I want to play huge maps on highest graphical settings with no significant slowdowns in later ages?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I have "only" 512 MB, and is playing huge maps on highest graphical settings. The problems usually start around 1400-1500 when most of the map is explored. Then the slowdown makes the game almost unplayable. Like others mentioned before, I usually read a book or clean my room between turns.

Is 1 GB enough if I want to play huge maps on highest graphical settings with no significant slowdowns in later ages?

You will see a significant difference between 1 gig and 1/2 gig of RAM. This is largely due to the fact that windows xp needs most of 1/4 gig of ram to run all its (often semi-redundant) processes. The slowdown you are getting in the late middle ages, is due to the fact that at that time, you don't have enought spare RAM to run the game, without it borrowing RAM from your hard drive swap file, and thus slowing the game to a snail's pace.

Possible intermediate fixes, make sure that you turn off all unecessary processes while playing CIV, including anti-spy, virus etc, anything to give you a little more free RAM. Also, the game STILL has a small memory leak issue, so it's best to save and reload the game every few hours, I always notice an immediate slight increase in game tempo when doing this.
I really wouldn't bother with the "high graphics" settings, I have P4 3.4 gb cpu, with 2gb ram, and play all graphic settings on low (except high detail globe), I honestly can't see any noticable difference (there probably is, but you'd have to look very hard)....

So to sum up, 1GB will be MUCH better than 512 mb RAM, but to play huge maps with no "hard drive swapping" you'll need 1.5GB.

Hope this helps

 

[Willem]

Has anyone else noticed that Firaxis implemented an enhanced late-game slowdown in the new patch? I have... it's like playing the unpatched Vanilla Civ4 all over again. I'm in 1821 and the action has become a slog of a battle between my cpu and the program, with innocent framerates suffering unspeakable collateral damage.

It could have something to do with your video driver. I had that problem when I upgraded to ATI's Catalyst 6.9, but it went back to normal when I rolled back to 6.7. If you've recently upgraded, try rolling back to your previous version.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

gameplay is about the same for me with the 2.08 patch, but the cinematics always freeze now