Anyway to get the game to run better on Windows 7?

[SG-17]

I can't play a full game anymore because by the time I have at least half of the map explored the turns can take nearly 15 minutes to finish if they don't crash the game first. Is there anyway to make Civ3C run better on a dual-core Windows 7 machine?

 

[creamcheese]

I can't play a full game anymore because by the time I have at least half of the map explored the turns can take nearly 15 minutes to finish if they don't crash the game first. Is there anyway to make Civ3C run better on a dual-core Windows 7 machine?

Well, it sounds like you have a decent processor, but RAM probably matters more in this case. Otherwise it might just be a Windows 7 issue. Personally I keep a computer with XP just to play old games.

 

[SG-17]

I have 4 gigs of RAM.

 

[creamcheese]

I have 4 gigs of RAM.

Where do you have C3C installed? I'm told that can make a difference in windows 7.

Also, what size maps are you playing on? Even newer machines can get bogged down calculating trade routes on the largest mods. 15 minutes does seem excessive though.

 

[qazt19]

I have 4 gigs of RAM.

You might not be using all of it though. If you have a Windows 7 32 bit, then you're limited to ~2gb of ram. You can increase the amount you can use to ~3gb using the 3gb switch, a couple links that should give you directions for this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=362969

http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/26643-3gb-switch.html

Again, this is only if you have a 32 bit OS, if you have a 64 bit you do NOT need this.

Anyways, I hope this helps.

 

[Quintillus]

Civ3 isn't going to care how much RAM you have as long as you have 1 GB. It simply isn't that RAM-intensive of a game. Civ4 would be another story, but with Civ3, you don't need to worry about how much memory you have. Pull up Task Manager at any point that it's running, and you will never see it using 1 GB. For example, the 180x180 late-industrial game I have up now is sitting pretty at 300 MB.

One issue might be that you simply have way too large of a map size. What size map is taking this long?

There are some techniques such as disabling air and/or water trade that can drastically speed up the game. Another technique is disabling maintenance on city buildings. There's at least one more that escapes me at the moment, but the folks in Creation and Customization would be able to suggest some more. It won't help in a game that's already in progress, but would in future games.

The processor does matter, a ton more than RAM does. How many cores it has doesn't matter - Civ3 will only ever use one core at a time - but how good the cores are does matter. You'll notice a good difference between, for example, a dual-core Intel Atom and a dual-core Core 2 Duo (the latter being much better). So it's possible that your dual-core processor isn't that well-suited to large Civ maps.

And as to Windows 7... yeah. I've stuck with XP in part because Civ3 worked better with Vista (and by association, Windows 7). Civ3 is usually pretty stable (unless there's a bug in a mod), so crashes do seem odd. If I had to run Civ3 on Windows 7 I'd be sure to not install it to C:\Program Files (or C:\Program Files (x86)), and instead to somewhere like C:\Civilization III. That way at least you avoid any of the protected folders "security" features that can interfere with Civ3. But beyond that, I abandoned Windows Vista and 7 far too long ago to help.

Do you have another (even if older) computer that you could test the same savegames on? That could also help tell if it's just way too overwhelming of a game for any computer, or if the computer is the problem.

 

[darski]

I'm thinking that I am going to have to reinstall as you suggest. It takes so long to get my fave graphics mods in place that I hate to start over yet again.

Is your C:\Civilization III an actual suggestion?

I'll save my art folders in my Civics file and hope they install in the new location.

 

[Quintillus]

Yeah, I'd install it to C:\Civilization III. Windows Vista and later put protections on files in C:\Program Files (x86), which both makes it harder to inadvertantly cause a program to stop working, and to mod programs. It also can cause issues with files appearing to not be where they should be. Part of this is called the "virtual store" - here's a short article on it. Installing to C:\Civilization or something like that avoids any potential problems with that.

(disclaimer: I had worse experiences with Vista than most, including with Civ3 and Vista. Others may have more recent and successful experience with Vista or 7 that might be more helpful)

It should be possible to copy your Art folders (and others as applicable) to another location on the same hard drive, and then copy them back after the install, overwriting the newly installed ones. That would be a lot faster than manually readding them, though it does assume the problem you are having isn't due to corrupt art.

 

[darski]

yes.. that is the question. I just like so many of the graphics packs we are spoiled by here at CFC

The problem appeared when I reloaded the game - the computer seemed to be reading both files -the file last played and the new startup... IYKWIM. it was just weird.

 

[Quintillus]

I don't quite follow. You'd tell it to load a game and it would sort of load both that one and a new one, and show parts of both? It certainly sounds odd...

 

[darski]

I don't quite follow. You'd tell it to load a game and it would sort of load both that one and a new one, and show parts of both? It certainly sounds odd...

No that isn't what I meant... I meant that the memory seemed to have kept the old file (in cache?) and was trying to play the new load with the old one still using memory.

That may be completely badly said but it is the way I think of the effect I see.