Attention Firaxis

[RogueNine]

An AMD K6 2? lol, thats not Firaxis problem. I tried Civ 3 on my P3-500, 256 RAM, and it ran sllllllllow. So slow that I put it back in the box and played Mech 4 and Civ 2. Two weeks later I got my new computer, and Civ 3 runs amazing. (I got an AMD Athlon XP 1600 with 512 DDR RAM) Its probably overkill, but I could afford it and its great for other games anyway.

The point is, a K6 2 is peanuts compared to my old P3-500, and it ran like crap on it. So I don't know what your expecting. Also, WinXP on that system is going to cause you trouble. Seriously consider upgrading your computer. Firaxis has undoubtedly read this thread and wanted to say that to you, but obviously can't for legal reasons. I know it can be expensive getting a new system, so go for a cheaper solution. Get an Athlon 1200, with 256 DDR RAM. With a standard motherboard, that shouldn't cost more than $250 US. Then just use your current case, harddrive, sound card, video card, CD ROM and floppy drive. Voila, you got a new, very powerful system for only 250$.

 

[AustralianJerem]

Originally posted by RogueNine
I know it can be expensive getting a new system, so go for a cheaper solution. Get an Athlon 1200, with 256 DDR RAM. With a standard motherboard, that shouldn't cost more than $250 US. Then just use your current case, harddrive, sound card, video card, CD ROM and floppy drive. Voila, you got a new, very powerful system for only 250$. [/B]

$250 motherboard + athlon 1200 + 256DDR RAM = $250?
I think your arithmetic might be a little off.

 

[AUDoc]

Hey Aslan, this is off topic, but is your quote from a book called "StarDust"? I remember that passage, but I can't remember where I read it .

 

[WonderPup]

I'm gonna take a flier here and guess that the original poster isn't complaining about general slowness that comes from having a slower machine.

I'm running on a P2-400. (Don't recall the memory off hand.) Voodoo something or other graphics card, no sound card. (As you can tell, I'm not exactly a hardware junky and don't walk around with the specs in my head.) Windows 98 is the OS. At least 5 gig of hard drive space available (in other words, I'm not running out of room for virtual memory).

Anyway, most of the time, the game runs fine. Slow, but fine. Then, on occassion, the game will absolutely grind to a halt. The hard drive (virtual memory access) would absolutely churn, and several times, Civ3 would crash to the OS. Now and then, I'd get a message from the OS telling me 90% of resources were in use. This was no longer just a "slow game" but seemed to be reacting very badly to some set of conditions.

My worst times came during (or shortly thereafter) diplomatic discussions. (In other words, specific portions of the game seemed to trigger this, not just general slowness.)

Now, since a new PC is on my to-do list, I'm willing to be patient for another month or two. As a result, I tried a couple of things:

1) My virtual memory settings were set to a fixed amount. I changed it to "let Windows manage my virtual memory."

2) I had several background tasks running. Most were lowest priority tasks, but still were running. I turned off my firewall (don't need it if I'm not online), Quicken download manager (never really use it anyway), my United Devices cancer research distributed computing project and a program associated with my digital camera. These were all starting automatically when I start up my PC.

3) Applied the 1.16f patch. Dunno if this has any effect or not.

Between these three things, the excessive grinding has gone away. Now things are back to being merely slow. I can deal with that. The 5-10+ minutes of my hard drive grinding concerned me, but that seems to have gone away.

So, the punchline for both sides of this argument: I believe the original poster when he complains. I found the grinding to be absurdly excessive. I don't think he's talking about just a "slow" game, but one that appears to be "broken."

In return, there are a few things you can try before pinning this back on Firaxis. Try killing everything else that may be running, and be sure to pay attention to background tasks. My guess is that the excessive problems aren't due to hardware, but to Civ3 competing with some other program. Just a guess.

 

[Aslan]

I believe the problem does stem from my K6-2. Piece of crap!

I installed CivIII downstairs on the computer with a P3 500 and 160MB RAM and it runs really really well!

I can get a deal through my school at Dell.com for a 700 dollar P4 computer...but I think that if I got an AthlonXP processor and assorted other components, i could build one cheaper than that. I just don't have any money right now...period. I'm a college student.

As to the quote that appears at the bottom of my posts...you probably have read it somewhere. Think about my name "Aslan the Lion" and then think about the quote...If you still can't guess what it is, then I'll tell you. But try to guess first.

 

[J Fred Muggs]

This game does not hit my harddrive at all. It hits it just when the game starts and that is it, period. Scares me, after playing Diablo2 which hits it hard even with alot of RAM, just doesn't seem right. This game runs fine on my AMD 350. RAM is cheap, never been lower and the easiest thing you'll ever add to your puter. I can't believe these monster machines they sell with such low amonts of RAM. If you got one with 128 or less you got screwed. Now my bus speed is only 100, but the one of the chips I added is a 133 bus, folks ram is backwards compatable, which means you can carry RAM to a new system in some cases. Even if you can't or don't use it in a later system, I'll say it again, RAM is dirt cheap.

 

[Aslan]

RAM IS dirt cheap! Amen to what you said Muggs. But I'm po' and can't afford anything right now. Last time I spent money was...well...to buy this game (which works now on a different computer, even though I wish I could use it on the one in my room--oh well!).

 

[J Fred Muggs]

Yeah, I remember those days. Hell I'm still poor GI Bill kept me in beer and cigs though, well for most of the month anyway. I managed to keep a student job, when I went back and was married which was a big help. Jobs were a joke, which was cool because I had peace and quiet to get my studies done. Well it does get better, keep it up.

 

[HomeAir]

I have heard a number of complaints/arguments and solutions and most of the solutions are to upgrade. Agreed 100% for you Aslan. I am surprised that it will even start it up with your system.

A couple things that people who can't afford to upgrade can try to help matters:

1) Run Defrag so that all memory spaces on the HD are put together instead of in a ton of different places. This will help the virtual memory use larger chunks of memory without having to keep bouncing around and making the HD work too hard which does take time.

2) Stop all unneeded programs or processes. That is, you only need systray and explorer running when you start the game. There is a freeware program called "End It All" that does this for you and it's very easy and quick to use. You can download it from a whole bunch of places like Tucows.

3) Shut off any unneeded actions in the game like animations, show enemy moves, show friend moves (until any of this stuff is needed like wartime). This will help a lot. Music is completely unnecessary so shut it off as well.

These are the downfalls for having a less powerful system. So either upgrade, do some of these things to help the computer out, or don't bother playing. I for one am hoping that you don't choose the last.

BECAUSE I am working on a mod that should improve the realism of the game even more than it is. More to come.....

 

[Aslan]

I've had this old clunker of a system for a number of years. It has served me well...you don't know how many games of UT I've played on this thing, how many papers written, emails sent, and other such fun things. I've rarely had any major problems with this system in the time that I've had it, and it is quite the workhorse. CivIII is just too much for it, and it is high time I got a new one. Maybe next year!

But right now the game is running on an older pentium3 machine and everything is fine. It runs just fine and dandy .

More realism...neato




Aslan the Lion

 

[J Fred Muggs]

Originally posted by HomeAir
A couple things that people who can't afford to upgrade can try to help matters:

Also do a fresh boot, Win has a bad habit of not releasing RAM. Like I said before I use a RAM recovery freebie and I love it.

For some games it is a good idea to set your file system handling to server instead of home computer( found under system). My memory program handles this as well.

 

[gormtheold]

Well, of course, Chronicles of Narnia (probably the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but it's over forty years since I read it). I thought everybody knew that. One good thing about being old, you've done an awful lot of things. One bad thing, you don't remember most of them.

 

[Acid Reign]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is how long since a low level format was done (everything wiped off the hard disk and then put back on) because many programs dont remove everything they install.

Also, with win 98 and possibly 2000/XP, the o/s does not handle the memory very well. Everytime you run a program then quit it, windows does not regain all the memory back.

And to the original poster - running XP on such a low end PC is a big mistake. For that kind of system, i would say that windows 98 is much better.

 

[AUDoc]

Dang it, gormtheold beat me to it. I was gonna guess Narnia . It's only been 12 years since I've read it, though.

 

[Aslan]

Good job you guys. It is Narnia. Specifically, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." The quote comes after Aslan's resurrection. I am a Christian and a great admirer of Lewis. He and I have much in common, not the least that I'm Irish descended and he is Irish. At any rate, I love his work. I also greatly enjoy this game.

Cheers!




Aslan the Lion

 

[scavenger]

for the record, Windows 2000 does an amazing job with memory, I havn't turned my computer off since June, and my memory level is still constant.

 

[Aslan]

Win2000 and WinXP do both rock in terms of resource management...but...you have to have a beefy puter to take advantage of it! Oh that I had the moola to take advantage!






Aslan the Lion