Back to Civ 3

[Mike.doc]

I've a new Sony Vaio With a Pentium of 1,6 Megahertz, 512 Mo RAM and the ATI Radeon 9700. But Civ 4 is running so slowly that I decided to go back to Civ 3.
Is it a way to go faster ? Is 512 Mo of Ram enough ?
Thanks.

 

[King Flevance]

You may try giving Harkonnon's (sp?) patch a try.

It is in the completed mods forum I believe.

 

[Efexeye]

Your proc is below the minimums (IIRC)...probably a fairly serious problem.

 

[Atlantean]

What size maps are you using, and what are your graphic settings? You'd be surprised how fast you can get the game to go with a few tweaks (less resolution, less options, smaller map).

 

[ZippyRiver]

I saw a post regarding ATI cards and a new set of drivers. (sticky thread in the tech support forum). might be worth the read 4u

 

[MattJek]

I've a new Sony Vaio With a Pentium of 1,6 Megahertz, 512 Mo RAM and the ATI Radeon 9700. But Civ 4 is running so slowly that I decided to go back to Civ 3.
Is it a way to go faster ? Is 512 Mo of Ram enough ?
Thanks.

I upgraded my 512mb ram to 748 and it make my game run a LOT more smoother. Im gonna ubgrade to one gig in a few weeks to make it even better.

 

[Lahdoz]

Describe what exactly is slow. Is it the time between turns, or lagging or choppy graphics? I suspect graphics, and would turn down some of the graphics settings. Resolution is a big factor.

 

[BirraImperial]

You may try giving Harkonnon's (sp?) patch a try.

It is in the completed mods forum I believe.

This was a huge boost for me, games now load ultra fast and the program exits to desktop inmmediately. Just give it a try, it will work

 

[warpstorm]

A lot of people claim tha the Omega drviers make a big difference.

 

[Huszar]

Your proc is below the minimums (IIRC)...probably a fairly serious problem.

His proc in definitely not below the min. spec. Min is 1,2 GHz with 256 MB RAM and recommanded is 1,8 GHz with 512 MB RAM. Not that it means anything.

Mike, try Harkonnen's patch. I have also only 1,6 GHz and 512 MB RAM (although a desktop) and the patch helped a lot, especially on the waiting times between turns in the late ages. I used to wait 15-20 minutes when I exchanged the world map and this never happened again since Harkonnen's mod. I also use the BlueMarble graphics mod, which makes the graphics a bit smoother (and looks better too).

 

[ecc]

I have a question about the Harkonnen's patch. At one time when I went to his thread there were 3 files to download and it included python24.dll and the other two harkonnen files.

Now when I goto it, there is no longer the new python24.dll, instead there is the zlib1.dll. So whats up, did it change over the last week, are only the three files needed or is it four?

-Ryan

 

[henrycccc]

buy a desktop.

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Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Smidlee]

I have a question about the Harkonnen's patch. At one time when I went to his thread there were 3 files to download and it included python24.dll and the other two harkonnen files.

Now when I goto it, there is no longer the new python24.dll, instead there is the zlib1.dll. So whats up, did it change over the last week, are only the three files needed or is it four?

-Ryan

all he did was use the zlib1.dll to load up his patch instead of python24. you don't need the python dl anymore.

 

[calyth]

What Pentium chip do you run?
A P4 at 1.6MHz is definitely underpowered (there are plenty of tests that P3-900 did a better job than the first P4s)
If it's a Pentium-M, then it might not be that much of a problem.

 

[RX2000]

I have a P4 1.5 ghz with 256 mb of ram. I also have a Radeon Pro 9500 card.

The game does good on standard size up until the industrial or modern age, and then it starts chugging a little. It wasnt so bad on my last game tho, cause I didnt do much warmongering in those 2 ages, so I was mostly just sailing through them pretty quick. If I ever get into a giant late game war I might be in trouble tho.

I havent ever tried to play on a large or huge map yet. Judging from what people have said, I'd say it'd be pretty impossible with my current setup.

Good thing I should be getting my new Dell XPS 600 soon, hehe.

 

[eplepai]

What size maps are you using, and what are your graphic settings? You'd be surprised how fast you can get the game to go with a few tweaks (less resolution, less options, smaller map).

why does everyone say that? its not true.
i have a p4-3ghz, 1gb ram, geforce fx 5200 256mb, and i get 5-13 fps on ANY settings, ANY mapsize at ANY age in the game.
maybe i get 2-3 less fps with max gfx settings.
ive tweaked everything i know in the game, in windows, drivers etc. but it doesnt go any faster.
if i zoom out to the clouds i get 30 fps, but one cant play the game from there.

so is my system malfunctioning or is it this choppy for everyone?

 

[calyth]

why does everyone say that? its not true.
i have a p4-3ghz, 1gb ram, geforce fx 5200 256mb, and i get 5-13 fps on ANY settings, ANY mapsize at ANY age in the game.
maybe i get 2-3 less fps with max gfx settings.
ive tweaked everything i know in the game, in windows, drivers etc. but it doesnt go any faster.
if i zoom out to the clouds i get 30 fps, but one cant play the game from there.

so is my system malfunctioning or is it this choppy for everyone?

I'm running a 2500+, 1GB. Use to have a Radeon 9000 Pro. It was managable up until modern on a large map. Now I have a 6600GT.
How much free space have you got left? Consider locking the size of the swap file, Windows still doesn't control it all that well, and for my personal machines, I set the size to the size of my RAM (if it use more than 2GB, it should be stopped, not given more space). Try right clicking on my computer, Advance (I think), performance option. You should see the button that allows you to adjust the swap file size.
Defrag your hard drive if you haven't done it in a while. Through the nVidia driver, try having the image quality set to high performance and see if it helps (it might introduce artifacts so you might have to change that to Performance). Make sure you're not running something intensive in the background - pulling about 150KBps off the internet might take a chunk out CPU time out. Check for viruses/worms/spyware.

I don't really know what else to tell you. It kinda sounds like voodoo, and maybe it is voodoo. *sigh*

 

[nino.scibetta]

I upgraded my 512mb ram to 748 and it make my game run a LOT more smoother. Im gonna ubgrade to one gig in a few weeks to make it even better.

Same here...

 

[Atlantean]

I must have the best POS system around then. I'm only running a 2.0 P4, 768 ram, and an ATI 9600, the game runs fine unless I'm playing modern era, huge map at high resolution.

 

[whitecrow]

I found that Civ4 process alone just consume more than 600MB of system memory, (large map, but standard map showed little difference, and turning off or down every graphic options) It's like hell to play civ4 with just 512MB ram because it'll swap hdd like mad. Don't play Civ4 with less than 1GB ram unless you're very patient.