Choppy graphics even with Duel size maps

[Katly]

Hello everyone,

Ever since I reinstalled Windows XP, I'm experiencing choppy graphics on my computer even on Duel size maps (usually I play over the LAN at home). The choppy graphics tend to start around the Renaissance. I play BTS Patch 3.17.

I know it's not my computer because I do exceed the Recommended specs for Civ.. and this computer was not as bad before I reinstalled Windows.

I have turned all the options in Civ to "Low" and have even upgraded by Video card.. all to no avail. Running Windows XP Media Center Edition, SP3. Celeron CPU of 2.93Ghz, 3GB of Ram. Video card is ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT, 256MB of DDR3.

If I'm having problems even with Duel maps I shudder to think how bad even a Standard map size would be!

Also, since this is a fairly clean install, I have very few other programs installed on the computer. I trie looking at RivaRuner but didn't really know what settings to change and didn't want to mess anything up.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

 

[Katly]

Sorry, I have one additional question...

My main computer, according to ATI Catalyst is a ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO PCI-E with 256MB DDR3 (similar to the graphic card in the computer that I'm having problems with). But when I run dxdiag, it tells me that the approximate total memory is 1651MB. Why is that??

Is that something to do with Windows Vista which is somehow boosting the memory available for graphics? Is it something that I can do for my other computer as well? I tried playing around with the page files but it didn't seem to have any effect.

Thanks again in advance!

 

[ori]

after 2 years: let me be the first to Welcome you to CFC

now to your questions - the second is easy: Vista uses huge amounts of physical memory (i.e. RAM) to artificially boost your graphics memory:

Display Memory: 1651 MB
Dedicated Memory: 244 MB
Shared Memory: 1407 MB

I don't think it is necessarily a good idea to tinker with that in XP. now for the other thing:

it should not cause problems - are there other games where this happens as well? what graphics settings did you change? did you change anything in the civilizationIV.ini?

 

[Katly]

after 2 years: let me be the first to Welcome you to CFC

Thank you!

I don't think it is necessarily a good idea to tinker with that in XP.

Although it might not be good to tinker with that in XP, is there a way of actually doing it? I've been reading up on hypermemory for ATI but everything seems to indicate that it's something that's done automatically - now, since I know the video card supports it, I don't understand why it doesn't work. Is hypermemory only supported by Vista?

now for the other thing:

it should not cause problems - are there other games where this happens as well? what graphics settings did you change? did you change anything in the civilizationIV.ini?

I don't actually really use the desktop to do anything anymore except for playing Civ over the LAN...
So no, I have no idea if I would have the same problem with other games.
For the .ini file, I only changed the number of autosaves (every 5 turns).
For the graphic settings, I changed the three pull-down menus from "High" to "Low"... and checked/unchecked any of the options that look like they might be graphic intense.

Thanks ori!

 

[ori]

there are quite a few graphics settings in the .ini (basically all with bik or bink in their name) you might be able to improve it somewhat by changing them one at a time - some of them result in very ugly graphics though...

as for the shared memory thing - AFAIK you can only tinker with it in the BIOS since XP won't do it for you, read this for a howto:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2138456_configure-shared-memory-through-bios.html

 

[oynaz]

Here is a bunch of advice

1. Keep your hands off the shared graphics memory. Civ 4 does not use textures larger than 256 MB anyway, so there is no performance to be had by going higher.

2. Keep your hands off the page file. Windows does a very good job of managing it automatically, so let it.

3. Try turning off anti-aliasing.

4. If you haven't already, install your motherboard's chipset drivers. People often forget that, and it can have a serious performance impact.

5. Upgrade to newest drivers.

6. Upgrade to newest DirectX

7. Upgrade to Service Pack 3. (You are using XP, right?)