[BTS] Civ 4 lag issues

[Piquito2223]

Hello, here is my problem.

It starts to lag after playing for a couple of hours. Scrolling through cities, moving units and the camera becomes slow. It's as if my computer is struggling to handle the game, despite having a PC which can run newer games without any problems. I tried running it with Windows 7 compatibility mode with administrator privileges, V-Sync on and disabled Nvidia Overlay with no results. I have the GOG version and I play with the Better BUG AI mod and I'm using Windows 10.

 

[a pen-dragon]

I can think of multiple scenarios.

1)
AFAIK the game leaks a bit of memory (specifically the city screen).

This means that the longer you play the closer you get to the limit amount of RAM the game can use (4GB). My understanding is that having little additional RAM to claim then slows the game.

2)
The graphics lag due to your specific setup not handling the game well, or having too little VRAM (unlikely if you are using a modern dedicated Nvidia GPU).

3)
The map just becomes really cluttered (big map, many units, ...) and the game itself is slow at handling the graphics.


Also the mod might make things worse than in the base game.

IMHO you should see if the problem persists after saving the game, restarting the application and reloading.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Due to the memory leak problem, which is due to a subtle error in the main program so we can't fix it, the game always slows down after several hours of play. The bigger the map and the more AIs, the faster it happens. Saving the game and restarting CIV clears the memory problem. You should then be back to a good playing speed. Keep in mind that with a big map and many AIs later turns will still be slower than early in the game.

 

[Piquito2223]

Due to the memory leak problem, which is due to a subtle error in the main program so we can't fix it, the game always slows down after several hours of play. The bigger the map and the more AIs, the faster it happens. Saving the game and restarting CIV clears the memory problem. You should then be back to a good playing speed. Keep in mind that with a big map and many AIs later turns will still be slower than early in the game.

I did that and it worked. Now I set the alarm for 2 hours so I don't experience the slowdown.