Civ complete extremely slow on huge map!

[Nicci]

it's really annoying. civ complete doesn't seem to like huge maps very well! right now i'm playing a game on a huge map and when i kill a king of my opponent, the game crashes on me.
between turns something strange happens: when i click on the civ icon in the dock, it says the game doesn't respons! that's not the case, because moments later the next turn appears.
i'm running civ complete on a G5 iMac with 512MB of memory.

on smaller maps these problems don't seem to occur.

 

[dojoboy]

I love smaller maps.

Large and huge maps have always been murder, even w/ Civ3 vanilla.

That crash when killing a king unit would interest Brad.

 

[Beamup]

Upping your RAM to 1 GB will help, I expect.

 

[MAS]

This issue has come up before, the windows version has the problem too, in fact, Firaxis even patched away an even larger map from the list somewhere in the past.

The problem is the pathfinding, a process that takes exponentially more work as the map becomes bigger, and the units can move more tiles in one turn. (like when there are railroads) It is a problem that some really smart dudes worked on even before the first computer was invented.
There are only 2 ways to make it go faster. #1 faster CPU, #2 less accurate.
The creators of Civ3 choose to make the pathfinding more accurate. A choice I personally agree with.

 

[Nicci]

ok.
the trouble is i can't finish one game the way i like. i'd like to kill the king of one of my bigger opponents (and i have a good shot at him), but when i finish him of, the game just freezes (or takes over 15 minutes to get to the next turn).
one scenario (mideval europe) gets so slow it's not even funny to play anymore.
anyway, do u really believe more RAM will help? i have some doubts.

 

[MAS]

ok.
anyway, do u really believe more RAM will help? i have some doubts.

Me too, Its a process intensive task. More RAM will help indirectly, because with the extra breathing room, the computer can afford to spend less time reorganizing memory. But how much tasks need RAM on your system when you run Civ3?
Some apps need a lot of ram, but for Civ3 I think the benefit will not be worth the investment.

But note that I'm not an expert.

 

[AlanH]

Me too, Its a process intensive task. More RAM will help indirectly, because with the extra breathing room, the computer can afford to spend less time reorganizing memory. But how much tasks need RAM on your system when you run Civ3?
Some apps need a lot of ram, but for Civ3 I think the benefit will not be worth the investment.

But note that I'm not an expert.

I *would* expect more memory to help. Even for modest activities, 512 MBytes is now the minimum I would recommend anyone to use with OS X, and a huge Civ3 map is not a modest use. I run 1.12 GBytes and it makes a significant difference even to routine activities.

The pathfinding algorithm is no doubt recursive, and consumes more memory as the map gets bigger and as the path options get more complex. If there's already a lot of memory consumed by the map and units and cities and other stuff I can well believe that it's thrashing as it pages chunks of data on and off the disk. Since the investment is pretty modest these days I think it is worth investing in another half GByte.

 

[Beamup]

Increasing RAM from 512MB to 1 GB helps a great deal with all applications under OSX. The system just needs that much memory. As a practical matter, 512 is the minimum to run OSX, 1GB is the "strongly recommended" requirement.

And anecdotally, even on huge maps in the late game, my system runs beautifully, without major delays. And my processor is effectively less capable than yours since I'm running under Rosetta (until the UB patch comes out, anyway). The difference? I do have a gig of RAM. Others have reported similar results.

 

[MAS]

Increasing RAM from 512MB to 1 GB helps a great deal with all applications under OSX.

Oh sure, if you can afford to buy an extra 512 ram, I would recomend it just for overal computer speed aswell.
But I didn't think it will speed up the pathfinding process. If you are on a huge map in the late industrial age, and a hight diffeculty level, computer turns are going to take some time.

But then, I admit that I don't have personal experience to tell what difference it makes for civ3...

And anecdotally, even on huge maps in the late game, my system runs beautifully, without major delays. And my processor is effectively less capable than yours since I'm running under Rosetta (until the UB patch comes out, anyway). The difference? I do have a gig of RAM. Others have reported similar results.

So maybe I was wrong.

 

[Beamup]

Oh sure, if you can afford to buy an extra 512 ram, I would recomend it just for overal computer speed aswell.

It's not like it's terribly expensive. Even Apple will sell it for $100, and a very brief (~30 seconds) search allowed me to find it for $60 - one can probably find a source for $50 or even $40 with a little bit of work. Compared to the price of games, much less the original cost of the system, that's cheap.

 

[AlanH]

I wouldn't go anywhere else but Crucial. $69.95 for 512 MBytes for a 2 GHz G5 iMac.

 

[Nicci]

ok, i'll try some extra RAM. am i right the iMac G5 has 2 memory-slots? right now i have 2 times 256, so this means i could buy 1GB to replace one of the 256 that's in right now or i could buy 2 times 512.

 

[AlanH]

I don't think you need to replace anything. Leave what you have in place and add 512 MBytes or 1 GByte in the other slot(s).

The link I gave you gives a lot of details of what to do. Click the "Crucial Recommends" tab on that page to see a three step procedure on choosing your options. If you follow the Mac tab you'll find this Mac-specific page with installation instructions for recent Mac hardware. Your iMac probably also came with specific intructions.

 

[Beamup]

No, he'll have to replace if he's currently got 256x2. Makes it a tad more expensive.

Personally I'd strongly recommend the 1GBx1 option. Then if you want to expand further in the future, you can.

 

[AlanH]

Sorry, I read "2 empty slots". Not very clever of Apple to leave no space for expansion.

 

[Beamup]

They do leave 1 slot open by default. It's easy to get tripped up, though. I got my 1 GB as 1 chip BTO, but it would have been very easy to end up with 2 512s instead. You really have to be aware of future upgrade possibilities to be sure you get the right option.

 

[VALIS Ashwa]

I have 2 512s and always play on large or huge maps. Personally I have never had a single problem yet. However, I have only played about 4 games and usually stop playing during modern times. For some reason I get bored near the end of the game. By that point I can easily figure out weather or not I will win.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Two slots is pretty common. When buying a new mac they generally give you the option fo 256x2, or 512x1 and one slot empty. I got my powerbook with 512, and I got another 1gig stick and tossed it in there. I haven't taken on a huge map yet, but I have been playing on large, and the longest I ever waited for a turn is about 20 seconds. About one out of every 5 turns does that in the modren era.