Civ3 Performance Issues?

[katew]

Hi All -

We live close to San Francisco, so we picked up a copy of Civ3 for Mac at MacWorld. LOVE it! However, it is alarmingly slow compared to previous versions of Civ. Does anyone else have this issue? Are there steps I can take to improve the performance? (For instance, I tried turning the animations off to boost performance -- but that didn't work, because the animations didn't turn off, despite the fact that I "unchecked" 'em in prefs.)

Thanks!
Kate

UPDATE to new readers: Turn off Quartz text to significantly improve performance. To turn off Quartz text, hold down the command key while you launch app by double-clicking on its icon. Then, deselect the option to use Quartz to process text. This caused a tremendous boost in performance -- THANK YOU to all the people who responded to my post.

 

[gfeier]

A couple of questions, Kate. What kind of hardware are you running the game on and are you using OS 8.6, 9, X (10.0.4) or X (10.1)? MacSoft's system requirements are:

· MacOS 8.6 or higher or MacOS 10.0.4 or higher
· 300MHz iMac G3 or better (500MHz preferred)
· 64M RAM for the classic MacOS (96M preferred), 128M for MacOS X
· 500MB Hard disk space (650MB preferred)

I think these are really quite a bit understated. I have never seen a game that runs well at the minimum recommended MHz and NOTHING will run all that well on any system in OS X with 128MB. I think they should have doubled their minimum RAM for both OSs.

 

[juanvaldes]

Yes, its' slow. On both platforms. Runs A LOT FASTER on my dual 450 (have yet to see it use more then 100% CPU though, so the second CPU seems to never get touched ) then on my buddies 500Mhz AMD K7. So it could be worse. But it's feels like they got it running in time for MacWorld and decided to rush it and not optimize it. Hope future patches make it even more responsive, how about threading?

 

[juanvaldes]

If you use OS X TURN OFF Quartz.

On my dual 450 G4 w/Rage 128 Pro and 960RAM Civ 3 feels like its' running slower then on our family Rev D iMac playing UT. (hey I got it up to 20fps! )

AFTER! OH MY GOD!!!! I was just like breathing in and out so fast. I could hardly believe it. I sware I saw more performance improvement then when my friend went form slow as hell Civ under a 500Mhz AMD K-7 to a 1500Mhz Athelon XP. It was THAT big.

 

[dojoboy]

Okay, I've got 8.6 w/ 333MHz processor and RAM upgrade. How much does the speed of game-play have to do w/ amount of RAM or the processor? My Civ2 game is fast, but it needs only 10 MB RAM, Civ3 minimum is 64 MB (which I have plus). What does the system have to do w/ game-play? I'm thinking not much.


Still waiting on C&B.

 

[SSK]

My game is still on order from Chibts&bits and it is disturbing to see the bad performance news on this thread.

Is anyone out there who got the game at MacWorld running OS 9? I wonder if I will have a big problem running the game with my 400 mHz iMac DV graphite with 256mg RAM. I haven't upgraded to OS X yet since I was worried about memory requirements and don't want to pay $200 yet for the d*mned Microsoft office for OS X upgrade--I just bought office 2001 this past summer dammit. We can avoid MSoft Windows, but still can't escape greedy Microsoft.

 

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by SSK
My game is still on order from Chibts&bits and it is disturbing to see the bad performance news on this thread.

Is anyone out there who got the game at MacWorld running OS 9? I wonder if I will have a big problem running the game with my 400 mHz iMac DV graphite with 256mg RAM. I haven't upgraded to OS X yet since I was worried about memory requirements and don't want to pay $200 yet for the d*mned Microsoft office for OS X upgrade--I just bought office 2001 this past summer dammit. We can avoid MSoft Windows, but still can't escape greedy Microsoft.

Doubt any of us Macworld buys run OS 9 sorry BUT! As noted above (sorry I was so excited it doesn't make much sense) performance under X WITH quartz on is slow as hell. Turn it off (like how it would be under 9 I assume) and it's a whole new game. So I suspect 9 to run it great. I have seen the very same iMac run it great under OS X, so I really doubt 9 will give it any trouble. enjoy!

 

[Minmaster]

check out my post "my thoughts on civ3 mac port" thread in this forum. i agree it desperately needs optimization. my thinking is that civ3 should've been just released as os X only and not os 9 too because os 9 runs it horrible while X runs it to a degree where i can tolerate the laggyness.

 

[Filburt]

I run 667 MHz PowerBook G4 (512 MB RAM) under OS X.1.2 (1152 by 768).

It's almost unplayable with Quartz turned on, but very good with it turned off.

The music is occasionally choppy, so I just turn it off. It's pretty annoying how the game does not remember settings. I have to turn music off every time I start the game!

Otherwise, the game's good. It locked up on me once though.

 

[dojoboy]

Installed Civ3 for Mac yesterday and spent 4 hours (off and on) trying to get it to run respectably. No luck.

First, I had to upgrade QT 4.0 to 4.1.2 or higher. I got QT 5.0 and was able to start-up. After clicking the icon, about 2 minutes went by, with a dark screen and the computer grinding, until the main menu came up. Whenever I made choices (land mass, # of civs, difficulty level, etc.) anywhere from 30 - 40 seconds would pass by (grinding) before I could move on.

Re: dark screen. I did try several refresh rates but only auto worked. Also, I allocated more memory to Civ3 but little improvement if any. It forced me to increase virtual memory which is ineffectual.

System is 8.6 w/ G3 (333 MHZ ), Virtual memory (64 MB), built-in (32 MB), and RAM 128 or 256 MB (can't remember and don't know where to look).

I thought this met the requirements and am a little miffed. The ins and outs of computers is not my bag. Please advise.

 

[Rustus Maximus]

I don't have the game yet, dojoboy, but gfeier is right...

Originally posted by gfeier
I think these are really quite a bit understated. I have never seen a game that runs well at the minimum recommended MHz and NOTHING will run all that well on any system in OS X with 128MB.

 

[Rustus Maximus]

Sorry about that...I jumped the gun and sent my previous post before I was done :crazyeyes
I don't have the game yet, dojoboy, but gfeier is right...

Originally posted by gfeier
I think these are really quite a bit understated. I have never seen a game that runs well at the minimum recommended MHz and NOTHING will run all that well on any system in OS X with 128MB.

It sounds like you need alot more RAM and with it as cheap as it is right now, I would load up with as much as you can afford. Then I would give Civ 3 a good size chunk of it and let it fly. You might also think about upgrading your OS to at least 9...10 if you're ready for the plunge

 

[dojoboy]

Yea, evidently the RAM upgrade I made a few months ago isn't getting recognized by my mac. I'm carrying it down to the mac-man tomorrow so hopefully, in a couple days, I'll be joining you guys in the strategy thread.

 

[Beamup]

Well, like I just said in the other thread, I'm having no problems at all. G4/450, 512M RAM but using the base allocation of ~128M, under 9.2. Performance is quite good - it isn't perfectly responsive, but it's more than adequate. And I just thought of something - I'm apparently getting much better performance than many people. I'm also not getting the music. Which gives me an idea - try turning off the music. Doesn't seem like it would make much difference, but give it a shot, it almost certainly can't hurt.

 

[Rustus Maximus]

That's great news Beamup . I've got a Dual G4/450 with 512 MB running OS 9.2.2 and OS X so if you're not having any performance troubles the odds look good. Now, if only my game would get here...

 

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by Rustus Maximus
That's great news Beamup . I've got a Dual G4/450 with 512 MB running OS 9.2.2 and OS X so if you're not having any performance troubles the odds look good. Now, if only my game would get here...

I have the exact same setup (well, more RAM ) and as long as you turn quartz off you will be quite happily addicted to Civ 3 in a matter of moments

 

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by juanvaldes
Yes, its' slow. On both platforms. Runs A LOT FASTER on my dual 450 (have yet to see it use more then 100% CPU though, so the second CPU seems to never get touched ) then on my buddies 500Mhz AMD K7. So it could be worse. But it's feels like they got it running in time for MacWorld and decided to rush it and not optimize it. Hope future patches make it even more responsive, how about threading?

There's not really anything to thread - it's all turn based and very linear.

Regarding performance, the only killer is Quartz text under 10. In my benchmarking, the Mac version performs very comparably to similary MHz'ed PCs, so don't expect it to get any faster.

If you're noticing that the Mac port runs significantly slower than the PC version on a similar setup with Quartz disabled, then that is definitely a bug, and I'll need more info to try and reproduce it. However, all the feedback I have so far indicates that the performance is inline with the PC, if not slightly faster.

Brad

 

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by Brad Oliver


There's not really anything to thread - it's all turn based and very linear.

Regarding performance, the only killer is Quartz text under 10. In my benchmarking, the Mac version performs very comparably to similary MHz'ed PCs, so don't expect it to get any faster.

If you're noticing that the Mac port runs significantly slower than the PC version on a similar setup with Quartz disabled, then that is definitely a bug, and I'll need more info to try and reproduce it. However, all the feedback I have so far indicates that the performance is inline with the PC, if not slightly faster.

Brad

yeah...threading was more of an offhand remark.

Should it be sucking up 100% of my CPU when I hide the game under X? And does it ever use my second CPU during game play?

if not. Then Civ 3 is an excellent example of how much better the G4(@450Mhzx2) is over x86 because (as previously stated) it runs ALOT better then a 500Mhz AMD K7.

...of course if Civ DOES use the second CPU then this is an unfair comparison....

 

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by juanvaldes
Should it be sucking up 100% of my CPU when I hide the game under X? And does it ever use my second CPU during game play?

I never checked the CPU usage when hidden before, so I don't know what you should expect when it's hidden. Well, you should expect that it doesn't suck up much CPU, but I don't know what's normal for this release.

To answer your other question, it doesn't directly use the second CPU. Quartz or the OpenGL software renderer may use it, but that's outside of our direct control.

Brad

 

[Blublub]

Oh man this is slow. I'm running OS 9.2.2 on a G4/350 with 200 MB allocated to the game, and it's nearly unplayable. Scrolling is the worst, it takes several seconds to refresh each "click" in either direction. All this immediately after starting a game - I haven't yet tried to load some of my saved PC games. I've tried installing all the latest versions of GameSprockets, CarbonLib, etc. and have tried running with a reduced extension set, lower moitor res, etc., all with the same result.

What gives MacSoft?!? This is the first title I've ever seen that runs so poorly on my config (with the possible exception of the horrific Mac SimCity 3000).