CPU Usage 100% with BtS 3.17 Patch

[mlspyl]

Recently downloaded the 3.17 patch for BtS. Now the CPU usage on my laptop frequently reaches 100%; my game "locks up" until the CPU usage falls below 100%. This causes frequent delays in the game, extremely annoying.

I either have to wait until the CPU usage falls below 100% (minutes) or open Windows Task Manager and this seems to help (usage falls below 100%) for a few minutes. The three processes that seem to hog the CPU on Task Manager are:

CIVBeyondSword 10% - 60% (CPU) uses 400MB - 600MB (mem usage)
System 0% - 60% (CPU) uses 244k (mem usage)
System Idle Process 10% - 50% (CPU) use 28k (mem usage)


When playing CIV4 BtS, I only have CIV4 and Windows Task Manager open, no other programs. With the 3.13 patch for BtS I never experienced this problem.

I have a Dell Latitude D820 laptop with the following:
Windows XP SP2
Intel Core 2 CPU T7600 @ 2.33GHz
2GB of RAM
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120M 512MB RAM (video card)


I am not sure if any of the above information is useful but I hope so !!! Any help would be greatly appreciated. I love the game but am frustrated with the lag time I am experiencing when using the BTS 3.17 patch.


Thanks
Mark

 

[Balderstrom]

Why are you running the TaskManager ? Just running it tasks your machine far beyond normal - I don't recall the exact specifics, but it basically adds another High Priority thread that the CPU has to deal with before it handles any other processes.

Sounds to me like you downloaded the patch, ran the patch. Which has added a few hundred more MB of data onto your HD - which is quite possibly fragmented or running with less than 20% Free space. A fragmented SwapFile will greatly hinder your system as well.

 

[EweezE]

Why don't you have SP3 for XP? (Service Pack 3) I would go to Windows Update and take care of that after defragging my drive and running a virus scan. Maybe 3.17 is a SP3 friendly patch. It might be since SP3 has been out for a while now... but I doubt it. Anyway, SP3 improves Windows... get it.

 

[zyphyr]

Why are you running the TaskManager ? Just running it tasks your machine far beyond normal - I don't recall the exact specifics, but it basically adds another High Priority thread that the CPU has to deal with before it handles any other processes.

Seems pretty obvious to me that he fired it up to see why his machine was suddenly siezing up.

 

[Balderstrom]

Wow what a helpful response there Zyphr. I was asking, as he made it sound like he usually runs TaskManager, not just to check CPU usage in this instance.

Thanks for contributing.

 

[Krazy]

The three processes that seem to hog the CPU on Task Manager are:

CIVBeyondSword 10% - 60% (CPU) uses 400MB - 600MB (mem usage)
System 0% - 60% (CPU) uses 244k (mem usage)
System Idle Process 10% - 50% (CPU) use 28k (mem usage)

Actually, the System Idle Process doesn't 'hog' the CPU at all, it is actually the percentage of time when your CPU is doing nothing.

If CIVBS.exe is 'only' using 60% of your CPU then something else is causing the slowdown. Is the hard disk thrashing (frequent activity) when it slows down?

 

[TheDS]

Wow, Baldy, you're response was so much more useful than his. In fact, I'd say he was correcting YOUR misconception. One of them, anyway. I seriously doubt his swapfile got THAT fragmented overnight.

Installing SP3 is probably not going to do anything useful, either. There are plenty of instances where installing a service pack breaks more than it fixes, and you can ask any professional IT manager why they don't get SPs installed as soon as they come out. If he's got all the other OS patches, then he doesn't need SP3 anyway.

Freezes are almost always caused by two or more processes trying to use the same slow piece of hardware at the same time, or the graphics system getting overloaded (which happens on most machine I've used, even when the OS is freshly installed). It's easily possible that this patch, which itself needs a patch, is causing problems.

If using Solver's unofficial patch doesn't fix it for you, then your best bet is to try a full reinstall of the game.

Uninstall the whole thing, reboot, install, and then install the new patch, and then Solver's patch.

If this doesn't work for you, then reinstall again, but stick with the 3.13 patch (and Bhruic's unofficial patch).

 

[Balderstrom]

FYI: BTS 3.17 installs updated DirectX D3D_*.dll's, generally you will want to update your Graphic Drivers if possible when changing the underlying directX layer.

@TheDS, considering I already posed a few questions, and attempted to contribute, beyond just being a smart-ass, yes I do believe I was more useful.

 

[EweezE]

Installing SP3 is probably not going to do anything useful, either. There are plenty of instances where installing a service pack breaks more than it fixes, and you can ask any professional IT manager why they don't get SPs installed as soon as they come out. If he's got all the other OS patches, then he doesn't need SP3 anyway.

Then why would XP discs be sold with SP3 on them? Why wouldn't they just stick to regular old XP with no service packs for OS discs? They put time into creating these packs as well as testing them. Do you have SP2 installed? What about SP3? I bet you have at least SP2 installed. So telling someone not to grab the latest service pack might be considered hypocritical. And by not installing the latest service pack, you might actually have trouble running certain programs later on down the line (if not now). Especially if that prog relies on one of the packs' components. I say the uninstall - reinstall suggestion would be one to consider mlspyl, but consider SP3 as well (SP3 Overview). MSFT doesn't release service packs for the heck of it. You can always uninstall the service pack if you don't like how your PC responds to it. But whatever, listen to TheDS, he thinks he knows all. Funny thing is.. TheDS probably posted more to "correct" one of us, then as an afterthought threw in the uninstall - reinstall bit so as to stay on topic. Yes I can read minds, all Jedi can.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Just because it's a newer "official" product doesn't always mean it's the better "more stable" version to be using.

If we were to follow that logic, everyone around here would be screaming for everyone to upgrade to Windows Vista to get the most out of Civ4.

There's something to be said for "tried and tested", as opposed to "Microsoft Guinea pig".

 

[Willem]

Just because it's a newer "official" product doesn't always mean it's the better "more stable" version to be using.

Well having installed SP3 on my system, I can accurately say that my OS runs faster than it did before and I haven't seen any sort of instabilty issues. It's an accepted fact that SP3 allows XP to run 10% faster than it did before. Anyone who is reluctant to install it is just being paranoid and foolish IMO.

 

[PutCashIn]

When it comes to OS's and Updates, theres only the question of how paranoid to be....

 

[zyphyr]

Wow what a helpful response there Zyphr. I was asking, as he made it sound like he usually runs TaskManager, not just to check CPU usage in this instance.

Then you must have missed this little line..

I either have to wait until the CPU usage falls below 100% (minutes) or open Windows Task Manager and this seems to help (usage falls below 100%) for a few minutes.

In other words, he opens it after the freezing begins, and it therefore isn't the cause of the problem.

Thanks for contributing.

Just happy to point people away from unproductive lines of attack on the problem.

 

[Balderstrom]

You mean yer happy to of posted twice now, and contributed absolutely nothing but be an . .. .. .. .. .. .. . to the ppl that are actually attemptng to be of assistance.

 

[karadoc]

SP3 is basically just a bundle of patches. If you have a fully patched SP2, then getting SP3 won't help you at all.

As for task manager wasting CPU cycles (as suggested by Balderstrom), I call "Bogus" on that. The task manager uses almost zero resources compared to Civ4, or any game, or almost any application at all. See for youself, run it now and look at how much CPU and memory it uses. For me it is currently using 0% of the CPU and 2336Kb of memory. Peanuts. Task manager is a useful tool for diagnosing problems. I've never seen it cause any problems of its own.

 

[zyphyr]

You mean yer happy to of posted twice now, and contributed absolutely nothing but be an . .. .. .. .. .. .. . to the ppl that are actually attemptng to be of assistance.

I wasn't being an [ insert insult of your choice here ] before, but now I am...

You misread his post. I pointed out that you were looking at the wrong issue (for the first half of your initial post, the 2nd half is a possible though highly unlikely possibility). You insulted me for it. I then responded to explain the intent of my post, which illicited a 2nd insult.

Prior to that 2nd response to me, I was assuming that as a non-Quebec Canadian it was probable that English was your first language and that your initial post was simply from overlooking the details in the first post. Now, I understand that your comprehension of the language is limited and you just don't actually understand what you are reading.

On the other hand, the DirectX/Driver suggestion you made is likely a good one.

 

[frekk]

Recently downloaded the 3.17 patch for BtS. Now the CPU usage on my laptop frequently reaches 100%; my game "locks up" until the CPU usage falls below 100%. This causes frequent delays in the game, extremely annoying.

I either have to wait until the CPU usage falls below 100% (minutes) or open Windows Task Manager and this seems to help (usage falls below 100%) for a few minutes. The three processes that seem to hog the CPU on Task Manager are:

CIVBeyondSword 10% - 60% (CPU) uses 400MB - 600MB (mem usage)
System 0% - 60% (CPU) uses 244k (mem usage)
System Idle Process 10% - 50% (CPU) use 28k (mem usage)

Whatever your problem is, it is not freezing because of cpu usage. System Idle Process is just a name for unused cpu time, so if you are seeing it never less than 10% then your cpu isn't being maxed out.

60% for "System" (including svchost, spoolsv, and all that stuff) - except maybe in the first 5 minutes after booting - is outrageous, there might be something in there causing some sort of problem. I would think it might be a memory issue caused by some service or background process, or possibly a registry problem - there are many possibilities. Civ is a heavy user of the paging file's virtual memory, which can never be greater than 4GB regardless of how much physical memory you have, so it is possible (especially on Vista) that something is hogging alot of page file space.

Have you installed any other new software of any sort? Sometimes problems like this are as simple as someone having installed QuickTime or some other program that runs a background process constantly (eg qttask), which became the feather that broke the camel's back.

Fragmentation may be another possibility. If your harddrive has been filled with alot of stuff since you first installed the game, and/or there is little free space, it is possible that installing the patch caused the game files to become more fragmented than they were. Defragment your hard drive and see if there is an improvement.

It is also possible that if you have been installing or uninstalling alot of software recently, that your registry file has become fragmented, which a regular defragmentation session may not correct. A third party defragmentation utility, such as TuneUp Utilities, can specifically defragment the registry and clean up unnecessary registry entries, which is advisable if you have been doing alot of installing and uninstalling.

There are so many possibilities, it is really very hard to know what it could be without knowing your machine. You need to be like a detective and eliminate suspects, so to speak.