Duration between turns

[sourdiesel]

How long do y'all have to wait for the AI between turns at, say, 1900 AD on a Huge map? For me it's upwards of 60 seconds, and I have a laptop purchased this year with typical stats.

I love civ4 so much that I'm considering building a desktop just to play it optimally with aniso and FSAA on, but I'm wondering if the wait between turns will not improve by much since it is tied mainly to the CPU/memory and not the graphics card (correct me if I'm wrong about this).

 

[Birdman6]

I can't speak to the topic of different computer platforms, but my desktop takes about a minute between turns late in the game. I just do chores/cleaning while I wait.

 

[mechaerik]

Well thats a laptop. Laptops in general don't have the power a desktop can have (at least not without massively compromising battery life).

I have a laptop, and the simplest solution is to simply turn down the map size. I used to play Huge Maps, but the wait would drag on unless I switched it to High Performance, which butchered my battery life. I prefer Standard or Large maps now.

 

[Ramesses]

Turning down the graphics quality helps too. Of course, when everything looks like crap, you may start to lose your desire to play.

 

[Onionsoilder]

I have a powerful desktop(3.0 GHz Dual Core; 8 GB RAM), takes about 40 seconds between turns at that point in the game. I doubt a desktop will help you much in that case. Then again, I usually run quite a few mods, so that might be slowing it down a bit as well.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Your amount of RAM helps dramaticaly transfer data to other compnonents. Standard laptops do not have much RAM 3GB should be enough, I don't have your stats though.
I guess the wait is not all bad... It DOES gives you time to think!

 

[smackthewise]

late game, about 10-20 seconds from memory for a large map, what is more annoying is when at the start of the turn the Diplo screens come up and such, they take a while to load each time, 4-5 seconds. I hear the music before I see anything.

Why don't you play smaller maps?!!! For me waiting so long would kill a lot of the fun, or just be plain annoying.

-I run Vista 64, on a 2.44Ghz quad core with 4gb 800Mhz Ram and 512mb Nvidia 9600GT. It runs very well, but I don't think it'll run any better no matter how much more powerful my computer is until the program is written to better utilise the entire CPU, or something....

 

[CivIVMonger]

If your comp did't fix anything... Nothing will...

 

[mechaerik]

-I run Vista 64, on a 2.44Ghz quad core with 4gb 800Mhz Ram and 512mb Nvidia 9600GT. It runs very well, but I don't think it'll run any better no matter how much more powerful my computer is until the program is written to better utilise the entire CPU, or something....

Or getting XP. You do realize Vista utilizes about 1 gig of memory while idling right?

 

[smackthewise]

Or getting XP. You do realize Vista utilizes about 1 gig of memory while idling right

Not exactly, with the aid of speedyvista.com my system runs only the required services. It runs very quickly, surprisingly much faster than XP was ever able to run on it, as I've used both. Plus If I used XP, i'd have to use XP 64 bit, where support and drivers etc are lacking.

 

[sourdiesel]

Turning down the graphics quality helps too. Of course, when everything looks like crap, you may start to lose your desire to play.

I can't tell the difference between graphics quality on High versus Medium or Low. From what I can tell, it just changes the multisampling, single unit display, no globe buildings, etc.. settings. As long as those options are kept constant does the graphics setting do anything?

On a side note, anisotropic filtering makes Blue Marble beautiful. Just 2x is enough.

I have a powerful desktop(3.0 GHz Dual Core; 8 GB RAM), takes about 40 seconds between turns at that point in the game. I doubt a desktop will help you much in that case. Then again, I usually run quite a few mods, so that might be slowing it down a bit as well.

What I suspected

late game, about 10-20 seconds from memory for a large map, what is more annoying is when at the start of the turn the Diplo screens come up and such, they take a while to load each time, 4-5 seconds. I hear the music before I see anything.

Why don't you play smaller maps?!!! For me waiting so long would kill a lot of the fun, or just be plain annoying.

-I run Vista 64, on a 2.44Ghz quad core with 4gb 800Mhz Ram and 512mb Nvidia 9600GT. It runs very well, but I don't think it'll run any better no matter how much more powerful my computer is until the program is written to better utilise the entire CPU, or something....

I've only played Earth18 since I got the game a few weeks ago. Standard size would be fine but are there any relatively accurate Earth maps at that size?

 

[Willem]

I've only played Earth18 since I got the game a few weeks ago.

Well there's your problem right there. The more civs you have in a game the longer the turns are going to take. Play on Huge map with the standard 11 civs and you'll see a signifigant increase.

 

[sourdiesel]

Well there's your problem right there. The more civs you have in a game the longer the turns are going to take. Play on Huge map with the standard 11 civs and you'll see a signifigant increase.

Earth18 is hard to let go of, random maps just don't feel the same. If only it had toroidal wrapping..

 

[smackthewise]

i've only played the earth map once, so I can't advise. I usually use the Fractal Map, which is always random but balanced, usually on a standard size map. Load time is 2-3 seconds between turns, maybe more late game, I can't remember.

I don't like the earth map (esp with pre-set Civs) due predictability, to know what is where, and such. I like not knowing about the rest of the world until my caravels discover it.

 

[DMOC]

Small maps - 5 seconds
Standard maps - 10 seconds
Huge maps - 15 to 20 seconds
Maps 2 times as large as huge - 60 seconds

 

[sourdiesel]

Small maps - 5 seconds
Standard maps - 10 seconds
Huge maps - 15 to 20 seconds
Maps 2 times as large as huge - 60 seconds

Mind posting what kind of rig you're running? If I can get it down to 15s between turns, that's enough difference from 60s+ to merit a nice new system. I already got a case, HD, power supply, fans, and monitor. Going to budget about 600usd to spend on a CPU, motherboard, memory, and a video card.

 

[DMOC]

All I know is the memory - 4 GB RAM

(The computer I use for CIV isn't really mine, but I "share" it with other people, hence my little knowledge.)

 

[Crusher1]

Top of the line computer - 3 years ago, lol, hence, I play mostly small maps offline and nothing more than standard in forum games. Even standard starts to lag me up in the early ADs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I have one of the worst machines of people who play now, thanks to my laptop failing.

I have an Athlon 3200+ (2.something gig) processor, a 128 MB video card, and 512 MB of ram ).

On standard it does tend to get slow after 1700 AD or so. I used to freeze up like crazy until I assigned a ridiculous paging file. Now I only freeze up on occasion...but bigger than standard is still problematic.

 

[arcan]

On my old comp, playing huge maps with 7 civs, i could wait up to3-4 minutes (sometimes even more) for the next turn. Boy was I motivated to play !