Either ATI or Memory Problem?

[BlackMass]

Well, there are hundreds of threads on problems getting Civ IV to work properly. My problem seems to be a bit different, and I've searched but haven't found any threads with problems similar to mine. Sorry if this has already been addressed.

I meet all the requirements for the game (Radeon 9250 256mb card with the latest drivers from the ATI website, 2.26ghz Intel celeron P4, 256mb of memory, DirectX 9.0 from the Civ CD). The game loads fine.

Here is my problem: if I play a standard or smaller map, the game works fairly well. The gameplay is smooth, graphics look good, sound works fine. Maybe a burp in the gameplay here or there. Of course, I haven't gotten too far into to game, so I don't know what the later stages of the game are like.

However, if I load up a large or huge map, the game lags so bad it is unplayable. Even turning on the grid for the map overlay takes almost a full two or three minutes. Turning all the video settings to the lowet quality doesn't help.

Could this be an issue related to the ATI problem? I'm not sure that it is since the game runs fine on the smaller and standard maps. I've noticed that when I try the larger maps, I sometimes get that little window that tells me my virtual memory is low. So could this mean that my 256mb of RAM is not enough for the game. Or is it possible that I just have too much junk running on my PC or in the background when trying to play the game and my memory is just being eaten alive? Or is there something else I can try to remedy the situation.

I have already deleted my old ATI drivers using the method posted in the forums, and installed the newest recommended drivers (the 5.10-whatever).

Any help / opinions would be greatly appreciated, and thanks in advance.

 

[oxonian2001]

You have a MAJORLY lopsided system. Typically, you wouldn't expect to see a videocard with as much memory as the entire rest of the system.

Try upgrading to 512 MB of system RAM at the very least, if not 1 GB. Upgrading is a pain, particularly if you only need it for one program, but at least RAM upgrades are relatively cheap.

 

[WankIT]

I have the same problem. Even at the start before game play, it took a long time using the large map.

I was going to retry tonight because I though the problem was that I had exited out CIV4, and then came back into it. When I used the internet after, it was also slow. I was thinking this morning that CIV4 program wasn't giving back all of the resources, hence, it was affecting the computer's performance once you exit out. So I hope not to have this problem when I restart my laptop tonight to play.

I have a sony vaio laptop, ATI9200 mobility, 1.6 Pentium M 256mb

 

[SmCaudata]

I can say that this is most likely a memory problem. 256 M is not very much RAM. If I run a program to gobble up all memory the most I have ever seen available is 820MB of my 1024MB. Windows XP and its processes just eat up memory. Nothing you can really do about that.

My guess is that the small maps simply use less memory than the large maps. When you run out of RAM, you use your HD as memory. Your HD is really, slow compared to RAM. Hence the slow down. Also, it seems that many have issues with a memory leak. Add the memory leak problem to a low amount of RAM and there is no wonder it is slow to run. 256MB is barely enough memory to run XP and web browsers/office applications. I cannot imagine running games on it.

 

[guinzuz]

I have the same problem and I don't think it's caused by low system memory. I've got 1Gb with a dual core Athlon X2. This seems like an ATI issue to me...

 

[Willem]

I meet all the requirements for the game (Radeon 9250 256mb card with the latest drivers from the ATI website, 2.26ghz Intel celeron P4, 256mb of memory, DirectX 9.0 from the Civ CD).

Although the Radeon 9250 meets the specs, it isn't a very good video card. I'm using a 9550 and I have to set my graphics to low in order to play the game. And as mentioned, 256 meg of RAM isn't nearly enough, especially if you're running Windows XP. Get yourself a new video card and have at least 1 gig of memory and your game will run just fine.