Either horrible performance or bugged animation (win10)

[Hirmuolio]

If I run civ III normally (not in compatibility mode) the game freezez for the duration of unit death animation but otherwise runs normally with good performance. Happens in nonsteam and steam version.

If I run the game in compatibility mode (XP or abve) the game doesn't freeze during unit death but the performance is ruined.
With nonsteam version the game uses all the CPU power it can get and is unplayable when there are moderate ammount of units on map.
With steam version the game run better but still pretty badly.

Starting new game has good/decent performance. It seems like worst performance drop only happens when a save is loaded. I tested with the "age of discovery" scenario and the game ran ok but not too well when I start the scenario. But if I save and load it the game is completely unplayable. If I load the game without compatibility mode performance is perfect.

OS: Windows 10
GPU: RX 480
CPU: i5-3570K


EDIT:
After some testing the game freezes during unit death if task manager is open. If I close task manager the animation plays properly. Perhaps some other programs cause it too if they are running on background.

 

[Quintillus]

Strange, but true. I was running into this tonight on my system (Windows 8.1, also an RX 480, and an i5-2500K). The freeze on unit death was quite distracting from an otherwise engaging game.

But sure enough, I had Task Manager up, and closing Task Manager solved the problem. No idea why, but now I know to close Task Manger before a game of Civ III on 8.1. Interestingly, my old XP laptop has no problems with Task Manager being open... must've been an incompatibility introduced at a later point.

Thanks for coming back and posting how you solved it.

 

[Tealdragon204]

I know this is an old thread, I had the same issue but running Windows 7 Compatibility mode and as administrator solved the problem for me

Granted, don't have performance issues but I'm running much newer and more powerful hardware than OP