Heavy lagg at end-game's.

[Ondskan]

So basicly each time I reach end-game (late industrial, early and late modern) age on a huge map the game laggs/freezes.
And it's not the part when the computer is thinking and moving its units.
It's the part when EVERYTHING has been done and I am just to move my units, then the game just freezes and it takes about 2-3 minutes for it to unfreeze.


2ghz
1024 Ram.


Do you people have this?

 

[vmxa]

Yup the lager the map and the more water and civs the longer the process takes. It is all cpu bound, so the faster your cpu and better the l2 the better it goes.

 

[Ondskan]

Wait. Are you serious? The more water?
Wouldn't it be the more land?

And how come the lagg comes after the computer has done all its moves and it's actually *my* turn? It's so weird.

 

[T.A JONES]

After trying a few Pentium models with the goal of reaching the best possable turn speeds in mind, Id have to say I couldln't agree more with what vmxa is saying, Ive actually spent a good doller proving this on a 1st account. I even used Youtube after filming to show examples of what proper utilization looks like on overly huge maps

I bet lots have this problem if its early Northwood pentiums they are using. Your L2 cache its 512mb THe Prescott's vastly improved 1024mb supply is great in helping to reduce game deley of this nature. Otherwise Check if its safe to overclock your Northwood. This can help even if its only a hundred mhz increase. However If its a Dell your using then you may be out of luck they have a safeguard to protect the chip(Northwoods were known to blow easily if pushed to hard)

WIth more L2 and ghz you improve speed in many areas like you discribe. If have a long and full list of units in the miltiary advisor menu it won't take forever to scroll down getting stuck on each unit type for example. THe best improvement is on the interturns, they should start to fly by on Prescott or even more recent Northwood additions (sorry I can't help much if its Athlon I never owned anything but Intel)

I can honestly say the Pentium4 code: cedarmill with its better archeture over Prescott and Northwood, even more L2 (2048mb) along with 3.4-3.8 ghz has shown a large improvement over my older Prescot 1024mb L2 3.2 ghz model. Both of these are radically altered designs from the Original Northwood pentium and include higher bus speed aswell

Ram makes no differnces past 512 . I quickly have realized this. Having a seprate graphics card does seem to speed turn efficency but IM sure you have that

 

[bambam190]

I have the same problem, what I have found is that if I turn off Civ assist II when I play it helps alot. I just log into it every so often to check in or if I have a question. A pain, but it helps.

 

[Ondskan]

After trying a few Pentium models with the goal of reaching the best possable turn speeds in mind, Id have to say I couldln't agree more with what vmxa is saying, Ive actually spent a good doller proving this on a 1st account. I even used Youtube after filming to show examples of what proper utilization looks like on overly huge maps

I bet lots have this problem if its early Northwood pentiums they are using. Your L2 cache its 512mb THe Prescott's vastly improved 1024mb supply is great in helping to reduce game deley of this nature. Otherwise Check if its safe to overclock your Northwood. This can help even if its only a hundred mhz increase. However If its a Dell your using then you may be out of luck they have a safeguard to protect the chip(Northwoods were known to blow easily if pushed to hard)

WIth more L2 and ghz you improve speed in many areas like you discribe. If have a long and full list of units in the miltiary advisor menu it won't take forever to scroll down getting stuck on each unit type for example. THe best improvement is on the interturns, they should start to fly by on Prescott or even more recent Northwood additions (sorry I can't help much if its Athlon I never owned anything but Intel)

I can honestly say the Pentium4 code: cedarmill with its better archeture over Prescott and Northwood, even more L2 (2048mb) along with 3.4-3.8 ghz has shown a large improvement over my older Prescot 1024mb L2 3.2 ghz model. Both of these are radically altered designs from the Original Northwood pentium and include higher bus speed aswell

Ram makes no differnces past 512 . I quickly have realized this. Having a seprate graphics card does seem to speed turn efficency but IM sure you have that

Interesting. I have a Dell computer´, how come I can't overclock that processor? I've not really clocked anything except graphic cards but just for the info.

I have no idea what L2 (a brand of RAM memory?) and I am curious to how you can notice a difference between 2048 and 1024 but not 512 -> 1024. (or perhaps I didn't understand you, your post was a little hard to understand).


Anyway basicly it's the CPU but do you know what the reason is why the CPU can't handle the endpart of every turn?

___


@ Bambam, can I turn off the assist in the options?
what exacly is the Civ assist II ? :S

 

[vmxa]

The water tends to mean more harbors.

 

[T.A JONES]

dbl post. lol

 

[Ondskan]

Dude.
lol?
You said the same thing earlier...

 

[Quintillus]

About the L2 thing: You have your basic memory (RAM), where Civ is stored where it's running, and yes, with XP, once you have 512 MB adding more won't help you with CivIII (though it certainly will with CivIV). Then you have what's called an L2 (level 2) cache on your processor that allows your processor very fast information to data - much quicker than to data stored in the RAM. However, L2 is expensive, so you don't generally have a whole lot. Most new low-end processors have either 512 KB or 1 MB per CPU core, whereas most high-end processors have 2 MB; some have 3 MB. You also have L1 cache, which is even faster than L2, but more expensive. Most CPU's have 32 KB of L1 cache; I'm not sure how much/if this has significantly increased in recent CPU's.

The end result is, the more L2 cache you have, the faster the processor can access data. Which causes fewer delays due to waiting to data, and thus faster turn times.

Pretty much everyone has this problem on big maps. Even the fastest processor won't get rid of the delay, though faster processors certainly will shorten the delay. Whether your 2 GHz processor is already pretty fast by today's standards depends on whether it is a Pentium 4 (Willamette or Northwood revisions are both possible) or a Core Duo / Core 2 Duo. The latter are newer and far faster per megahertz, and would be approximately equal to a 3.7 GHz Pentium 4 Northwood (based on extropolations of my IBT time on a Pentium 4 Northwood and a Core 2 Duo). If it's an AMD someone else will have to help with the comparisons; I too have only ever owned Intel.

Dell generally locks the multiplier on the processor so you can't overclock it because otherwise they tend to have the problem of customers who want faster speed but don't know much about hardware overclocking the processor far too much and destroying it, and then trying to get it replaced by warranty. There are technically ways you could still overclock it, but the risks are great enough that you're really better off buying a new processor for faster turns.

Other settings in Civ that may help are disabling harbors (they are notorious for making trade routes that take forever to calculate), playing with fewer civilizations (I noticed a significant increase in speed once my 31-civ game got down to 14 civs, despite there being just as many cities), and the entirely unsatisfactory possibility of playing on a smaller map.

 

[Sloaf]

Dude.
lol?
You said the same thing earlier...

I *think* I've noticed a slowdown once railroads start being laid everywhere. Since they have a huge impact on movement, the computer sometimes seems to need extra time calculating the most efficient moves, then recalculating when RR lines are pillaged/blocked. I may just be talking out my ace, and it may have nothing to do with it hanging at the beginning of your turn.

As far as Civ Assist II, it's a side program you can download and run along with the game that provides info on your economy, culture, enemy AIs, etc. I've never used it, but I imagine NOT running the program would free up more computing power for the game itself, but it sounds like you don't use it in the first place.

 

[Ondskan]

Ya. I run the game basicly as it is with just graphic modifications.

 

[Da Bilge Troll]

Wait. Are you serious? The more water?
Wouldn't it be the more land?

And how come the lagg comes after the computer has done all its moves and it's actually *my* turn? It's so weird.

I believe that is the point where the Autosave is saving your game.

 

[T.A JONES]

I *think* I've noticed a slowdown once railroads start being laid everywhere. Since they have a huge impact on movement, the computer sometimes seems to need extra time calculating the most efficient moves, then recalculating when RR lines are pillaged/blocked. I may just be talking out my ace, and it may have nothing to do with it hanging at the beginning of your turn.

NO your right on about railroads being a part of slower turns.
I have run tests with a mod where massive additions to land and 'improvements' added much larger calculations during AI turn processes yet without any noticable increase in time compared to deafult civ3 conquests

One mod made the mistake of having airplanes flagged as land units but this action clearly illistrates the point you make on railroads being a heavy culprit at times.
IT was when railroads where developed and the bomb mission was added that the problem magnified . You can image a plane with the bombing abilty on would face enourmas amount of target possabilities when combined with infinate movabilty. Add in time of war thats dealing with large enemies, due to extra large maps , you see this would lead to massive lag.

It was actually the computer Im using now, peak evolution in pentiums, that got me far enough into the game to realize what was actually happening. Before this everyone who tried Huge maps were getting stuck near the same time with 'infinity hang' and the designer was not sure why. He blamed the amount of units then maintence, settling on avoiding huge maps as the answer. Luckily it was found the railroads were part of true problem as further explained here at " I've finally figured out what was causing the huge lag in Heart of Destiny!!"

THis example also proved just how effective a groomed Pentium can be when running civ3. Members who ran the mod using thelatest dualcore computers of the day. were still unable to get past this point, all hanging at the same period, shortly after the intro of the "bomber'

 

[Chieftess]

In Civ3 (and in Civ4, too, I've noticed), if you select a unit (make it active) at the end of the turn, and press shift-enter, the turn goes by a little quicker. Try it during an earlier era, too.

 

[againsttheflow]

Cool, any idea why?

 

[T.A JONES]

Pretty much everyone has this problem on big maps. Even the fastest processor won't get rid of the delay, though faster processors certainly will shorten the delay. Whether your 2 GHz processor is already pretty fast by today's standards depends on whether it is a Pentium 4 (Willamette or Northwood revisions are both possible) or a Core Duo / Core 2 Duo. The
latter are newer and far faster per megahertz, and would be approximately equal to a 3.7 GHz Pentium 4 Northwood (based on extropolations of my IBT time on a Pentium 4 Northwood and a Core 2 Duo). If it's an AMD someone else will have to help with the comparisons; I too have only ever owned Intel.

IM on the same page with all you wrote. Very true to my Xpensive expierences lol. Just a quick thing on the The early Pentium4 code named: WIllamette. Im pritty sure that model only went to 1.6 ghz, so the OP's 2.0 ghz CPU seems saftly out of that models range. Ya Its a Northwood I would saftly bet. (not a bad design ether you would proabably agree, just lackin a few key amendities, one it can't keep the house warm in the winter like a heatseeking Prescott .. and they say it costs to much power! )

I agree with you the majorty don't seem to be optimizing peak turn perfomance in civ3 . I actually shared a save with a coreduo player who said he wasn't gettin the same performance I was showin on youtube with the Farhorizon mod. Again, I gave him my save from near when the video was shot and He was going to record his turn on coredoe then send me back the youtube upload link to compare. Well I triend pm'in him a few days ago. Its been almost 6 weeks now no word back so the jury is still out.

Dell generally locks the multiplier on the processor so you can't overclock it because otherwise they tend to have the problem of customers who want faster speed but don't know much about hardware overclocking the processor far too much and destroying it, and then trying to get it replaced by warranty. There are technically ways you could still overclock it, but the risks are great enough that you're really better off buying a new processor for faster turns.

Ya im glad you agree. With my 2.0 ghz Dell demension 4500 Northwood I was truly out of luck. No way without major risk I was told. Heres some more support on that for the OP

Are Op states his 2.0ghz pentium is also a dell so I imagine we are close to owning the same computer. I next went up ans stayed faithfully for a while with a low model 3.2Presscot chip set, even after a lightning bolt was attracted to its raw power and f'ed it up good !

My intrest with this model was soley to learn the art of overclock. Yet it also came with a increase to 1024mb L2 over the Northwoods 512mb I had no idea what a larger L2 cache effects were on improving performance at this stage so I presumed higher ghz was the main reason for my turn speed improvement. It wasn' until I went up in only L2 going to cedar and saw further speed added, Thta I know L2 was a major factor aswell. I regeret I didn't make this more clear to the OP in my original post.

I imagine overclocking with Cedars advanced archetacture(sp!) combined with a its high L2 cache and better cooling measures is the Bently way to go cruizing extra large maps deley free to the end, IM sure Coredue people will take issue with this

Hope this reads somewhat better. Im to much in a rush here friends

 

[T.A JONES]

In Civ3 (and in Civ4, too, I've noticed), if you select a unit (make it active) at the end of the turn, and press shift-enter, the turn goes by a little quicker. Try it during an earlier era, too.

Thanks for the tip. A more obvious one yet, not sure it even helps, would be taking out 'showall units over cities'. Those fidget animations x 500 cities may add up late game Im guessing

 

[T.A JONES]

Dude.
lol?
You said the same thing earlier...

thanks duely noted
Thats a double post result of an add on edit attempt ....I think.....

 

[Ondskan]

I believe that is the point where the Autosave is saving your game.

Hmmmm hell yeah man!

Damn so just turn of autosave? Tho that's kinda risky! haha.
Damn you must be right. Thanks



PS: very interesting discussion here. I'll come back to it