How do I increase performance?

[MLG Samantha]

I thought this mod was really cool when I first saw it. Every tech you could ever want, loads of resources, almost all human cultures, etc. Basically everything you could possibly do in a strategy game. So I try playing a game on one of the Earth maps, and all goes well in the prehistoric era. But during the ancient era, my fps declines so much the game becomes unplayable. I tried again on a 'small' sized mapscript, and I did actually get out of the ancient era, but during the medieval era the same thing happened. I'd like to think my pc is pretty average for 2016 standards, and it can run any other mod for civ IV just fine. Is there some secret settings that you can change to make this mod playable? Because I've only been playing on the default settings. Are all of you playing on NASA supercomputers or something? Because I really can't see how anybody can get to the 'cosmos' portion of C2C like this.

 

[Somebody613]

I thought this mod was really cool when I first saw it. Every tech you could ever want, loads of resources, almost all human cultures, etc. Basically everything you could possibly do in a strategy game. So I try playing a game on one of the Earth maps, and all goes well in the prehistoric era. But during the ancient era, my fps declines so much the game becomes unplayable. I tried again on a 'small' sized mapscript, and I did actually get out of the ancient era, but during the medieval era the same thing happened. I'd like to think my pc is pretty average for 2016 standards, and it can run any other mod for civ IV just fine. Is there some secret settings that you can change to make this mod playable? Because I've only been playing on the default settings. Are all of you playing on NASA supercomputers or something? Because I really can't see how anybody can get to the 'cosmos' portion of C2C like this.

Do you mean the time you wait for AI to make their turn, or do you mean literal fps slowdown during your own turn?
The latter is clearly a bug and shouldn't happen at all, so maybe reinstall the entire mod clean from scratch (unless your PC is a total potato).
The former depends mostly on the number of units in play, which depends on the number of civs, which indirectly depends on the size of the map, but it's not that bad at the start anyways.
Be more specific, please.

 

[MLG Samantha]

The latter. It turns into a slideshow. I've reinstalled this mod multiple times thinking it would help and it didn't. I have an i5 that's only like 6 or 7 years old, I don't think that counts as a potato.

 

[Somebody613]

The latter. It turns into a slideshow. I've reinstalled this mod multiple times thinking it would help and it didn't. I have an i5 that's only like 6 or 7 years old, I don't think that counts as a potato.

How about other big mods (hundreds of MBs weight)? Or other big GAMES, for that matter? Do they work fine or also stutter? Because it ain't normal at all.

 

[MLG Samantha]

I don't know how exactly how big they are off the top of my head but mods like Magister's Modmod or Dawn of Civilization work just fine, it's just this mod that has problems. My pc also runs Minecraft with hundreds of mods just fine, it only starts to run into problems with the really overly large packs with over 300 mods in them. Is this mod really comparable to the most bloated minecraft modpacks?

 

[Somebody613]

I don't know how exactly how big they are off the top of my head but mods like Magister's Modmod or Dawn of Civilization work just fine, it's just this mod that has problems. My pc also runs Minecraft with hundreds of mods just fine, it only starts to run into problems with the really overly large packs with over 300 mods in them. Is this mod really comparable to the most bloated minecraft modpacks?

Shouldn't be, if we're talking about during YOUR turn. It's clearly just very simple graphics, so it definitely shouldn't stutter at all.
Though, what exactly do you mean by "slideshow"? Is it how animation of map objects work, or is it the lag after you give a unit some order to perform?
Also, do you have battle animation (and unit movement) ON? I always have it OFF, lol.

 

[MLG Samantha]

I mean the number of frames per second is unacceptably low, probably below 1 at some points. That is the commonly accepted definition of slideshow in video game slang. And yes I play with unit animations on, I think it looks boring having them off and I really doubt turning them off is going to be enough to make this mod work. It's still unplayably laggy when I have no unit selected and even if I pan my camera over to an area without any visible units.

 

[Somebody613]

I mean the number of frames per second is unacceptably low, probably below 1 at some points. That is the commonly accepted definition of slideshow in video game slang. And yes I play with unit animations on, I think it looks boring having them off and I really doubt turning them off is going to be enough to make this mod work. It's still unplayably laggy when I have no unit selected and even if I pan my camera over to an area without any visible units.

I disagree. There's a rather hefty chance that Civ is bad with discarding used memory (otherwise we wouldn't have MAFs to begin with) - and you are overfeeding it with unnecessary graphics.
I *always* turn off animations (for a different reason, but it gets the same end result), so I have no idea how it would play with them ON.
Yet I *don't* have stuttering lags, so, ya know...
Strange why you didn't get any modder feedback yet, by the way.

 

[Thunderbrd]

When I played AND to the end of the tree, pre-c2c, it got to 30 minute turn times. We've done a lot to improve things but there's a lot more to do. Inefficient Unit AI is probably the number one offender and I've got about 1 thousand ways I'd like to improve on that but about no time whatsoever to mod.

Also, you cannot compare this mod to modern game standards. The laggy frame rate can largely be a matter of the panning stutter that saves some 80% of MAF crashes from taking place. We have limits as a 32 bit program that would require the whole thing to be rewritten to improve much on and believe me, we often flirt with the idea OF rewriting the whole thing as a result of how crude the 32 bit system exe limitations we must endure here. That said, the truly pro programmers who've dipped in to help now and then have ensured us that the bulk of the game would take some 3-5 years to rewrite from scratch before we could even begin to get back to where the dll picks things up. And that's if they were truly dedicated. I've decided my take on this means one would need a full game company staff, financial backing, and production planning to have any prayer of such a rewrite being more than a hopeless endeavor. Therefore, my possibly ridiculous goal now, is to become a financially free and undedicated millionaire so I can finance such a venture.

 

[Somebody613]

When I played AND to the end of the tree, pre-c2c, it got to 30 minute turn times. We've done a lot to improve things but there's a lot more to do. Inefficient Unit AI is probably the number one offender and I've got about 1 thousand ways I'd like to improve on that but about no time whatsoever to mod.

Also, you cannot compare this mod to modern game standards. The laggy frame rate can largely be a matter of the panning stutter that saves some 80% of MAF crashes from taking place. We have limits as a 32 bit program that would require the whole thing to be rewritten to improve much on and believe me, we often flirt with the idea OF rewriting the whole thing as a result of how crude the 32 bit system exe limitations we must endure here. That said, the truly pro programmers who've dipped in to help now and then have ensured us that the bulk of the game would take some 3-5 years to rewrite from scratch before we could even begin to get back to where the dll picks things up. And that's if they were truly dedicated. I've decided my take on this means one would need a full game company staff, financial backing, and production planning to have any prayer of such a rewrite being more than a hopeless endeavor. Therefore, my possibly ridiculous goal now, is to become a financially free and undedicated millionaire so I can finance such a venture.

Good laugh aside (though I don't mind you achieving it, lol, and I have a rather funky feeling that a Civ4, let alone C2C, with x64 capabilities would easily become a huge hit).
The complaint is about during-the-turn stutter, but I only ever experience it after loading a huge save (for a couple seconds, then it gets better), but kinda never during a normal game.
Unless it's because I never ALLOW the game to get to "hundreds and thousands of on-screen units", dunno - but it still sounds less than an unavoidable problem.
And I'm absolutely sure that allowing unit animation not only slows the game unnecessarily (my reason), but also consumes HUGE amounts of memory on top of the general problem.
An interesting IDEA that I'm yet to ever try (but MAYBE soon) - would be to limit the amount of units to "1 per tile", and then play a huge map with all "unit producers" ON.
As in: 40 civs, Barbs, Neands, max speed - this will certainly produce TONS of units in no time.
Hmmm, an interesting (and long overdue) idea to test, lol.

 

[ranagrande]

I'd say there's probably something else going on. My computer is over a decade old and wasn't even that good to begin with. I get long turn times, but almost never have problems with lag or frame rate during turns.

The main things I notice are long delays when someone gets a Great Person and awkward pauses during combat because some units don't have animations.

 

[Somebody613]

I'd say there's probably something else going on. My computer is over a decade old and wasn't even that good to begin with. I get long turn times, but almost never have problems with lag or frame rate during turns.

The main things I notice are long delays when someone gets a Great Person and awkward pauses during combat because some units don't have animations.

More or less my point.
Long turns are a given (and got worse with the latest updates, sadly) - but literal graphic lag has nothing to do with it.
I also see about a zero points in having battle animations to begin with - we ARE talking about a game that typically lasts for WEEKS or MONTHS, so why would I want to ADD time to that?
I bet even your "old computer" would have nearly no real-time graphics issues, if you turned animations fully OFF (unless you did, and I missed your point).
And are you up-to-date on SVN, because "GP lag" is something that used to happen, but not anymore - meaning, it's fixed now, but MAY be still lingering in the non-SVN version (dunno).

 

[ranagrande]

It's entirely possible. I keep the animations on, as I generally like them.

And I do not use SVN. If they have found a way to remove GP lag, that'll be something nice to look forward to.

 

[Somebody613]

It's entirely possible. I keep the animations on, as I generally like them.

And I do not use SVN. If they have found a way to remove GP lag, that'll be something nice to look forward to.

Several updates ago (months now, cause it's kinda on hiatus) it was very smooth and very fast even with turn time (and definitely zero real-time lag).
I do suggest you to try SVN and without animations - the game will get MUCH faster.
Now, the OP's problem may or may not be the same as yours...

 

[JosEPh_II]

If you have the BtS disks and not a digital download, try re installing DirectX 9.0c that comes with the game. New DirectX versions sometimes remove portions of older versions.