In windowed mode you don't need to alt-tab. I play this way and it makes my life really easy
I can check the atlas with no trouble, or stability maps and stuff.
jackpot...
How Do I Make RFC Run Faster?
- Thread starter Crbarber22695
- Start date
jackpot...
Hello,
I don't know if the problem in this thread has been remedied to the author's satisfaction or not, but I have a few tips on speeding up Civ. I've noticed that shutting down and restarting Civ can give you a speed boost. The reason for this is because Civ has a memory leak*, and the act of shutting down and restarting civ purges the "leaky" memory from the computer. This is most noticable after a long session (usually 2-4 hours or more) and during the late-game.
*note, this memory leak is due to the CivIV engine, and is not caused by the RFC changes.
Civ takes up about 1.5gigs of memory at start. Typically Windows will split that evenly between the Ram and VMemory (750Megs each) and then due to the memory leak it only goes up from there. Other essential Windows programs take up quite a bit of memory, I would reccomend having 2 gigs of RAM MINIMUM to play large maps on RFC. If you can increase your RAM that is a good way to speed up, but that is expensive and not always possible for some people.
Other things you could do to help improve your gameplay is shutdown other applications before starting Civ. Once I didn't notice but my web browser was taking up 1G of memory viewing a web page, and I noticed Civ running really slow. Most browsers will use 100-300Megs if they haven't been shut down in a while. (Note: The popular browser FireFox 2.X has a memory leak. If you are still using FireFox 2.X I would reccomend upgrading to 3.X, as the memory leak seems to have disappeared and 2.X has many known security issues which Mozilla has reported they will not be fixing.) I also run a background program called Steam, some of you may be famaliar with it for gaming purposes. Steam takes up about 100-200megs of memory, so if you can play Civ without Steam, close down Steam. Other applications which can use up a lot of memory:
Word processing and Spreadsheet programs. - Do you have a document or spreadsheet open? Do you REALLY need them open? If not, get rid of them.
Image editing programs. - I'm so very guilty of this. I leave images in these things open. In fact, I currently have one open that is using about 300M of memory. Good thing I'm not trying to play CivIV right now!
IM programs. - These usually aren't a problem, unless you're like me and never ever close the chat windows. This can cause a lot of memory to be used if you have many many chat windows open and/or when pictures get pasted in the window.
100M of memory may not seem like a whole lot when you have 2-4Gigs of RAM, but 100M here, 100M there, and soon you're talking about real memory.
Another thing that could help initial loading times is to defrag your hard drive. While you probably won't notice too much of a difference in turn speed, a monthly defrag of your hard drive is good computer maintenance regardless of application speed.
I don't know if the problem in this thread has been remedied to the author's satisfaction or not, but I have a few tips on speeding up Civ. I've noticed that shutting down and restarting Civ can give you a speed boost. The reason for this is because Civ has a memory leak*, and the act of shutting down and restarting civ purges the "leaky" memory from the computer. This is most noticable after a long session (usually 2-4 hours or more) and during the late-game.
*note, this memory leak is due to the CivIV engine, and is not caused by the RFC changes.
Civ takes up about 1.5gigs of memory at start. Typically Windows will split that evenly between the Ram and VMemory (750Megs each) and then due to the memory leak it only goes up from there. Other essential Windows programs take up quite a bit of memory, I would reccomend having 2 gigs of RAM MINIMUM to play large maps on RFC. If you can increase your RAM that is a good way to speed up, but that is expensive and not always possible for some people.
Other things you could do to help improve your gameplay is shutdown other applications before starting Civ. Once I didn't notice but my web browser was taking up 1G of memory viewing a web page, and I noticed Civ running really slow. Most browsers will use 100-300Megs if they haven't been shut down in a while. (Note: The popular browser FireFox 2.X has a memory leak. If you are still using FireFox 2.X I would reccomend upgrading to 3.X, as the memory leak seems to have disappeared and 2.X has many known security issues which Mozilla has reported they will not be fixing.) I also run a background program called Steam, some of you may be famaliar with it for gaming purposes. Steam takes up about 100-200megs of memory, so if you can play Civ without Steam, close down Steam. Other applications which can use up a lot of memory:
Word processing and Spreadsheet programs. - Do you have a document or spreadsheet open? Do you REALLY need them open? If not, get rid of them.
Image editing programs. - I'm so very guilty of this. I leave images in these things open. In fact, I currently have one open that is using about 300M of memory. Good thing I'm not trying to play CivIV right now!
IM programs. - These usually aren't a problem, unless you're like me and never ever close the chat windows. This can cause a lot of memory to be used if you have many many chat windows open and/or when pictures get pasted in the window.
100M of memory may not seem like a whole lot when you have 2-4Gigs of RAM, but 100M here, 100M there, and soon you're talking about real memory.
Another thing that could help initial loading times is to defrag your hard drive. While you probably won't notice too much of a difference in turn speed, a monthly defrag of your hard drive is good computer maintenance regardless of application speed.
AnotherPacifist
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2007
- Messages
- 4,878
Buy an Core i7 computer with a good nvidia graphics card and at least 6GB DDR3 ram. I loaded a Persian start in less than 2 minutes. 
Crbarber22695
The Next Great Liberal
possibly. how do i do this, cause i would love to try. and is it capable w/ windows 7?
Crbarber22695
The Next Great Liberal
well 7 is a lot like vista so im sure it'd work. how do i do it?
Crbarber22695
The Next Great Liberal
Buy an Core i7 computer with a good nvidia graphics card and at least 6GB DDR3 ram. I loaded a Persian start in less than 2 minutes.
i just bought a quad core computer w/ the exact other specs for $1000, i dont have any more cash
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