How to speed up performance?

[fatgoose]

Finally I realized, 512M RAM only can be smooth on small map, while on standard map it will become slow in the later half of game. Is there any "soft" way to speed up the performance a bit? I don't want buy a new RAM just for playing CIV4.

 

[tristangreer]

I also have 512MB RAM, and, to tell you the truth, we're screwed. The people on this forum with 1 or more GB RAM have no trouble telling you to go out and fork over some money just because the game listed some shady recommended specs. There was no warning that if you meet the recommended specs you would not be able to enjoy the full potential of the game, but that's just the way things go. Back to SMAC for me.

Flame me, por favor.

 

[Pyrion]

One thing that worked for me, once you add space to your pagefile (mine's set to 3gb, to complement my 1gb ram for the sheer heck of it) and restart, run Sysinternals PageDefrag to see if your pagefile.sys needs to be defragged.

 

[Sorceresss]

run Sysinternals PageDefrag to see if your pagefile.sys needs to be defragged.

THxxx a lot. I downloaded the program and will try to defrag my 2.5GB page file (I have 1GB RAM).

 

[Edward The Big]

Strangely, I only have 256mb RAM, and I can play reasonably well on small maps with few opponents (Usually 3)...If you have limited RAM, you will just have to play on a small map with few opponents...

 

[WuphonsReach]

A (possibly?) easier way to ensure that your page file is as non-fragmented as possible is to set the size to minimum (128MB? smaller?), then defrag the drive. Once the drive is defragged with a tiny page file, increase your page file back up to the size that you want. Odds are good that you'll end up with a non-fragmented page file as a result.

And on a huge terran/continents map in late game with lots of civs, cities and units... WinXP is reporting to me that it's using around 1.5GB for everything (O/S and the game). The only background apps running are XFire and my anti-virus software.

(Whenever you buy a PC, go with a slower CPU so you save enough money to double the amount of installed RAM.)

 

[Pyrion]

PageDefrag + Contig.

Only have to run pagedefrag once, then contig only takes two minutes for the whole comp to defrag (140/240gb spread amongst 2 drives/5 partitions).

 

[player1 fanatic]

I just upgraded my RAM from 512 to 1024MB when I realised after alt-tabing that virtual memery page when game is active in late standard, middle large maps is about 700-800MB. No wonder why hdd is swapping all the time.

Of course, I have no idea how it runs for those with 256MB>

Personnally I would say that real "minimum" is 512, recommended 1024 or more and 256 only if you are desperate to play.

 

[Pyrion]

256 is barely enough to satisfy windows, let alone game.

 

[Edward The Big]

I can get pretty deep into the game with only 256mb RAM, but I only have 3 opponents, and I play on small maps....There is no way to play on a huge map, with 18 Civs at that level...And even with that, it does slow down some at the end...

 

[Psyringe]

I played tiny maps with 6 civs with no lag, despite having just 256 MB. I'm trying small maps next. Standard maps didn't work, I had increasing slowdown problems from about 1400 AD onwards.

I don't thik that the number of civilizations has much to do with it. I played a game on a duel map with 18 civs on highest settings and saw absolutely no lag.

Currently I'm trying to find out which map size my PC can run, then I'll start adding more civs on that mapsize.

 

[Edward The Big]

I played tiny maps with 6 civs with no lag, despite having just 256 MB. I'm trying small maps next. Standard maps didn't work, I had increasing slowdown problems from about 1400 AD onwards.

I don't thik that the number of civilizations has much to do with it. I played a game on a duel map with 18 civs on highest settings and saw absolutely no lag.

Currently I'm trying to find out which map size my PC can run, then I'll start adding more civs on that mapsize.

Keep us informed of your progress, my friend!

 

[Dikaioma]

If there is a chance you have a Radeon 9800 (or give it a try if you have ATI) rollback to 4.10. I did this, and for some reason ALL of my games ran faster except UT2k4 which ran the same. I can run civ4 @ 1280x1024 and AAx4. The games load faster, and there is very little swap file use now.

 

[lifeaquatic]

I finnaly broke down and bought the memory. Just to play civ 4.

I will have a gig now and should be fine from what I hear. Its worth it though, now everything will run faster.

 

[player1 fanatic]

256 is barely enough to satisfy windows, let alone game.

Since XP needs around 200MB when doing nothing, 256 is only enough for office applications.

For something like game, it could work, but with lots of swapping all time, especially if you wanna try alt-tabing.

 

[pekwind]

i have 1G ram and geforce 5700 (256M ram). it still sux at later games in a large map. i never tried tiny map tho, who wants to play only with 2 or 3 civs on a tiny island??? this is definitely issue of coding of the game!!! poor programmers....

 

[lifeaquatic]

A lot of people with 1 gig say it works fine.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Firing up Civ4 over lunch today, loading some saved games and looking at the Process tab in Task Manager:

Huge Continents - 1680AD - 680MB of RAM used, 400KB savefile

Huge Continents - 2118AD - 880MB of RAM used, 687KB savefile
(same map as the 1680AD, except a few hundred turns later, in a nearly full map with lots of units in motion during a nasty war)

Huge Terran - 1320AD, 270KB savefile, 640MB used.

(The above values are just what is being eaten up by Civ4. WinXP typically uses around 280-320MB on my system as a base.)

 

[Madryoch]

I finnaly broke down and bought the memory. Just to play civ 4.

I will have a gig now and should be fine from what I hear. Its worth it though, now everything will run faster.

Even with 1Gb you'll still get lag at large map sizes unfortunately. I've been trying to work out how to minimise this lag - if anyone has any ideas which work please let me know.

 

[lifeaquatic]

In other words a gig is just the right amount then right? I mean thats how it seems to add up.