Huge Map & Time Between Turns

[wuntoothrie]

That will (sort of) automatically happen. And Windows (at least XP, NT, 2000) does not take away much computation power anyways. Unless it is misconfigured or you are running too much (typically useless) stuff on your computer.

come on ... windows is a huge resource hog ... has been since Windows 3.5 ... probably all the way back to the original ... and vista is the biggest perpetrator of resource hoarding yet ...

My cousin built mine, It is UBER!!!!! running 30 civs on huge map turn 1000 Bwahahaha and only a 3 sec wait...
P.S. I have 200+ Mages 1000+ Adepts

yeah I built my own too ... and it's not so much the specs as the tweaks and configurations that keep you raging ...

• Save the game and restart. Civ isn't as bad as some apps for memory leak, but it certainly happens and if you're like me and keep your PC on 24/7 a Civ game that's been up for 50 hours is noticeably slower than a new session.

very true.

• Drop your graphics settings towards the end of the game. This might not be to everyone's taste, but for me the small drop in quality (seriously, who really needs the cow resource to be animated? ) is much better than lag.

I've got a pretty hype worthy system (well, it was 3 years ago when I built it) running dual 2.2's, 3 Gb of RAM, two 512Mb Nvidia graphics cards SLI linked, and my games are located on a slave drive (it's not, but without any other slave drive located programs, it acts like a dedicated drive) ... don't know if I'm getting that much help from both Graphics cards on this game (thanks to the revelation dropped on me by [to_xp]Gekko) but it keeps the Microsoft gremlins at bay ... and I still run single unit graphics, low res textures, no anti aliasing and medium graphics settings and still enjoy the game ... but I can wait out a peaceful score or conquest victory if I so choose ... I think I have a 10-20 sec wait around turn 1400+ or so (just checked turn 1124, 10 sec, maybe nine I started counting when I hit enter ???)

I think your problem is probably that the AI is stockpiling units and keeps moving them around from city to city ... as well as your automated units ... and Charlie_B borke it down nicely: reduce, reuse, recycle (or something like that) ... start a war thin out the world population ... shadow war and use shadows to erase those pesky units ...

 

[WarKirby]

20 seconds? How low are your expectations? It should take so short a time it feels instantenous.

That seems a bit much to ask considering how much stuff this game handles

I use the time between long turns to do some exercise, or go to the bathroom, or tab out and read this forum, or various other things. Civilisation has always been a game for the patient.

Wouldn't it be possible for the team to tweak the AI a bit to avoid making huge unit stockpiles, though ?
The AI overusing your machine's resources has always been a major source of lag.

 

[FireBlaze]

I usually end up doing homework while playing civ, so it works out well =D

 

[fredcdobbs]

[QUOTE I've got a pretty hype worthy system (well, it was 3 years ago when I built it) running dual 2.2's, 3 Gb of RAM, two 512Mb Nvidia graphics cards SLI linked, and my games are located on a slave drive (it's not, but without any other slave drive located programs, it acts like a dedicated drive) ... don't know if I'm getting that much help from both Graphics cards on this game (thanks to the revelation dropped on me by [to_xp]Gekko) but it keeps the Microsoft gremlins at bay ... and I still run single unit graphics, low res textures, no anti aliasing and medium graphics settings and still enjoy the game ... but I can wait out a peaceful score or conquest victory if I so choose ... I think I have a 10-20 sec wait around turn 1400+ or so (just checked turn 1124, 10 sec, maybe nine I started counting when I hit enter ???)

I think your problem is probably that the AI is stockpiling units and keeps moving them around from city to city ... as well as your automated units ... and Charlie_B borke it down nicely: reduce, reuse, recycle (or something like that) ... start a war thin out the world population ... shadow war and use shadows to erase those pesky units ...[/QUOTE]

My Core 2 Q9450 is oc'd to 3.2 and the 9800 GTX is also oc'd. I've cut back to no AA, low res textures, single unit graphics, and low graphic settings. My comp doesn't have much in the way of resource hogging programs (besides Vista). I've disabled my anti-virus and unplugged the DSL. I'm playing at 1920 X 1200, but I'm beginning to believe that the graphics isn't the big problem.
The game is around turn 1025 and my cities number in the fifties. With all those settings turned down, I'm still getting six to seven minute waits. If you are seeing only ten second waits, then you must not have many cities or units. The AI can't have many either. Either that or the cities must be producing wealth, culture, or research instead of units. I don' know what kind of GPU you have SLI'd (or your resolution) but I can't believe it makes that much difference. As far as the CPU, I'll just say that yours can't be performing any better than mine.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

you're probably playing huge maps with tons of civs while he's playing something more "reasonable"

anyway, graphics don't seem to make any difference. I have a geforce go 7300 turbocache ( sucks big time ) and it makes no difference if I play with high details or low.

 

[fredcdobbs]

I usually never have a horrible problem with the lag inbetween, playing (ungodly) huge maps with like 26 civilizations. But then again, doing crazy stuff like that is why I bought a new computer =D

I play my games with huge maps. My PC, also a mid-rated one. I also played some marathon games on huge maps close to the 1600 turn or so. I do not remember encountering more than 2-3 minutes delay between turns.

you're probably playing huge maps with tons of civs while he's playing something more "reasonable"

anyway, graphics don't seem to make any difference. I have a geforce go 7300 turbocache ( sucks big time ) and it makes no difference if I play with high details or low.

Looks like these people don't have any problems with huge maps and many civs, unless you think they are "exaggerating". I also said in my first post that there were only five civs remaining (started with nine). Oops, forgot about civ king. Thirty civs, turn 1000, huge map, and only three second wait!

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sorry, I didn't check the OP

it does seem to be an awfully long time though. My guess is that hell terrain spread on a huge map is killing your cpu. I know it does evil things to mine.

 

[fredcdobbs]

sorry, I didn't check the OP

it does seem to be an awfully long time though. My guess is that hell terrain spread on a huge map is killing your cpu. I know it does evil things to mine.

I own the two smaller continents, captured three cities on the third (largest). Currently building up my invasion force. Have not seen any Hell Terrain yet. Changed the graphics back to high, no effect on performance. Must be mostly CPU related. Don't see how anyone can be getting these sub-fifteen seconds times between turns. Must have one of those new Core i7 965 processors.

 

[Ashdrake]

Yes, i have the same issue, either when running plain vanilla BTS (or Rhye's Mod) or FFH, I usually play marathon speed with huge maps, agressive AI, 1280x1024 resolution running windows vista ( did some tweaks on it, disabled the defender/superfetch/other things like that).
My system is a Phenom 9950BE 4cores 2.6ghz 4GB of DDR2 800mhz, dedicated Sata 2 HDD for games, 9800GTX+ nvidia video card.
Around turn 800-1000 i am getting a lot of lag, basically the game becomes unplayable, and i usually dont have anything more than 10 cities but it takes from 2 to 5 minutes to do anything which becomes very annoying.

It's a shame that i can play crysis with everything on ultra high and still get 30+ fps but i cant play a game 4-6 years old.

 

[StormbringerGT]

I still see some slowdown in the later turns. Not lag, I even have high detailed Terrain turned on. However the turn times get quite lengthy.

Also to answer someones questions real quick, if you have a duo type processor, you can set core affinity, but I would do so as you get some pretty unstable issues while playing.

But yeah I get some wiating between turns late in the game. Around 12 players and a huge map does it for me. My system is abround 2 years old now.

Windows Vista 64 Bit
8Gbs Ram
2.4ghz Intel Core 2 Duo (6600)
8800 GTX 768 x2 (SLI)
Around 3 Terrabytes Hardrive Space on 5 Drives.

Its still a high powered machine and chews up everything I throw at it. But even high powered machines get brought to their knees. For a couple reasons.

Game Engine. Just because you machine can show you thousands of moving units, doesnt mean the Engine can. A good Example is Oblivion. Toss some mods on that try to do big battles and you will see.

Its not always graphics. Its scripts. Multiple scripts running will slow you down.

RTS. I can chew up and spit out and FPS out today. But RTS bring me to my knees, they are Processor hogs! A normal RTS is fine, but bust out supreme commander, add the maximum amount of AI and you will get an example of what I mean.

 

[Smidlee]

As Stormbringer noted it's the amount of units and cities that seriously slows down the game, not only civ4, but pretty much any game. (all those units going through the AI scripts) This is why most RTS has a limit on the number of units each players has. Civ4 was designed with the idea you can do more with less cities and units than the past Civ. With mods like FfH2 on huge maps you'll see why. This problem will increase if the AI script becomes longer in order to improve the AI.

One of the things that may help (I usually avoid playing huge maps since I get tired moving all of my units) is to play a single player game from multiplayer Lans instead. That way the AI is moving during your turn as well. This may slow your turn down a little since the AI will be also using the cpu.

P.S Also note that FfH2 allows you to have a max of 35 civ playing on any given map. I remember reading something here a while back when it was bought up why didn't Firaxis increase the 18 max that someone point out this would slow the game down ( it had something to do with the AI would have to go through more diplomacy script) even in games that uses fewer AI. Thus the ability to have up to 35 civs as in FfH 2 will slow down games with only 8-10 civs as well.

 

[StormbringerGT]

As Stormbringer noted it's the amount of units and cities that seriously slows down the game, not only civ4, but pretty much any game. (all those units going through the AI scripts) This is why most RTS has a limit on the number of units each players has. Civ4 was designed with the idea you can do more with less cities and units than the past Civ. With mods like FfH2 on huge maps you'll see why. This problem will increase if the AI script becomes longer in order to improve the AI.

One of the things that may help (I usually avoid playing huge maps since I get tired moving all of my units) is to play a single player game from multiplayer Lans instead. That way the AI is moving during your turn as well. This may slow your turn down a little since the AI will be also using the cpu.

P.S Also note that FfH2 allows you to have a max of 35 civ playing on any given map. I remember reading something here a while back when it was bought up why didn't Firaxis increase the 18 max that someone point out this would slow the game down ( it had something to do with the AI would have to go through more diplomacy script) even in games that uses fewer AI. Thus the ability to have up to 35 civs as in FfH 2 will slow down games with only 8-10 civs as well.

Aye thats the gist of it! That Multiplayer Lan trick is a good tip! Just have a ware. The computer may move before you move, or after!

 

[fredcdobbs]

Finally had to give up on that 1000+ turn game. Started another game on a large map with the same number of civs. Past turn 600 and only fifteen seconds wait. I may not have as many cities or units, but the map size seems to have to have been the major problem.

 

[PanzerWolf]

There a few tricks that has helped me:

1) Nlite. With this program, you can really strip down your Windows installation before installing it. I've removed services I don't need, configured setup, removed the balloons that pops up, removed the planar gate called Internet Explorer to avoid having demons corrupting my OS +++. This has really made my Windows go faster, removing everything except what I need for gaming and multimedia.

2) PriFinitty/ SetAffinity. This nice little program let you pre-define which process to run on which CPU core. I've made a set that has my Civ-related processes/ threads running on one core, while the others run on the other. I simply loads this set before starting the game.

Someone asked if this can be fixed in a patch. I don't think so, it will require a complete rewriting of the engine.

Hopefully within a couple of months, I have the money to upgrade my workstation to a quad core with at least 4GB of RAM. I'm planning to run Linux on it with Civ in Wine or on a virtualized Windows. It will be really interesting to see how that will turn out as Linux is far better than Windows when it comes to handling multithreading and using RAM.