Impact on system performance

[rantzzz]

I've tried playing Huge with 18 civs and the slow down on my system was very noticeable, even though I'm running on a core 2 duo with geforce 7700go.

I would like to play on huge maps without any long wait times per turn (any thing more than 2 seconds is long)

Would reducing the number of civs help?

 

[ggganz]

Usually the main problem that slows down Huge maps is RAM, how much you got?

 

[rantzzz]

2gb on Vista, which is more than sufficient.

I have a feeling it could be due to the number of AIs on that map, though I'm just wondering if the slow down is experienced by you guys as well when you run on Huge with 18 civs

 

[Willem]

Yes, the number of civs on the map definitely has an impact on the performance. Each one of them has to go through all the claculations for pathfinding, culture, trade etc. Even a top of the line computer is going to groan if there are too many of them.

 

[CorSaiR]

...but then again if you remove civs on that same map, other remaining civs will create more cities and units on that free space and you again have the same problem . i don't believe that you would see any big improvement with 4-5civs less.

if 2sec is too long to wait you can always: put more ram (2gig on vista is a border requirement for those options that you play on), play on smaller map or be patient and get used to waiting more than 2sec.

 

[v8_mark]

...but then again if you remove civs on that same map, other remaining civs will create more cities and units on that free space and you again have the same problem . i don't believe that you would see any big improvement with 4-5civs less.

You would see a fairly significant improvement - simply because each civ often has to make a calculation based on its relation to other civs (whether it's trade, diplomacy or just a border check or something).

13x12 (156) is significantly less than 18x17 (306).

But yeah, the problem is you need a monster to play huge/18 at any reasonable speed.

 

[Bureaucracy]

I also have had that problem since day one. Very big maps cause very big lag-times. My solution is to not play these types of maps.

I also find that re-booting once you hit the industrial/modern age will speed things up a noticeable difference too. I suspect there are a lot of memory leaks going on, and each turn contributes a little big of wastage.

 

[Willem]

I also find that re-booting once you hit the industrial/modern age will speed things up a noticeable difference too. I suspect there are a lot of memory leaks going on, and each turn contributes a little big of wastage.

Yes, that's still going on even with BtS. I have a pretty uber system and I still need to shut down every so often and reboot in order for things to run smoothly again.

 

[6K Man]

I've found that BtS is dramatically slower than vanilla. I'm on a large map, 9 civs, and anytime I declare war or blockade, there's a noticeable delay (5 seconds or so for blockades, 30+ seconds for a war declaration).

 

[Brian Boru]

2gb on Vista, which is more than sufficient.

I agree with Corsair, that's probably not "more" Can you borrow another gig to test?

 

[Thanny]

It's not memory. It's pure CPU horsepower that's being consumed, and the cause is not the size of the map or the number of opponents, but the number of units.

If you reduce the number of civs, they'll just spread out more, and still make the same number of units. The only way to keep unit numbers down is to reduce the map size. Or win early when playing on huge maps (which kind of defeats the point), before everyone has a chance to build monstrous numbers of units.

Something I've not tried, which may help, is something called SpeedMod, which kills calls to Python. You'll have to start a new game with the mod loaded, and you can't do scenarios (which rely on Python scripting).

 

[CorSaiR]

another idea; change back to WinXP.

guaranteed performance boost +20% (well this goes for almost all games )

 

[ggganz]

It's not memory. It's pure CPU horsepower that's being consumed, and the cause is not the size of the map or the number of opponents, but the number of units.

If you reduce the number of civs, they'll just spread out more, and still make the same number of units. The only way to keep unit numbers down is to reduce the map size. Or win early when playing on huge maps (which kind of defeats the point), before everyone has a chance to build monstrous numbers of units.

Something I've not tried, which may help, is something called SpeedMod, which kills calls to Python. You'll have to start a new game with the mod loaded, and you can't do scenarios (which rely on Python scripting).

Sorry, man. This is the BtS forum, and Kael's SpeedMod is only for Warlords. He never bothered to make one for Vanilla, and Alexman (Alex Mantzaris, the lead designer of BtS) included his own version of SpeedMod with BtS.

 

[Bahacles44]

I agree with Thanny. I always play huge maps (its just my thing) and I find that I only have trouble once there gets to be a huge number of units. One thing that helps is turning the resolution down to the lowest setting; you only get one sprite per unit instead of the three but it seems to help quite a bit.

 

[Verge]

(any thing more than 2 seconds is long)

Not possible. Huge maps simply won't process that quickly.

 

[ADP101]

try b4 opening up civ IV pressing Ctrl+alt+dlt and ending all "other" processes that u dont need, just keep any bg program u want like a music player or mcafee. this has helped me in other games

 

[Verge]

try b4 opening up civ IV pressing Ctrl+alt+dlt and ending all "other" processes that u dont need, just keep any bg program u want like a music player or mcafee. this has helped me in other games

I wouldn't even run a music player, particularly if it's iTunes. The last thing you need is that Quicktime-based resource hog chewing up performance.

 

[cFccFc]

Corsair, Vista doesn't kill CPU which you need for this game, it takes more ram but 2 gb leaves enough anyway so I dont think it mathers. Calculations doesn't go faster just because you have XP, the cpu needs to do the same anyway.

 

[CorSaiR]

Corsair, Vista doesn't kill CPU which you need for this game, it takes more ram but 2 gb leaves enough anyway so I dont think it mathers. Calculations doesn't go faster just because you have XP, the cpu needs to do the same anyway.

oh it matters. i have 1,5gig ram...and on vista i had visible slowdowns compared to xp (turns go much faster) on same settings on large maps.
maybe 2gigs is some sweet point for civ4 where everything runs smooth, but i doubt it. and its definitely not enough to run huge maps with 18civs without some waiting time.

as for the cpu, to be honest almost all people say that they see an improvement with more ram. so if the original poster uses his machine mainly for gaming, i would advise to replace that ram eater-Vista with XP.

 

[warpstorm]

Sorry, Rantzz, 2 Gigs is not sufficient for Vista, IMHO. When I load Vista one Gig is used by the OS. This is like having a one Gig system under XP. Adding another Gig to my laptop helped most games in a noticable way.

Having said that, your 2 second expectation is not going to happen without buying a computer from the future. That computer doesn't exist today, TTBOMK.