Impact on system performance
- Thread starter rantzzz
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I don't tend to play big maps, but I downloaded a giant earth map mod to try it out the other day. This had 34 civs I think on some sort of larger than huge map. I have an AMD dual core 4400 with 2GB ram & a 8800GTS & running at 1600 x 1050 (or something, can't remember exactly) with all detail up high but stuff like enemy movements & combat detail off.
It was fairly playable most of the game, but by the time everyone had rifling/frigates type stuff & there were a whole selection of different wars going on, the between turn wait was approaching several minutes & it eventually CTD. Note that when my turn did eventually arrive, the gameplay in that turn (moving units, choosing new things to build, gfx animation etc) didn't appear to be suffering.
Normally if I play on a Large map with say, 10 civs my machine doesn't have this problem & the between turn delay at this point would be in seconds - nothing that would interfere with the enjoyment of the game. Presumably the sheer number of calculations that have to be performed & data manipulated with a large map & large numbers of Civs between turns is enough to cause super slowdown. Perhaps this is a design limitation & the reason the original engineers opted for 18 civs maximum?
It was fairly playable most of the game, but by the time everyone had rifling/frigates type stuff & there were a whole selection of different wars going on, the between turn wait was approaching several minutes & it eventually CTD. Note that when my turn did eventually arrive, the gameplay in that turn (moving units, choosing new things to build, gfx animation etc) didn't appear to be suffering.
Normally if I play on a Large map with say, 10 civs my machine doesn't have this problem & the between turn delay at this point would be in seconds - nothing that would interfere with the enjoyment of the game. Presumably the sheer number of calculations that have to be performed & data manipulated with a large map & large numbers of Civs between turns is enough to cause super slowdown. Perhaps this is a design limitation & the reason the original engineers opted for 18 civs maximum?
For me i only use 39 % of my ram before playing, and I have never seen the ram go up close to 100%, actually I have never witnessed my ram going above 85 % at all.
But still, another gig of ram might help, i will try to get my hands on a gb of ram now and see what happens.
Verge
Let's hug it out
More Civs and larger maps will indeed increase the lag you are experiencing, and if you think about it, it should make a lot of sense; as you increase the number of players and therefore units, cities, actions, orders, etc., you increase the number of processes that require system resources. The average computer simply doesn't have the power to chew through the game's computations with the swiftness you would like.
If you really can't stand waiting for more than 2 seconds, drop down to large size. The leap from large to huge is actually quite big, so a computer that experiences minor to moderate slowdowns on a huge map should be able to process large maps handedly even at the endgame when there are tons of units and cities everywhere.
I believe Vista is a hot in everything from memory to cpu. I had a PC with duo core and it sucks for everything espically for gaming.
come on 2 gigs of ram, and I can listen to music and surf the net at the same time? Should be no slow down what so ever.
You will have to either put in 2 gigs of memory, 4 gigs is min, I believe espically for gaming or go to XP. With 2 gigs of ram on XP and you will be singing
come on 2 gigs of ram, and I can listen to music and surf the net at the same time? Should be no slow down what so ever.
You will have to either put in 2 gigs of memory, 4 gigs is min, I believe espically for gaming or go to XP. With 2 gigs of ram on XP and you will be singing
Commander Bello
Say No 2 Net Validations
2 GB is sufficient for Vista, as well as it is sufficient for XP. Vista just makes use of more memory if available than XP, since it keeps more things in memory.
As soon as you run short of memory, both are making use of the swap file.
About adding more memory to a Vista system, it is of importance if you are using a 32bit Vista or a 64bit Vista. The first will make use of 3.5 GB, even if you would have 4 or more installed. The 64bit Vista should be able to make use of any amount of memory which you can expect nowadays to reside into a privately used PC.
Get a process priority optimizer and have it keep CIV at HIGH priority, thats a big boost in response. (Don't use realtime, it'll make your system crash) Windows sux at determining what should get your CPU's lion's share and a PPO takes charge of that.
The biggest size I tackle is standard with lots of water even though I've got a dual core and 2 gigs and all, I like my 18 civs game
But I can't take the waits 
Maybe when I upgrade to a quad core I'll try bigger maps...
The biggest size I tackle is standard with lots of water even though I've got a dual core and 2 gigs and all, I like my 18 civs game
But I can't take the waits Maybe when I upgrade to a quad core I'll try bigger maps...
Civ4 uses only one of the cores
Verge
Let's hug it out
Quoted for emphasis. It's easy to overlook this when assessing game performance for Civilization 4 and many other games.
Quite right. I can show you a 300 doller getup that would play the ancient game of civ4 as fast or faster then any 3x $more brandname multicore. The Pinnacle of the Pentium design was made to run this game at its most flawless times at full capacity. With duo you could play the same speed and watch a dvd where you have to wait ocasssion.
I have no doubt we will never see the day a core duo model outperforms the 3.4 ghz, super cooled, 64 bit, multithreaded with 2mb L2 cache Prescott Pent 4 monocore on any civ4 benchmark score. (Same with civ3-ram and g cards being of equal denominations and brand)
if you have a decent dual core than this is of no real importance.
they may have a slower cpu speed written on the box, but they also work differently and one core (meaning that game can use only 1of2) from intels dual e6600 outperforms any singlecore cpu in any game.
Uh, no. The e6600 has 2x2.4GHz. There are plenty of single CPU chips that'll easily outperform one 2.4GHz core. Unless you are trying to run something processor intensive in the background, a game like Civ IV is going to get 99.9% of the CPU time, even with a single core.
Bh
Bh
Just try a priority process optimizer and see the difference, in my case it's either 20+ seconds without it or 5+/- seconds with it per turn...
Or don't try it and keep waiting
True enough that the game runs on only one CPU, i've just tested it. But still, the game runs on one and the rest of your processes are on the other
Of course restarting the game once you bust the 700megs mark is a good idea
Or don't try it and keep waiting
True enough that the game runs on only one CPU, i've just tested it. But still, the game runs on one and the rest of your processes are on the other
Of course restarting the game once you bust the 700megs mark is a good idea
When I play the standard CIV4, I don't have any lag at all but when playing BTS I always have lag in the later eras.
I'm going to try the priority optimizer so I can partly remove the curse on my pc what is called 'Vista'. I also have dualcore and I can play Oblivion fine on max settings. But I don't want to play Oblivion, I want to play Beyond the Sword.
I'm going to try the priority optimizer so I can partly remove the curse on my pc what is called 'Vista'. I also have dualcore and I can play Oblivion fine on max settings. But I don't want to play Oblivion, I want to play Beyond the Sword.
auldian
King
Edge scrolling has always felt lagged in this series to me.
Regarding the 2 second processing time for the AI turns, I don't see that for many, many years. There are a tremendous number of relationships and positions being calculated when that cursor's spinning. I get fresh coffee.
Are you sure CIV only uses one core in any situation? How come i use up to 100 % on both processors when am ingame then? I had a AMD Athlon 1,8 ghz, now i got a T5250 with 1,5 ghz dual processor, and I strongly doubt that the prior was the fastest one.
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