Increasing game performance?

[Soneji]

I have:

C2D E4600
2Gb
7600GT (only play this and CSS)

Performance on huge maps can still take a couple of minutes per turn in the later stages. I would really like the industry as a whole to waken up and take more notice of multicore/smp systems.

It does seem fruitless atm tbh.

 

[skallben]

hi. I had the same pb few times ago, and went for 1gb ram -> 2gb ram.
and you know what ? it did not change a thing. I wondered why since it seemed logicall for civ4 to be a big RAM consumer, but in fact the CPU is always at 100%

so i suggest you not to do same mistake as I did :] (well if you really want some RAM i'll sel you mine so I can buy a new cpu )

Might be something else bottlenecking your system. And you know, RAM is good for more things than Civilization

Just because no-one else has mentioned it:

What's your harddrive setup? Do you have an old, slow or dying drive? Are other things unusually slow on this machine? Is DMA enabled? Do you know if you have some copy protection from other games or virtual drive software installed that might be causing problems?

Actually it's a non-Sata drive if that matters. I think 7200 rpm, it's not more than a couple of years old. More like 18 months IIRC.

I increased my ram from 1gb to 2gb (under vista ultimate) and the civ4 bts performance is ok now (amd 64x2 3800). Even huge maps are playable (although not "planetary" ones). The GPU doesn't seem to matter at all (I have an integrated nvidia 6150, so very poor really and no problem)

regards

You running max visuals then?

Not for everyone, but you can you peripheral process. In ctrl+alt+del delete all your processes with your username. Leave system etc...
This free up your RAM (I think, it definately free something up) allowing more to play the game with.

Yeah, Run/Msconfig/Autostart is another good tool. That lets you disable some autostart crap from registry so it doesnt start by default each time you boot. There are also small applications that manage memory, I think they redistribute memory from processes that dont need it.

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

Yeah that is kind of my plan
Yeah my system can handle it, it was the whole point when I built it
Upgrading path with parts that is good performance/price level when becoming obsolete was the concept. I can put the 146 up to 2.8, possibly even more but I feel no urge to play unsafe.



GPU is literally an abbrevation for Graphics Processing Unit and I used it incorrectly I meant your graphics card. Basically all graphics cards (both Nvidia and ATI) you can judge on the second number of the model. Anything with less than x600 is poor for gaming.
x600 = average
x700 = good
x800 = top of the line

That is how a Nvidia 7800 card can outperfrom a 8600 and so on. It's pretty messy business to decide what to get. Best is just to read up on articles (boring but results in a good buy )
Allthough it should be mentioned that each new generation brings new technology but that doesnt really matter if the card is too weak to actually show off the goodies in reality

There is more but this is the general rule more or less. With a less powerful graphics card you get more performance gain by lowering graphics. If your CPU/Memory is bottlenecking you usually get alot less performance gained from lowering graphics.

You dont have much Idea do you. Dont give advice if you dont know what you are talking about. Look around the internet, find a bit more information before you tell others whats what.

 

[sw99]

You dont have much Idea do you. Dont give advice if you dont know what you are talking about. Look around the internet, find a bit more information before you tell others whats what.

Actually what he said was pretty accurate. Try following your own advice.

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

Actually what he said was pretty accurate. Try following your own advice.

well considering a gefore 7800 doesnt out perform a 8600 like he says it is wrong. And while a x600 might not be as good as a x800 or x900 it makes much more sense to purchase 2 x x600 which end up costing less and out perform the higher graphics card. So while he may be correct in one way, it would be stupid to follow his advice.

And seeing what sort of computers people hace, the programmers of civ should be ashmaed of themselves. They really could consilidate the requirements to half or even a third of what they are with a bit of hard work, but obviously its too much to ask.

 

[skallben]

You dont have much Idea do you. Dont give advice if you dont know what you are talking about. Look around the internet, find a bit more information before you tell others whats what.

I guess you missed the word "can" and the fact that I encouraged to do research for more detailed info. What I said was a simplification, just that.
Btw, 7800 was what I said, no suffix mentioned. Some models actually do outperform 8600.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=713&model2=854&chart=318

Please take your negativity and rude attitude elsewhere.

 

[darkedone02]

Speaking of anti-aliasing, my anti-aliasing setting is always 2, and there is no 0, only 2, 4, and 6... how I turn it to 0?

My specs are:
- ATI Radeon X1300 Pro w/564.0 MB DDR2
- Intel Pentium 4 Processor w/ 3.00 GHz
- 1 GB RAM
- Windows XP Media Center 2005

My settings on everything is on high, I have not checked animation frozen options or anything yet.

 

[skallben]

I didnt read properly haha. But I dunno, checked windows options?

 

[GVBN]

And while a x600 might not be as good as a x800 or x900 it makes much more sense to purchase 2 x x600 which end up costing less and out perform the higher graphics card. So while he may be correct in one way, it would be stupid to follow his advice.

You can't link two X600s as there isn't X600 CE and X600 doesn't have native Crossfire support. X900 doesn't exist

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

You can't link two X600s as there isn't X600 CE and X600 doesn't have native Crossfire support. X900 doesn't exist

I used x as a place holder instead of for example gefore 7600 or geforce 8600 etc etc. I should have been more specific.

 

[LlamaCat]

2:
1 Gb RAM to
2 Gb RAM

this is by far the best option. turning off anti-aliasing is also a big help for me, at least for the movies. go to game options-graphics settings

 

[skallben]

I used x as a place holder instead of for example gefore 7600 or geforce 8600 etc etc. I should have been more specific.

Guess you skipped my post. I'm temped to say something rude.