Loading time fix needed pleaseeeeee

[kjades]

Ok guyz, I know that this is one one of the most common problem for Civ V players. I read of players having this issue in tons of different forums, even in this very one, but many of those posts were rather old (2010 or before). I also read somewhere that Firaxis had it solved somehow.
So I'm here, begging you geniuses for a help.

My problem is Civ V MAIN problem (well, together with AI's stupidity after all): loading times.

Not only when loading a saved file, but especially when pressing the deadly "next turn" button.
So, I read it was possibly linked to poor hardware. That's not my case, since my PC can run heavy games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2 smoothly.
I read it could be related to fragmentation of the Hard disk (cause also suggested by Firaxis itself). That's fake, since I had a deep defragmentation today (actually two) and nothing changed in the time between turns.
I read it could have something to do with graphic settings. That's fake too, since I lowered the values, and nothing changed, the loading time was still horribly slow (around 2 or 3 minutes per turn change).

So, I want to ask you all, is anyone aware of a possible (real) cause of this, which does not include simply bad, bad programming by Firaxis? In this case there could be a solution to my painful games...otherwise...

Someone suggested that not to have any problems from this point of view we should play smaller maps with fewer opponents.
I reply that if I have to purchase a game just not to play it the way I want only to have good performances, well, that game does not deserve my money and my time.
Thanks again guyz, hope anyone will be able to help.

 

[The_J]

WoW is not exactly anymore a hardware heavy game ^^.
-> we'd still like to know your specs.

And as another question: Has this problem with the turn times been a case since...er...recently, or has it been the same since the beginning?

 

[kjades]

Ok, I see...(about WoW I mean )
Anyway, the problem is just like for any other player...
First 50 turns = loading times next to 0.
After that it's just a growing pain. Slower and slower.
I understand that managing the decisions of all the units of the AI (especially in huge maps with many opponents) is not an easy task. But that's ridiculous.
I'll attach my pc dxdiag, hope will be useful.

 

[timtofly]

You are definitely taxing your system with this game. Using your hard drive as random memory for this game does cause problems.

I have a related note having to do with HTML format, that I seem to be under the impression that this game relies on it heavily. HTML that is not properly handled seems to be a resource hog. This game until I placed steam and the game on a seperate thumb drive, was very prone to crashing and corrupting files. You can play this game on an at minimum or below minimum recomended computer, but you are going to have long wait times.

Even on an i7 8core cpu with 8 gigs of RAMM, there is a noticeble difference in late game turns and turns around the 70 turn mark. So if you want to avoid wait times, the only thing that is going to "fix" the problem is a faster computer. Either that or they are going to have to simplify the coding so much, which may in turn cause the game to be less enjoyable. This game is complex, although not as complex as some would like it. BTW having steam and the game on a different drive did not speed it up. It just prevented crashes and corrupted files. I think that they can improve on the coding, but it seems to me that the game now as opposed to when it was first released seems to be getting better.

Your computer is taking it's time getting all of the info sorted out between the micro seconds that it is also storing info on both the drive and in memory. Having to keep rearranging and processing all the shuffling of info takes up as much if not more time than just handling the game itself.

 

[The_J]

mmhh...but I'd not see how this could really result in such big problems.

No real idea. 50 turns is not much. It's not the end game on a huge map or so.
I have no idea why it could help, but since other people have reported slowdowns after reloading and at other points in the game, you should also try if this here might help.

 

[SuperTechmarine]

I had the same thing once.

With Civilization 5 Vanilla, the loading times were super fast

But after Gods & Kings, loading times were horribly slow.

EDIT: I defragmented the Civ 5 directory with Gamebooster, loading is helluva alot faster now.