Mac version running slow
- Thread starter biscuit
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Gottesfreunde
Chieftain
Yeah, i've noticed that the Mac civ runs CONSIDERABLY slower than the PC version. On the PC things are downright zippy... on the Mac... well... waiting the essence of the game.
Brad Oliver
Civ3/4 Mac programmer
I challenge anyone to back that claim up with some hard numbers.
I did a lot of timing between my DP 800 and a P3/933 during development, and using the same saved games, the times in between turns were nearly identical.
If my games took minutes between turns I wuldn't still be here. My Mac is a 350 MHz Sawtooth, about the slowest G4 there is. I can play into the Modern era on standard maps and the only thing that's slow is my turns - decision making about what to do and where to go, multiple visits to diplo and city screens and management of all the units and workers. But that's me and the lack of some key user interface features in the game, not the computer.
Biscuit has said elsewhere that s/he plays huge maps, and Dojoboy has reported that slow operation is par for the course on such maps on both platforms. As I've never played one I can't comment.
Some players have noted that turning off Autosave speeds up the inter-turn time. Saving the game file each turn shouldn't add minutes to it, so if you try this and it works then there may be a problem with your file system. You might try running Repair Privileges from Disk Utilities.
Biscuit has said elsewhere that s/he plays huge maps, and Dojoboy has reported that slow operation is par for the course on such maps on both platforms. As I've never played one I can't comment.
Some players have noted that turning off Autosave speeds up the inter-turn time. Saving the game file each turn shouldn't add minutes to it, so if you try this and it works then there may be a problem with your file system. You might try running Repair Privileges from Disk Utilities.
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One thing to note: With some of the code that has been shared by the developers, it appears that for some of the game aspects, the number of computations grows exponentially with the number of cities (for the PC version anyway). Therefore, on large / huge maps with 100's of cities, it can get quite slow. Are these lags you are seeing in the middle - to - late game, or consistently throughout?
As I understand it the Mac code is essentially the same as the Windows code inside the actual game 'engine', it's just recompiled for the Mac CPU. C compiled for a PowerPC chip is most unlikely to run much differently from the same C compiled for a Pentium. Obviously the graphics have to be handled somewhat diffferently, but I doubt if that would affect the interturn time as most of the interturn processing results in no screen changes at all.
If the Mac version really ran at a significanly different speed from the Windows one then I would look at (a) the other things the machine is doing at the same time - the game shares the processor with other system and application software and (b) whether the system hardware or software is faulty in any way.
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The bit I was referring to in particular was the corruption calculations - the distance and rank of each city are calculated every turn. It was suggested that the entire thing could be sped-up by storing the city rank in the save file, and recalculating it only when the number of cities changed or a city changed hands.
Seeing as Civ 1.29f is the same for PC as it is for Mac, then the 'engine' code must be the same (as you suggest).
Seeing as Civ 1.29f is the same for PC as it is for Mac, then the 'engine' code must be the same (as you suggest).
biscuit, please come back in and tell us what map you're using and what preferences you have checked. All this conjecture is driving me nuts.
If you play on any map larger than Standard -- and I imagine with the lowest ocean content -- you'll get huge slow downs when the number of cities/tech advances get to a certain point. Also, if you have all the graphics animations options ticked as preferences (Animate Battles, etc) and music running, and AutoSave (recommended anyway), it'll be slow.
Rest assured, your machine and OS, and the Mac port, are not the problem. IMHO.
If you play on any map larger than Standard -- and I imagine with the lowest ocean content -- you'll get huge slow downs when the number of cities/tech advances get to a certain point. Also, if you have all the graphics animations options ticked as preferences (Animate Battles, etc) and music running, and AutoSave (recommended anyway), it'll be slow.
Rest assured, your machine and OS, and the Mac port, are not the problem. IMHO.
Brad Oliver
Civ3/4 Mac programmer
That's basically correct. Aside from byte-swapping issues when loading/saving data and your random line of code that doesn't compile because of a minor syntax difference, it's the same core Civ3 engine, AI, etc on the Mac as on the PC.
Well, there are people who go around stirring up trouble on news groups. They are called "Trolls", and continuing to rise to their bait is called "Feeding the trolls" and is generally discouraged. Until biscuit returns to prove me wrong, I suggest we move on.
Here I am. Jeez, tough room. I got frustrated with the game as you can tell, so I took a break. That meant not checking here either. I didn't get much feedback initially, so I didn't think anyone was replying. Anyway....
My Mac is a pretty fast machine, but yes Civ does indeed take minutes between "actions" (not even turns really). Say I make all of my selections for my turn and hit enter. The game then basically freezes for a loooong time, then starts up again. This has been happening on huge maps with yes, much of the map revealed and with many cities involved. I can only think that it's a bug of some sort. I don't think it's normal.
I have switched to Large Maps for now.
My Mac is a pretty fast machine, but yes Civ does indeed take minutes between "actions" (not even turns really). Say I make all of my selections for my turn and hit enter. The game then basically freezes for a loooong time, then starts up again. This has been happening on huge maps with yes, much of the map revealed and with many cities involved. I can only think that it's a bug of some sort. I don't think it's normal.
I have switched to Large Maps for now.
biscuit -- a word to the wise -- stick to Standard-sized maps.
dojoboy
Tsalagi
Have you tried a complete reinstall? Then patch directly to 1.29b2. This may work if it is some type of anomally. However, I doubt it is and you're just experiencing the norm on large & huge maps. Try a game on a small map and see if the same lags occur.
I have noticed a very long time between turns (especially with multiple civs and in the huge map.) The problem isnt really the wait its how you look at these "turn-gaps." When I get into the modern eras for example I don't sweat the ice-age like waiting times. I use this time to do something constructive such as folding laundry, finishing some paper work or talking to my wife.
But that just doesn't seem right, Jimmy, does it? I mean, do the PC users suffer from the same lags?
Ice-age waiting times is right, glacial at best.
Dojo: I have reinstalled several times to no avail. Not directly to 1.29b2 however. I'll try that next time.
Ice-age waiting times is right, glacial at best.
Dojo: I have reinstalled several times to no avail. Not directly to 1.29b2 however. I'll try that next time.
As I have said in other posts, I have the "Vanilla" Civ3 loaded on my Titanium PowerBook G4/667 with a gig of RAM running on OS 10.3.3, and I have wait times of 5 (FIVE) MINUTES OR MORE for a single turn to end. This is on a standard map and 1.21g. No clue why it is doing this... And YES, I do my Maintenance A LOT (Onyx is great). Anyone? -JB
