Pegged CPU

[Sifmole]

So, before the 1.09 patch the game was totally unplayable. Extremely slow, black terrain, chesire cat leaders -- you know the drill.

After the patch, the game is graphicly okay and starts off running fine. But very quickly ( sometimes immediately upon founding a city, sometimes a couple of turns later -- no more than 5 ). The game pegs my CPU at 99%. And becomes unplayably slow ( 90 seconds between turns, 20 seconds to move a unit 1 step )

Does anybody else experience this?

Athlon 2.4 Ghz
Radeon 7500
1 Gig Ram

Any ideas would be appreciated. I have tried the High priority thing ... doesn't matter it is already taking 99% of the CPU.

 

[esun]

Most PCs have a thermal protection feature which slows down the CPU when it overheats. Check to see if this is happening on your computer by using the free utilities SpeedFan and SpeedSwitchXP.

Speedfan will graph your internal temps, SpeedSwitch will show you if your CPU is being slowed down.

This is a more common problem on laptops (which have small fans), but can happen on desktops too.

- Dan

 

[KingJim]

YES! I have this problem too and it is so frustrating. In my case, I've always had this problem, pre and post 1.09 patch. The other difference is it only becomes unbearable after the first 50 turns or so, up until then it just seems like i'm playing on a sluggish system.

I have enough hardware and shouldn't have a problem running this game. The other frustating thing is that I have a laptop for work and Civ4 runs just fine on that. But not on my bigger PC at home.

What kind of motherboard and graphics card do you have?

My specs:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo
Gigabyte nVidia 5700 XT graphics card
3200+ AMD Athlon XP

I tried several different drivers from nVidia with no difference in game play. I've tried several of the tweeks listed here in these forums too.

I sent an e-mail to Take 4's tech support and they just got back to me yesterday (over a week late). I got the usual, reinstall the game, run scandisk, yada yada yada... I really think its a problem in the graphics of the game and something in my hardware it doesn't like.

Please let me know if you ever resolve this.

 

[zig20fan]

I actually captured a log of my CPU temps and DC voltages during a four hour game period because of another thread. CPU times fluctuate between 85% and 95% and my CPU temps go to about 54C (normal is 36C). I have 6 case fans in addition to the CPU, northbridge, video and power supply fans. I've played on my laptop which doesn't meet min specs and I could have fried eggs on it after about 30 minutes.

Bottom line, I also think you have a heat issue. I can't stress the importance of a clean case and more importantly, a clean heat exchanger for the CPU fan. To add another tool to esun's list, I use CPU Cool. It displays and logs enough temps and voltages to fill a book and keeps a tray icon with your CPU temp.

P4 3.0G
ASUS P4C800E-Deluxe
1GB RAM
ATI AIW 9800 Pro

 

[Sifmole]

The largest reason that I wonder about this is...

I have zero other problems with other applications slowing down like this. And I regularly run 12-14 seperate programs at once.