Pentium 4 to Higher end C2D, increase in performance?

[RRtexasranger]

I'm planning on getting a pretty good C2D (E8400 or E7200) processor to replace my aging 3.2Ghz P4 processor.

But I am wondering what kind of improvement I would be expecting in this game in terms of how long it takes to load the turns. Cause sometimes, especially in mods, the turns takes several minutes to load and I'm one of those players that really enjoy playing late in the game, so it kinda kills the fun.

Anyways, yeah, has anybody replaced their P4 with a C2D that could tell me what kind of performance jump to expect.

 

[shulec]

My 1.87 GHz processor handles my turns quite rapidly. (AMD TURION 64, 2 GB RAM, ATI RADEON EXPRESS 200M. My video card is most likely my limiting factor.)

I would blame your video card or your RAM before I change my processor.

 

[Abegweit]

All modern CPUs run slower than P4s. P4s were terribly inefficient with clock cycles. Modern CPUs compensate by doing more work per cycle. My Core 2 Duo is 1.83 GHz. That's about two generations after the P4. Agreed, though, that the limiting factor is more likely to be RAM or video than the CPU.

 

[RRtexasranger]

I have 2GB RAM and an 8600GT. I've never really considered this game be one that would put my GPU to work. Would getting a new video card do more than getting a new CPU?

 

[GenMarshall]

I have yet to see any performance incrace with an Intel Core i7-920 or any Quad Core processor though I doubt it (as explained in the below paragraph). Though I have not yet installed Civ4, though I may have to snoop around to make Civ4 compatible with DirectX 10 (Yes, Virginia, I have Windows Vista Home Premium).

Though, IIRC, Civ4 and other game's of it's generation and older don't have hyperthreading written in it's software so I doubt there would be any improvement when using a multi core processor. The only benefit that one would see is within the OS level when it runs Civ4

 

[Abegweit]

I have 2GB RAM and an 8600GT. I've never really considered this game be one that would put my GPU to work. Would getting a new video card do more than getting a new CPU?

Given the specs you cite, I really don't think that any change would help much. If you want instantaneous response... well it ain't gonna happen. I would either live with what you got or invest $4000+ in a whole nuther thang. The latter choice is not in my budget.

Edit: From the way you talk, I don't think it's in your budget either. What's more I doubt that spending the money would even give you what you want.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Civ4 does not take advantage of multiple CPU cores. This is not surprising since the game is several years old now. An expensive quad core or dual core is not going to do any much better with this game than an older, less efficient (but beastly) P4.

Having said that, most games made now do take advantage of multiple cores, as do operating systems and a lot of other programs.

I could be wrong but I'm guessing that replacing a 3.2Ghz CPU (I used to have one before I got a new computer with a E6750 = 2.66GhZ dual core) with your E8400 is not going to really improve performance in Civ4. It may even decrease.

But yes, RAM is a big factor if you play big maps / play with lots of AIs.

Wait til civ5, ... then they'll make good use of the new CPUs.

 

[RRtexasranger]

Okay guys, thanks for all of the help.

I was completely unaware that Civ 4 doesn't take much advantage of multiple cores. And yeah, I like to play on big maps with lots of AI, so it will seem that I will have to suffer waiting times until the release of Civ 5.

 

[JeebusGreen]

Don't forget that neverfail help advice:
If it starts chunking too much, save, quit (perhaps even restart your computer), load it back up.

I know it ain't just me, the longer you play the chunkier it gets. A good reset should show you noticeable speedups in your game.

 

[airmikee]

Don't forget that neverfail help advice:
If it starts chunking too much, save, quit (perhaps even restart your computer), load it back up.

I know it ain't just me, the longer you play the chunkier it gets. A good reset should show you noticeable speedups in your game.

This seems to work for me as well.

 

[Davor]

I love playing big maps with lots of civs as well, but had to go to standard maps with only 8 or less civs. Not much we can do, just have to accpet what we can play with.

If you can play with the lag, the go ahead, I can't stand it so going to smaller maps now.

Hope you enjoy. ( I just don't have the paitence, maybe you do.)

 

[Zylornck Davis]

I could be wrong but I'm guessing that replacing a 3.2Ghz CPU (I used to have one before I got a new computer with a E6750 = 2.66GhZ dual core) with your E8400 is not going to really improve performance in Civ4. It may even decrease.

You are very correct. There is a neglible performance increase when moving from a single core to a multi-core CPU when playing Civ4. Lemon Merchant and I did an experiment a few months ago. At the time, in our house, there was an AMD Quad Core (Phenom 9850 BE), 2 Dual Cores (1 Intel, 1 AMD), and one single core Athlon XP (3200+ Barton core). All of them clocked between 2 and 2.5 GHz. All of the machines except the Phenom had 2 GB of RAM and basic GPUs with graphics RAM between 128MB in Lemon's laptop and 512MB in my Phenom, and 256MB in the other two.

We used 4 saved games from Lemon's Athlon, all of which were late game saves with large maps and 12 civs with vanilla BTS. To make an accurate comparision, I removed 2 GB of RAM from the Phenom for the test. We timed load speed, turn lag and leaderhead load time.

The Quad and the Dual cores loaded the game and leaderheads faster than the single core, which I expected due to the Athlon not having SATA drives and only a single core. Turn lag was nearly the same for all machines. The Quad was the fastest because it had the highest clock speed, and was even faster when I put all of the memory back in, which is also to be expected -> less time in the swap file because more stuff is in RAM. The graphics processing was no different between Lemon's Athlon with 256MB and my Phenom with 512MB. They were both on the same settings and we couldn't see a difference in quality or performance with only a 300 MHz clock speed difference between them.

Unscientific? Oh yeah. And I'm positive I'm going to hear from someone who disagrees, but if you are going to ask me if a fancy new Quad Core will improve things, I'm gonna tell you no. Some others have said that the graphics card and the amount of RAM will make a difference, and I'm behind that all the way, but the mono-dual-quad core argument just isn't worth the amount of bandwidth wasted on it. The new CPUs are good for all of the new stuff on the market, but if you're gonna go out and get one just to speed up Civ, you're better off just getting some more RAM and waiting for Civ5. Quads will be cheaper by then anyway.

 

[T.A JONES]

Okay guys, thanks for all of the help.

I was completely unaware that Civ 4 doesn't take much advantage of multiple cores. And yeah, I like to play on big maps with lots of AI, so it will seem that I will have to suffer waiting times until the release of Civ 5.

Or you get a cedarmill P4 using a newer motherboad that power muticores today. Also need that newer V-card tho. Still, Costs a lot less then then a new setup.
Why not google on site this Cedermill and have a look at what other owners have had to say with their exp with Civ4 on huge map many civ epics.

You'll do best with the best P4 and this claim, its 'fully supported'

 

[RRtexasranger]

Yeah, but I also play more games other than Civ IV, so I kinda want my next CPU to be a C2D. And If I get a C2D, I have to get a new mobo, case, PSU, and possibly RAM, so I might as well buy a new setup while I'm at it.

 

[T.A JONES]

Yeah, but I also play more games other than Civ IV, so I kinda want my next CPU to be a C2D. And If I get a C2D, I have to get a new mobo, case, PSU, and possibly RAM, so I might as well buy a new setup while I'm at it.

SUre whatever floats you boat but the cedarmill will play most any game as fast for a while to come

YOu do know the cedar has 64 bit support for 4 gigs of ram, its die shrinked to solve heat constrait and overclocks easy with cheap programs like Corecell by MTI . It has double the CPU memory (L2 cache) of any other monocore. That a big civ bonues for AI thinking times and negates the longer pipe structure by avoiding many ram call ups in the 1st place!

Etherway its spped is incredible! If you looked at overclock.com you'd see the cedar runs deafult at 4.6ghz easy Today on junker deafault cooling. Intel states most Core 2's run 40% more effiently then the best P4,. So take a look. A very nice$$ 3.0ghz quadcore equals around 4.2 - 4.4 ghz in translation. Still be slower then the P4's we see in action today(top refined

Infact try to buy on-line and you will face a flurry of bids. Many understand this is the way for gamers to max the play of most great games

Best thing about the P4 is the easy mobo upgrade abilty (key for making P4 better then quadcore on monodesigned games)

To avoid mishmash in the matters of support, Intel introduced a special scheme of marking that points to the compatibility of platforms. It is called the «Platform Compatibility Guide» (PCG) and is designated on the processor's box and should also be shown in the specification of the motherboard


Before good luck tryin to get a newr mobo that actually was designed to enhance the older rig you tried to equipt it on

ANyway all Cedar mill owners have said Civ4 flys while core2 complaints are numerous in comparison. I only play civ so no choice in the matter

 

[Zylornck Davis]

SUre whatever floats you boat but the cedarmill will play most any game as fast for a while to come
[Edit]
Etherway its spped is incredible! If you looked at overclock.com you'd see the cedar runs deafult at 4.6ghz easy Today on junker deafault cooling. Intel states most Core 2's run 40% more effiently then the best P4,. So take a look. A very nice$$ 3.0ghz quadcore equals around 4.2 - 4.4 ghz in translation. Still be slower then the P4's we see in action today(top refined

Infact try to buy on-line and you will face a flurry of bids. Many understand this is the way for gamers to max the play of most great games

I believe the OP was asking for some information on what he could expect in terms of performance in moving up to a C2D, and whether it would be worth it. Once again, you give us another entertaining, informative, and bizarrely written essay on the Cedar Mill P4.

I'm not going to get into an argument with you about the Cedar Mill. I agree that it's an excellent processor, there are still a couple at work and they're awesome. But where is the OP going to get one? They don't seem to be commercially available anymore, at least that I could find, and anything he is able to get on ebay is probably going to have been seriously overclocked and half wore-out, if not broken alltogether. If he were able to even find a Cedar Mill, it's going to come at a premium, for the reasons you discussed. Buying a CPU on ebay is risky to begin with. CPU's are very prone to static damage and most people don't really pay attention on how to handle them. I'm not saying it isn't possible to get a good one but the odds probably aren't very good that he will.

There's nothing wrong with using a P4 to play civ. In fact a standard vanilla 3.2 GHz P4 will outperform my Phenom 9850 when clocked to 3.1 any day. But the Phenom, or a C2D, or an Intel Quad will blow it out of the water running anything even moderately optimized for multi core. Look at some benchmarks. The OP said he's playing other games, which probably means newer stuff. Guess what? That stuff is made for the newer processors, and more is coming all the time.

Better advice to the OP would be that he isn't going to see an immediate benefit to getting anything more than a mono core to play civ. If that's the only reason he's buying a new CPU, his money is better spent elsewhere. If he wants better performance for everything else and civ too, a dual or quad core with 4GB and a decent GPU is worth it, even with a 32 bit OS. IMO it makes a lot more sense than ranting about a 3 or 4 year old CPU that you can't buy anymore.

And 4.6 GHz on default cooling? Air? No way. Somebody's pulling your chain.

 

[Zylornck Davis]

Duplicate. Don't know why...