Performance Enhacements?

[Lunytic]

So... The frustration I have with Civ5 is on huge maps (which I love playing) around 1800/1900 the game becomes nearly unplayable as it takes longer and longer for the AI's turns, even as they have fewer and fewer cities.

Additionally, the layered tile graphics become really slow to load and often toward the end of the game just appear as black tiles.

I'm running Skyrim HD on Ultra, so I don't think it's an issue with computer specs, but if there are any suggestions for improving performance, I'd love to hear about 'em.

Thanks

 

[tokala]

Just because you can run one game well, it does not mean anything will run well.

CiV is pretty unique in its performance characteristics ...

Your computer specs might be informative here.

 

[Lunytic]

First, thank you for the reply. I thought I had set it up to be notified on replies to the thread... :-/

MB: Gigabyte EP45-UD3P
Core2Quad (Q9550)
8GB Ram
Vista64 Ultimate (XP64 was worse based on what I had read and 7 was still about 6 months away when I built my system)
Radeon 4800 series (don't remember the exact series #, 1GB onboard, shares 3GB with system)
HDDs are 7200rpm I believe
DX 9,10, and 11 have all been installed at various points by different games needing a specific version. I run the DX11 option on start.
Display 1920x1080

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I understand that different games have different requirements, but if an interactive world game like Skyrim has no issues, then a animated board game should not.

I do play zoomed out to max on huge maps generally.

 

[FeiLing]

Your system is mediocre and Skyrim is mediocre too. It looks amazing, but it isn't all that crispy as you think (although I'm not sure what the HD does exactly... just higher res textures I'd guess?).
Not sure how to explain that - but if you compare Skyrim to Crysis (2) then it doesn't look much worse at a first glance or while stuff is moving. On a screenshot you'' notice the differences then (which still are slim), however that hardly noticeable stuff makes the one game so much more demanding than the other. Bethesda has good artist; and those are often much more important than a badass engine.

Anyway, CiV - is for some reason... beastly. Particularly CPU-demanding. I myself only have a Q6600 and to say it clearly - a huge map isn't fun with CPUs that old. It isn't all too much fun on a sandy or ivy bridge either, but significantly better of course

I don't see much point in a huge map anyway, since when you play on Prince+ difficulty the AI can and will settle the whole map at some point while you still can not take more than 4-10 cities at the most. Of course puppets and stuff... but honestly - if I can puppet the AIs 5000 cities, then that is a damn boring game.

Bad news at the end: There's virtually nothing recommendable that will enhance your CiV performance (overclocking might very slightly, but I don't recommend that).

 

[Lunytic]

Yeah, my system is 3 years old and wasn't built with top-of-the-line parts when it was But it plays games that have legitimate reasons to be far more graphic/cpu-users-hogs than Civ5 does just fine... I guess that's the beef :-/

Anyway, CiV - is for some reason... beastly. Particularly CPU-demanding.

This is what gets me. There is NOTHING to justify it being so beastly other than poor/sloppy programming. Maybe the multi-layered tiles, maybe? There might be, zoomed out, 25 cycling animations on the screen (depending on how many resources there are on the screen and active workers). But there really is nothing graphically in Civ5 that even begins to justify it's need for resources (resulting in a signficant slow-down later on in the game). Nor for the CPU taking longer to process it's turns despite the fact later in the game the CPU actually has far fewer cities/units under it's command...

Bad news at the end: There's virtually nothing recommendable that will enhance your CiV performance (overclocking might very slightly, but I don't recommend that).

That's what I was afraid of. Oh well. I guess I was hoping for something like SkyBoost for Skyrim which optimizes CPU usage by the game. And regardless of the (often) flat plants in Skyrim, with full HD packs and maxed LOD, it may not be a top end intensive graphics game, but it's a hella of a lot more involved than 5 workers chopping away at forests.


Ultimately, I guess it's time to say goodbye to Civ as a first launch purchase and wait for it to go on sale for $10 a year later.

Thanks for the news. At least now I know there is nothing. lol


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Vanilla textures in Skyrim are dependent, but usually 512x512. Most of the HD packs (and I have the Bethesda pack as a base with user-mods on top) are typically 2048x2048 or 4096x4096. Not much has been done about the cardboard cutouts of a lot of the plant life, but it does make it what, 16 times (?) more intensive. And then the blowing leaves and 15 butterflies...