Poor performance late game

[Mo02]

Is it normal to experience low FPS and a very laggy interface when playing with 20+ cities in the modern era? I use the BAT mod because I love the variety of units and new 3D models, but I’m unsure if I should continue using it. Could the mod be contributing to the poor performance, or is it mainly due to Civ 4 being old and optimized for 32-bit, single-core CPUs?

 

[mycophobia]

A little bit of both probably, but most of it can likely be blamed on the old exe.

 

[a pen-dragon]

or is it mainly due to Civ 4 being old and optimized for 32-bit, single-core CPUs?

Keep in mind that Civ4 is actually a 32 bit program, which notably does limit the usable RAM to 2GB, or up to 4GB on a 64 bit system with a "4GB-patch" (i.e. setting the LargeAddressAware flag on the .exe). I think that this is, in most cases, the root cause of the game lagging.

 

[Mo02]

Keep in mind that Civ4 is actually a 32 bit program, which notably does limit the usable RAM to 2GB, or up to 4GB on a 64 bit system with a "4GB-patch" (i.e. setting the LargeAddressAware flag on the .exe). I think that this is, in most cases, the root cause of the game lagging.

i did some googling and found old thread on here (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/4gb-patch-for-civ-4.623834/) someone claimed BTS is large address aware.

 

[Core Imposter]

I play original unmodded BTS and have absolutely no trouble playing huge maps with 6 continents and two hundred cities on marathon with 18 civs even when 700 or 800 turns in all on a nondescript old Dell laptop. The only thing I did do was reduce some of the graphics settings a bit, IIRC, which I might not since it's been a decade ago.

 

[f1rpo]

Maybe it's this issue - opening the city screen gradually degrading performance. If so, exit and reload should help.

 

[Mo02]

Maybe it's this issue - opening the city screen gradually degrading performance. If so, exit and reload should help.

I did dig out autosave from that finished game and you are right, game worked fine this time. I guess playing 6h+ session in one sitting did degrade the game performance to almost unplayable level, good to know what I have to do when it happens again.

 

[Tecumseh1]

I have not noticed a lag until very late game. Specifically the last 10-15 turns before winning space. Maybe the AI starts scheming on how to nuke me lol.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Is it normal to experience low FPS and a very laggy interface when playing with 20+ cities in the modern era? I use the BAT mod because I love the variety of units and new 3D models, but I’m unsure if I should continue using it. Could the mod be contributing to the poor performance, or is it mainly due to Civ 4 being old and optimized for 32-bit, single-core CPUs?

The mod 100% contributes to slower speeds. BUG mod makes it even worse.

 

[livinginaz]

I've noticed that vanilla Civ IV BTS can definitely get laggy in the late game. I have a couple PCs that I play the game on, and all of them start to lag. The lag is noticeable when scrolling around the map, it kind of 'stops' and hitches periodically, but when the camera is still the various animations play smoothly. It is worse in areas with lots of activity on the map (which by the late game is effectively everywhere, probably part of the problem). Never used any mods.

I always thought this was odd, because my PCs are way higher spec than anything that the game was designed for. One is an i7-3770 with 8GB RAM and an Nvidia K1200 vid card and the other is an i5-8500 with 16GB RAM and Intel 630 iGPU. These are oldish machines, if you can't tell I don't do much gaming besides Civ 3/4, but they are more than enough for this game. Even the 13 year old integrated graphics on the i7 run the game at 1920x1200 without issue till late game. The i5 has an SSD and it makes no difference.

 

[AcaMetis]

TL;DR: There's a limit to how much hardware Civ IV can utilize (which is not something easily changed by mods), and there's also some kind of memory leak which gradually slows down the game the longer it is played. Tabbing out of the game and back in should reset the memory leak, which will make a noticeable difference if you've been playing for a few hours.