Quad Core CPU

[Sci-Tek]

Hi,

I'm running a quad core computer (intel i5) x64 - 4gb ram. And on Large / Huge maps after 1-2 hours of gameplay the time between turns takes ages. I know this was a issue on old laptop also, but I figured it was Mod related. However now at the new computer I see the same at Planetfall 1.4 mod aswell. Been watching over Task manager as it waits to complete the turn, and it seems CPU usage never goes above 25%, affinity set to all CPUs.

I tried searching the forums for similar threads, sorry for not finding them if any.

 

[mintegar]

If i remember correctly, at the time c4 was developed, dual core processors weren't even introduced to the market yet. Dual CPU setup was a high-end frindge solution back then. c4 was not designed to make use of more multiple Processors, it is always running in a single thread.
Maybe they should have shown more foresight with that desicion, but OTOH it's understandable because making your code run in parallel isn't easy and can introduce hard to find bugs when you make a mistake there.

Task manager showing 1/4 probably means that 1 Core out of 4 is fully loaded. Windows-Taskmanager normally shows also the cpu load of each of the Processor cores in seperate graphs. What do those show? One them should be at max, the others at zero.

I would'nt change the affinity settings. The OS can not distribute the code of a single-threaded app to multiple cores automatically. Find a way to do that and you would be famous instantly.
Best you can hope for is that the OS picks a core where c4 can run with no competing processes. And that it stays on that core, because if i'm not mistaken switching cores has a small cost. Of course, if you really know what you'r doing you could set affinity of civ4 to one specific core. But i doubt there would be any measurable advantage when compared to autmatic setting.

 

[kiwitt]

If you run Win7x64 and have a little bit more ram, e.g. 6 GB, when you start Civ4:BTS it can utilize a full 4GB of RAM, but it will still run on 1 core. This may help.