Serious Lag Time...

[agoodfella]

So, any suggestions folks.

I am running a decent / higher end laptop (Toshiba Qosmio):

- XP
- Core Duo (2500 @ 2GHz)
- Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics card
- 2GB RAM
- Plenty of hard drive space

My RAM utility shows my available physical RAM NEVER falling below about 1GB (the lowest I've had it was about 750MB - and that was with a bunch of memory intensive progs running like Adobe PS CS2, Firefox, iTunes, etc.)

So the problem isn't RAM. The problem isn't my processor. My specs are well within (or above) the required / recommended specs.

So what's with the lag? There is lag whenever I am moving around the map, moving a unit, accessing advisor screens, etc. Even rebooting the game doesn't solve the problem.

Any suggestions?

 

[Underdawg]

Have you recently defragmented your hard drive?

 

[agoodfella]

Just did that this morning, yeah.

Still a problem.

 

[lankypeter]

Have you tried setting all of the graphics settings to low? If so, do you still have the lag problem?

 

[agoodfella]

i just set them to medium just now, and i can barely tell the difference...

i guess i can set them to low, but frankly i kind of feel ripped off -- my specs are within the required / recommended specs so i should be able to play this game with max settings... not to mention the fact that my laptop is no slouch and less than a year old.

 

[happymondude]

I have a Phatty Alienware Quad CPU and I have "serious lsg" when going in and out of diplomacy or any of the menu screens also!? drives me nuts. I love this game . I have played since civ 1. Civ 4 had no problems? BTS Has huge lag issues? any ideas anyone?

 

[agoodfella]

btw, can anyone tell me what the major graphical differences are between the settings:

- High
- Medium
- Low

I can't tell any major difference (if any)

 

[happymondude]

I have over a terabyte of memory, quad cou dual fatty grafics card and game still has a huge lag when trying to open any of the advisor screens even without antialiasing at 0 and grafics at low?? Comon Sid. what the heck happened from warlords to BTS?

 

[Brancaleone]

I always play on Low. I have a good pc (4GHZ, 1GB ram, gforce 6800 etc) and i dont think the "low" setting is Ugly. Its not so different from screenshots you see on preview sites. When i started to get some Lag problems, i just reduced graphics to low and started to play only on Standart maps. I still have lag on Huge maps, but playing on Standart is very enjoyable now (and its large enough for me).

 

[happymondude]

Problems solved! I needed new drivers from NVidia. If anyone is having these similar lag issues I would start with new updated drivers from you video card manfctrr.

 

[lankypeter]

Glad to hear that it might be your drivers, but still, if you are having lag going into Diplomacy screens, I would have to think that is more the code in BTS than it is a graphics issue.

I did have one problem on one board where when I declared war it took the game over 4 minutes on some good machines to actually move the appropriate units from and to the appropriate territories (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236051). So, I am figuring that some of the lag, if not most of it, is related more to code and situations than anything else.

 

[agoodfella]

What exactly are the differences though between:

High / Medium / Low settings?

 

[Brancaleone]

As Happymondude did, i dowloaded the lastest NVidia drivers and now i dont have the diplomatic screen lag anymore.

agoodfella when i feel like, ill take three screenshots, on high, medium and low

 

[agoodfella]

As Happymondude did, i dowloaded the lastest NVidia drivers and now i dont have the diplomatic screen lag anymore.

agoodfella when i feel like, ill take three screenshots, on high, medium and low

Yes please do. I'd be very interested (as I'm sure others are) as to the differences.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Horizons]

In my personal experience, setting the antialiasing samples down to zero gave more performance upgrade than putting the graphic details to zero.

 

[Underdawg]

In my personal experience, setting the antialiasing samples down to zero gave more performance upgrade than putting the graphic details to zero.

Depends on one's video card. Each card differs in their handling of anti aliasing... for example, my 7600GT would take a rather large hit in fps when enabling anti aliasing while my X1900XT loses a minimal amount of fps when enabling anti aliasing (the fps is nearly the same to that without AA).

But it doesn't hurt to try... though the OP stated he tried setting every on off or low already.

Maybe a reinstall may help?

 

[lankypeter]

Well, it also may depend on if you are running Vista or OX. Check out this link from Ars about the upcoming "patches" from Gates for Vista. One of the two is apparently really going to help with NVIDIA cards.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070807-vista-performance-and-compatibility-packs-released.html

 

[KieranC]

Yes, I find massive lag times between turns. especially in late game and during diplomacy. Fraxis should come out with a patch for BtS for this. It was the same for the original civ 4 no patches, in fact it crashed my computer, when i downloaded the first patch after getting a new hard drive it seemed to cut down lag. I have windows xp and my computer is fair, it's not slow, it can be if i am running 5 programs between 2 users, but it meets the expectations for civ.

 

[meatwad4289]

had same lag issues, set mine to low... didnt help.