slow game

[MPK]

A few months back I bought Civ 3 complete and i bought a 2nd hand laptop to put it on. I got a laptop with i5 CPU. I am not computer minded. Maybe this is not most important for better game speed... which is what i was after. But i have the opposite. I have played Civ3 for many years. I know what game speed to expect.

As my latest games stands. I have 6 cities so the game is young. But it takes 11 minutes for the blue spinning wheel to stop. Which is way to long. next turn only auto moves for my turn, then another 11 minute wait. I only play CCM so most of the time usage has been removed prior.

The Laptop is a: (64 bit)
Dell Latitude E6410ATG
Processor: Intel (R) Core (TM) i5 CPU
M 560 @ 2.67 GHz 2.67 GHz
Installed Memory: 3.86 GB

screen resolution is 1280x800

In my conquests con.fig file i have 'KeepRes=1'

my file path:
C/Games/2K Games/Civilization III Complete

I refreshed the Windows Experience Index:
results:
processor: 3.2
mem. ram: 5.1
graphics: 4.5
game graphics: 5.3
prim. hard disk: 5.9

all this means nothing to me. Maybe some has some idea. Thanks.

 

[Ares de Borg]

That is way too long for a computer with that configuration. Is there anything running in the background, for example anti-virus software or a defragmentation program?

 

[MPK]

Thanks Ares ... i am not sure about things running in the back ground . I will try to find someone who knows computer to check/....... the laptop was re-set to factory settings when i bought it. It only has games on it.
I put avast anti virus on it .... but computer is never online.

i will do updates later .. see what happens

 

[Desertsnow]

When in doubt, consult the taskmaster.

 

[MPK]

i assume taskmaster is task manager. i turned the wifi on...as i only use for Civ3 so never been online except to download GOG. I open the task manager and says only things running are Google Chrome and Windows Update ... which has been checking for Updates for over 1 hour now.

i start civ3 and nothing extra starts .... not even avast ...

 

[Nathiri]

With Task Manager you can check the CPU usage and other things using your computer's speed.

 

[Desertsnow]

i assume taskmaster is task manager. i turned the wifi on...as i only use for Civ3 so never been online except to download GOG. I open the task manager and says only things running are Google Chrome and Windows Update ... which has been checking for Updates for over 1 hour now.

i start civ3 and nothing extra starts .... not even avast ...

Yeah, my bad. I'm an idjit. *slapself*

 

[Laurana Kanan]

I open the task manager and says only things running are Google Chrome and Windows Update ... which has been checking for Updates for over 1 hour now.

i start civ3 and nothing extra starts .... not even avast ...

What version of 64-bit Windows are you running? Can you also post a screenshot of the Task Manager's Processes tab. You should have many more items running other than just Chrome and Windows Update. Also, what version of CivIII Complete did you buy? CD, Steam d/l, etc.

 

[MPK]

on my game computer I run windows 7 professional. My Civ 3 game is a CD. I buy both Civ 3 and Civ 4 together ... they both on single CD / and has no CD patch in ti i think.

the laptop is not online. Only thing on is Civ 3 game

i seem to not be able to get screen shot: always baffles me. ( i will get someone to do this)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
applications: - at the moment only civ 3 is running

Performance: - CPU usage 6% - 14% ..........// Memory 1.72 GB

maybe i could un-install, then reinstall game [?]

 

[tjs282]

Apologies for necro-ing this thread, but last night I made a 'discovery' that might be relevant:, on my Win8.1 64-bit desktop, using KeepRes=1 causes significant slowdown in gamespeed. Could well be that most Civ3-players already know this, but it was new to me...

Spoiler Background blahblah... :

I was previously playing Civ3 on a 1280*800 laptop, and then/now also on my desktop using a 1680*1050 widescreen monitor, so I had routinely included the KeepRes=1 line in my .ini files to prevent horizontal distortion of the Civ3 GUI. However, I recently acquired a secondhand 1600*1200 monitor, and am now using it as my primary, with the widescreen relegated to secondary (for CAII, Windows MediaPlayer, Notepad when I'm playing SGs, etc.). Since the 'new' monitor has a 4:3 aspect ratio, gamescreen-distortion is no longer a concern, but with KeepRes=1, everything looks pretty tiny, including the text, and my eyes are not what they were; leaning in to figure out what unit is currently active, or to read 'Pedia entries (for the Conquests Scenarios, and CCM, which I only started playing relatively recently), is not much fun...

So last night I tried changing the line to KeepRes=0 (I could have just deleted it, but figured that if I wanted to switch it back, doing so would be marginally quicker if the line was retained), to force Civ3 to scale the original 'intended' 1024*768 display up to 1600*1200, rather than increasing the total map-area displayed. It worked as expected -- and as a bonus, the game suddenly started running significantly faster, not only during my turn, but also on the interturn. All the AI-units started flitting around the screen like mad: I had to turn all the animations back on in the Game Preferences (Ctrl-P), just to keep track of what they were doing! And the loading/saving also seems to be happening slightly faster than it was, as well.

@MPK
While I realise that this 'news' may not be much help to you regarding your Civ3-laptop, it might at least explain why you were/are experiencing unexpected slowdown... If you can stand the resulting screen-distortion, you might want to consider removing the KeepRes line...?

 

[Lanzelot]

I have experiened the same slowdown on my Windows 7 desktop. But it is only at the start of the game and then goes away after 5-10 minutes of playing?! And it doesn't happen always: sometimes I load a game and it plays perfectly well right from the start, and sometimes for the first 3-4 turns the units crawl along in slow-motion...
It cannot be only the high resolution monitor, because I had already used the same monitor on my Win XP desktop and never experienced this slowdown. Perhaps a problem in the interaction of the game (or DirectX 9.0) with today's graphics card or graphics driver?!