SLOW SLOW SLOW (Menu load, game load, AI turn) and Crash - updates ?

[masternic35]

Hi Everyone,

I just bought myself and just tried CIV 5.

I have some mixed feelings about the game and I'd like to share them with you. I do like most of the daring changes that were made (even if they turn out to be mistakes, at least they tried something new)...

I found it a bit light content-wise... However I can understand the economics behind it (2 or 3 extensions) + the improved moding capabilities which basicaly transfers development costs to modders who work for free

However, there's something that really is annoying me: How could they ship a program that has not been properly optimized in terms of PC requirements.

I've read some of those complaints in other threads my never found a compiled lists of my complaints

message to the editors: in the future, please do as Blizzard does : do not ship a product until its done, no matter what... nothing will kill your reputation + game life faster than a bugging program


Now about those optimization requirements:

Well, first a brief word on my PC: It's 3 years old running on Vista with 3Gb of RAM with E6320 + Nvidia 8800 GT. So I know it's not the best PC that one can find today, but come on, I was expecting CIV 5 to run smoothly nonetheless

1st problem:
When I launch the game, the intro movie launches and it takes about 40 secs of frantic punching of ESC, space bar, Enter, Mouse-click to finally stop the vid and access the menu - PS : I know a couple of clicks would do the job (+ a 40 sec wait) but I like expressing my anger and annoyance on my mouse and keyboard

EDIT : I just found the solution in another thread : Go to the folder C:\Documents and Settings\your name\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5 and in file usersettings.ini set SkipIntroVideo = 1

2nd problem:
I load a saved game and again, I have to wait for about 3 minutes

3rd problem (the biggest)
Every AI turn takes forever to complete, up to 4 minutes towards the end

4th problem:
Towards the middle of the game, when I move across the map with my mouse, the graphics for each tile may take up to 5 sec / tile to load. until a tile graph gets loaded, I see grey (sometimes hashed red)

5th problem:
The game crashes after about 4 hours of game-play. It randomly freezes when I'm moving around the planet with the mouse.
I checked my ram usage at that point and CIV5 was using 1.3 gigs of RAM (which is a lot !!!!!!!) but still, I had some RAM left (I had closed down most of my other apps)

6th problem:
Well, I hope this is not really a problem, and that it's just me that hasn't found it yet: Where is the button for "Checking online for updates" ?


Thank you for taking the time to read me ... I just had to vent it out !

Cheers

N

EDIT: forgot to add that I'm playing with a big map and 10 or 12 other CIVS (I'm at work atm so I can't be 100% sure). But even then, does it mean you have to have the best computer to play a big game ? I'm sure that they haven't spent enough time on RAM optimization AI turn...

 

[AndAllNaked]

Looks like almost all of your problems are connected with your PC/Graphic card. If you don't want to upgrade, just put everything on low and use a lower resolution.

I think Steam checks automatically for upgrades and installs them when neccessary.

 

[masternic35]

I think you may be right for about half my problems. I will try to downgrade the graphics. However, I'm still very disappointed as my graphics card (and PC) is not so bad... and my game graphics level is not so high (I'm using Dx9)

And thx for the "updating" info... !

 

[EmpireOfCats]

2K already has a reputation for shipping buggy first versions, so they don't have anything to lose. Even one of the magazine reviews pointed out that their first attempt is usually not stellar. Now, of course, with Steam's automatic unobtrusive updates, they should be able to patch anything they find immediately and fast instead of waiting weeks for one big major patch.

About your hardware: I agree with the part about your graphics card.

 

[RohirrimElf]

My dual core is a bit better then the recommanded specs (2,4). Ive bought a new graphics card that is even better then the recommanded specs i beleave.

Would it help to downgrade the settings somewhat. Ive tried to adjust a bit but it doesnt help much. Ive got about 10 sec of waiting time in the middle game with about 8 players on a standard map. On a 4 player map i dont have any waiting time but i prefer larger maps/ more civilizations.

Is this a problem that can be patched?

How much waiting time do u guys have between each turn?

 

[zellfaze]

It would have been nice if the game didn't require such nice graphics cards.

An Intel i3 3300M (Integrated graphics on i3) should be enough to play a game like Civ, and yet it isn't really unless you have all the settings all the way down.

 

[alysenne]

Wow, 4 minutes between turns.

I haven't tried bigger maps yet, but I haven't experienced a wait longer than 10 seconds yet.

I don't have a problem with waiting a minute or more, if that means better AI. But if the wait is going to be more than 10 seconds, I'd want to be able to access the info screens and look around the map.

 

[Daedraug]

Hi Everyone,

I just bought myself and just tried CIV 5.

I have some mixed feelings about the game and I'd like to share them with you. I do like most of the daring changes that were made (even if they turn out to be mistakes, at least they tried something new)...

I found it a bit light content-wise... However I can understand the economics behind it (2 or 3 extensions) + the improved moding capabilities which basicaly transfers development costs to modders who work for free

However, there's something that really is annoying me: How could they ship a program that has not been properly optimized in terms of PC requirements.

I've read some of those complaints in other threads my never found a compiled lists of my complaints

message to the editors: in the future, please do as Blizzard does : do not ship a product until its done, no matter what... nothing will kill your reputation + game life faster than a bugging program


Now about those optimization requirements:

Well, first a brief word on my PC: It's 3 years old running on Vista with 3Gb of RAM with E6320 + Nvidia 8800 GT. So I know it's not the best PC that one can find today, but come on, I was expecting CIV 5 to run smoothly nonetheless

1st problem:
When I launch the game, the intro movie launches and it takes about 40 secs of frantic punching of ESC, space bar, Enter, Mouse-click to finally stop the vid and access the menu - PS : I know a couple of clicks would do the job (+ a 40 sec wait) but I like expressing my anger and annoyance on my mouse and keyboard

2nd problem:
I load a saved game and again, I have to wait for about 3 minutes

3rd problem (the biggest)
Every AI turn takes forever to complete, up to 4 minutes towards the end

4th problem:
Towards the middle of the game, when I move across the map with my mouse, the graphics for each tile may take up to 5 sec / tile to load. until a tile graph gets loaded, I see grey (sometimes hashed red)

5th problem:
The game crashes after about 4 hours of game-play. It randomly freezes when I'm moving around the planet with the mouse.
I checked my ram usage at that point and CIV5 was using 1.3 gigs of RAM (which is a lot !!!!!!!) but still, I had some RAM left (I had closed down most of my other apps)

6th problem:
Well, I hope this is not really a problem, and that it's just me that hasn't found it yet: Where is the button for "Checking online for updates" ?


Thank you for taking the time to read me ... I just had to vent it out !

Cheers

N

EDIT: forgot to add that I'm playing with a big map and 10 or 12 other CIVS (I'm at work atm so I can't be 100% sure). But even then, does it mean you have to have the best computer to play a big game ? I'm sure that haven't spend enough time on RAM optimization AI turn...

I have exactly the same issues, I run the game on MacBook Pro (Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, 2.2 GHz, 4GB Ram, nVidia GeForce 8600M GT 128 MB) and Windows 7.

Even with every parameters low, it's very slow and laggy :/

 

[HeavyTwenty]

Looks like almost all of your problems are connected with your PC/Graphic card. If you don't want to upgrade, just put everything on low and use a lower resolution.

I think Steam checks automatically for upgrades and installs them when neccessary.

Core i7 920. 6GB triple channel quality ram. GTX 260 (core 216 overclocked version). This rig can play Napoleon Total War with 12000 realistically modeled soldiers and that game is so beautiful it looks like a damn movie.

Yet I have some of the problems that he's describing. It doesn't matter if its on low-medium-high, or DirectX9-10. I think Directx9 was actually worse at performance.

All I can recommend is playing small maps instead of huge. Its amazing how suboptimal this Civ's game engine is. And how adamantly people will blindly defend its faults.

 

[zellfaze]

All I can recommend is playing small maps instead of huge. Its amazing how suboptimal this Civ's game engine is. And how adamantly people will blindly defend its faults.

Remember that very optimized scalable engine we were promised?

 

[Mivo]

You can disable the intro movie in UserSettings.ini located in:

C:\Users\NAME\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5

My box isn't fantastic (dual core, 2.6 Ghz, 4 GB, GTS 250), and while turns aren't instant, I don't wait more than 10 seconds in the late game on 10 civ standard maps. Graphics are fine, no big issues here.

Considering the game has an alternate 2D view, which pretty much requires no modern video card, I'm surprised it's not possible to just play in that mode without needing an actually decent graphics card. It would probably run on my netbook then. (Okay, no, it's a CPU hog.)

 

[masternic35]

Thank you Mivo I just read the intro video solution in another thread

 

[zellfaze]

That intro movie thing really ought to be in the options menu itself.

I plan to test out playing in strat view on a lowend PC this evening.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Remember that very optimized scalable engine we were promised?

Yep, lol. The lesson is never trust performance claims from the people selling the game (2K and Firaxis in this case).

However, to be fair, I think they meant scalable to powerful hardware rather than to low-end hardware. I'm still curious to see whether the game is making good use of 4+ core CPUs as civ_king was insisting it would.

 

[brento1138]

Interesting. During that intro, I found that clicking and pressing enter and anything would just make my computer exit the game entirely (annoying cuz I only really wanted to watch it once!) We shouldn't need a fix like the one the OP posted (thanks by the way). It really should be in the options. A strange oversight.. I must say.

On the other hand, I was actually surprised at how fast Civ 5 runs on my older iMac. Just in case someone is interested, I can play a small map, high detailed graphics and res. @1920X1200. It is extremely smooth running, except for a small wait for tiles to load. It seems to display lower quality tiles, then slowly transform into high quality tiles. If I exit into Windows (bootcamp) and then go back into Civ 5 via the windows key, the tiles appear grey for a second and then maybe 3 seconds later show up as high res. This seems to be the only real issue I have, though it isn't too big a deal. Other than that, the AI turns are pretty speedy and everything else works fine.

Specs: Mac OSX 10.6.2

3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
8 GB RAM upgraded (but bootcamp won't be using this RAM, i use it for 64 bit Logic Pro, music composition)... I think Windows XP can only access 4 of those gigs...
Graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce GT 130. VRAM = 512MB

 

[remconius]

My system is like the one in the OP, but I've been reading that much faster systems are just as slow. So it's scalable in the way that we all get the same lag...

Anyway, somethings that helped me reduce waiting time between turns from 30+ secs to 10-15 secs in the later game.

I did a clean install of the beta nvidia drivers 260.xx. Then I went into the nvidia control panel and tweaked the settings of Nvidia to improve performance instead of quality.

Then I turned down some of the graphics settings in the game.

This seemed to improve the performance and waiting time. It's 10-15 secs between turns... More or less manageable.

 

[masternic35]

Thx Remconius,

I'll try that !!

 

[patgarr]

Well. I confirm CIV V is not optimized yet, and suffer of multiplememory leak and multi-thread issue.

I run on 4 core QX9650 overclock 4,00 ghz stable + 4 gig Ram + SLI 9800 GX2

I confirm it still have performance issue with CIV 5... Even on tiny map !

It sounds like memory leak, because when i scroll the map, i see my harddrive 100% in work... then it swap data on disk...

Need improvement Firaxis ! need

 

[falim]

Well. I confirm CIV V is not optimized yet, and suffer of multiplememory leak and multi-thread issue.

I run on 4 core QX9650 overclock 4,00 ghz stable + 4 gig Ram + SLI 9800 GX2

I confirm it still have performance issue with CIV 5... Even on tiny map !

It sounds like memory leak, because when i scroll the map, i see my harddrive 100% in work... then it swap data on disk...

Need improvement Firaxis ! need

There is likely a memory leak. In long play sessions performance degrades quite a bit for me and I'm using a Core 2 Quad and GTX260. Reloading the game fixes it but it's still annoying.

 

[PhantomTHK]

Hello, i have the same problems. I have a Intel Core2Quad Processor (4x2.66 GHz) 4 GB RAM and a GTX260 Graphic Card. (Win 7 64bit)

I noticed that my CPU is only used up to 25% (1 Core runs at 100%) during the game. in the Task Manager i can set how many CPUs a process can use, here is "all processors" activated. Does anyone else has the same behavior?