SMALL games of the month

[StSever]

Hi ... just a question. As a person with a slower machine, would there be any chance of smaller GOTMs? Standard maps tend to start dragging in the later ages. So much so in fact that it's no fun any more.

 

[ainwood]

Hi ... just a question. As a person with a slower machine, would there be any chance of smaller GOTMs? Standard maps tend to start dragging in the later ages. So much so in fact that it's no fun any more.

Well, unfortunately its quite difficult. We need a game that takes a reasonable time to play - already we get people finishing the game in a day or so and then wanting another one. Conversely, we will steer-clear of huge maps, because of the time it takes to play them.

We probably will have some small maps - but not for a long time yet (unless there's massive support for them). We'll be more likely to control game speed by having a few 'standard' games in with the 'epics'.

What is the bottleneck in your PC? RAM is fairly cheap (although I am very hesitant in recommending that people upgrade their computers just to fit-in with our competition!)

 

[DaviddesJ]

Well, unfortunately its quite difficult. We need a game that takes a reasonable time to play - already we get people finishing the game in a day or so and then wanting another one.

Don't forget that there are also those of us who have difficulty finishing the current GOTMs in a month. I sure hope we get some games on smaller maps and/or at normal speed. (Actually, I'm still hoping for quick. )

 

[StSever]

Don't forget that there are also those of us who have difficulty finishing the current GOTMs in a month. I sure hope we get some games on smaller maps and/or at normal speed. (Actually, I'm still hoping for quick. )

Well ... both are actually true for me. I play a few hours every weekend. And investing in ram is out, for now - alas - as I've fried something in my work computer and I have to replace either my graphics or my graphics AND motherboard. Let's pray it's just the graphics.

 

[Denniz]

Is everyone aware of/have tried the Memory Saver ini file setting?

; Allows some memory savings *** ALT-TAB WILL NO LONGER FUNCTION ***
MemSaver = 1

I have an old Laptop where I tried it out with good results:

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 510MB RAM
Page File: 274MB used, 971MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Card name: MOBILITY RADEON 9600
Display Memory: 64.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6404 (English)​

Nothing too extensive but it seemed to help.

I am sure there are other settings that can help, too. Maybe others have suggestions.

 

[akots]

... What is the bottleneck in your PC? ...

There might still be a memory leak on some computer, for example, including mine. I save, quit Civ, reboot if needed, load the save back and it helps a lot with slow down.

 

[Xerol]

Maybe add a Quick Games subforum like in Civ3 GOTM and have a semi-official* "QGOTM", which could vary between normal speed/smaller maps and quick speed/larger maps, and have similar(but non-identical) settings to the GOTMs they run parallel to? GOTM2 I got to about 400AD over the course of the month, and I didn't have any classes - now that school's back in full session, I doubt I'll ever be able to finish an Epic GOTM.

*If it's not too much work, you could also keep parallel score tables, or at least SOME score tables of some kind so it can be remotely competitive.

 

[Skallagrim]

Hi!

My computer has only a 1,30 GHz AMD Duron processor. Is there any advice for what I can do to make the game faster (I just started on this Gotm, got to 350 AD; and already the lagging is getting really annoying!! )?

 

[Thrallia]

reduce all graphics settings to the lowest level would be my suggestion

 

[Skallagrim]

reduce all graphics settings to the lowest level would be my suggestion

Yeah, done that! Still, doesnt help much. The strange thing though is that my computer runs almost as fast on best setting as on lowest (almost)... I wonder why...

 

[Thrallia]

how much RAM do you have? Civ4's bottleneck for most people is RAM, not CPU speed

 

[karmina]

how much RAM do you have? Civ4's bottleneck for most people is RAM, not CPU speed

Well, definitely not for me.

I recently upgraded from 1GB to 2GB, without any noticable improvement in civ4. As soon as the AI armies & tile improvements grow, performance becomes horrible. It's not so much an issue of map size - in most cases it becomes unbearable in the industrial age, often enough sooner. Loading & AI turn times may scale with map size, but the real pain is the sloppy performance when I try to select a city or unit, move it around, or simply cycle through the advisor or city screens. Undoubtedly that is a sign of bad programming.

Worst experience so far was a custom small pangea map with 18 civs.

I have a geforce 6800 ultra and an AMD Athlon 2500+ (Barton core).
Absolutely no problem with any other game on highest graphics settings - including Doom3 - so far (with the exception of that crappy f.e.a.r.)

 

[Thrallia]

hardly anything except video processing software improves in quality when you go from 1GB to 2 GB...it would be a jump from 256MB to 512MB, or 512MB to 1GB that would make a real difference.

the only real bad programming that has been done in Civ4, is that they messed up the garbage collecting, so Civ4 takes up a ton of memory at loading, then never gives anything back, asking for more and more memory as time goes on...till it just crashes.

I only have 512MB and a Radeon X300, but I'm able to run everything except Large and Huge maps on maxed out graphics settings, simply by running FreeRAM XP Pro in the background...it does the garbage collecting that Civ4 doesn't.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I recently upgraded from 1GB to 2GB, without any noticable improvement in civ4. As soon as the AI armies & tile improvements grow, performance becomes horrible. It's not so much an issue of map size - in most cases it becomes unbearable in the industrial age, often enough sooner. Loading & AI turn times may scale with map size, but the real pain is the sloppy performance when I try to select a city or unit, move it around, or simply cycle through the advisor or city screens. Undoubtedly that is a sign of bad programming.

I believe there will be a fix in the next patch for a problem that roughly fits this description. May or may not solve your particular problem; I'm not sure.

 

[ButSam]

There might still be a memory leak on some computer, for example, including mine. I save, quit Civ, reboot if needed, load the save back and it helps a lot with slow down.

I don't mean to rant here, but simply playing a movie file embedded to continuously loop in a PPT file will eventually cause Windows to crash and links within the PPT file to stop working...Windows itself has memory leaks that will never be solved by Firaxis. I just don't want you getting your hopes up for a patch to solve all problems... (this was with Windows XP and PPT 2003, by the way)

Sam

 

[Ribannah]

Don't forget that there are also those of us who have difficulty finishing the current GOTMs in a month. I sure hope we get some games on smaller maps and/or at normal speed. (Actually, I'm still hoping for quick. )

It's not that the game takes too long, but that the month is too short.