Talking Heads Causing Slowdowns

[mastalouist]

I recently had to reformat my HDD. I've now reinstalled Colonization and (gasp!) I get massive slowdown (2-4 seconds) everytime I'm contacted by an empire. The slowdown gets even worse when I have two are three talking heads loading up consecutively. It's getting to the point where I can only play for short periods before giving in to my annoyance and playing something else. This wasn't a problem before reformatting the drive.

My system specs are capable of running the game easily:
2.5ghz Core Duo
4GB RAM
Vista Home Premium

All drivers are up-to-date.

Does anyone have ideas as to what causes this slowdown?

 

[Codeman]

how much ram is dedicated o video?

 

[Riffraffselbow]

I recently had to reformat my HDD. I've now reinstalled Colonization and (gasp!) I get massive slowdown (2-4 seconds) everytime I'm contacted by an empire. The slowdown gets even worse when I have two are three talking heads loading up consecutively. It's getting to the point where I can only play for short periods before giving in to my annoyance and playing something else. This wasn't a problem before reformatting the drive.

My system specs are capable of running the game easily:
2.5ghz Core Duo
4GB RAM
Vista Home Premium

All drivers are up-to-date.

Does anyone have ideas as to what causes this slowdown?

The answer is obvious: Stop listening to any David Byrne compositions.

On a more serious note: My guess is that when you reformatted, you didn't bother to REALLY reinstall your drivers (No offense intended).

Did you use the Windows Update system to get your drivers? because drivers through that system are always horribly outdated.

ATI drivers: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
NVIDIA drivers: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

I know you say you have the latest drivers, but please, if there's the slightest chance they aren't, humor me and try installing new ones.

edit: if you have an onboard video solution (e.g. Intel 645, etc), then I highly recommend getting at least a basic video card. They're down to 50 dollars or less for a perfectly good card, assuming you're using a desktop and not a laptop.