Tips to Improve Game Performance

[ejday]

At least in the PC version, there's an ini file option for that. Check it out.

; Allow Mouse Scrolling in Windowed mode
MouseScrolling = 1

It's in the Mac version, too. Just adjusted to "1", going to see if it works.
There's a Civilization IV folder in the "/Documents" folder (just like with Civ3). The .ini file is in there.

On an unrelated note, while my unit sounds are sketchy, I've had fairly consistent music playing during the course of the game.

 

[AlanH]

I run Civ3 Complete in a window on a 1280 x 1024 screen. Depending on what I'm doing, I either use 1152 x 768 for a moveable window, or 1280 x 1024 on my secondary screen. The latter mode behaves like full screen, but isn't. There's no menu bar on the secondary screen, my primary screen is still available and visible, and I can still drop Civ3 into the background to use both screens for other work.

1152 x 768 is the largest moveable window option I have in Civ3, and works very well if I want to be able to treat Civ as "just another window". Is that option available in Civ4?

 

[Beamup]

1152 x 768 is the largest moveable window option I have in Civ3, and works very well if I want to be able to treat Civ as "just another window". Is that option available in Civ4?

It is indeed.

 

[kdoran]

I run Civ3 Complete in a window on a 1280 x 1024 screen. Depending on what I'm doing, I either use 1152 x 768 for a moveable window, or 1280 x 1024 on my secondary screen. The latter mode behaves like full screen, but isn't. There's no menu bar on the secondary screen, my primary screen is still available and visible, and I can still drop Civ3 into the background to use both screens for other work.

1152 x 768 is the largest moveable window option I have in Civ3, and works very well if I want to be able to treat Civ as "just another window". Is that option available in Civ4?

Yes, the option is available. I am currently playing it as a moveable window and I like it. Also, I tried running Civ IV on my secondary screen just as you say you run Civ3C... and while this would be nice (for all the reasons you mentioned) in Civ IV it causes a huge hit to performance.

 

[bio_hazard]

Thanks Eio and Ejday!! You've made my day! I have pretty low standards- I tried to play the PC version on my Presario with major video card problems, and really gave up because of instability (that many hard reboots can't be good for the drive) rather than the slowness and graphics problems.

Too busy to get the game for about a week, but am looking forward to my slow but smooth experience!

 

[Welnic]

Yes, the option is available. I am currently playing it as a moveable window and I like it. Also, I tried running Civ IV on my secondary screen just as you say you run Civ3C... and while this would be nice (for all the reasons you mentioned) in Civ IV it causes a huge hit to performance.

Do you have two video cards, or are both of your monitors driven by the same card?

 

[Eio]

Thanks Eio and Ejday!! You've made my day! I have pretty low standards- I tried to play the PC version on my Presario with major video card problems, and really gave up because of instability (that many hard reboots can't be good for the drive) rather than the slowness and graphics problems.

Too busy to get the game for about a week, but am looking forward to my slow but smooth experience!

Glad I could help. Just to be clear, the performance is acceptable for me. I have pretty low standards when it comes to Mac gaming though Playing a game such as Civ IV while graphically intensive does not require the twitch reflexes of an FPS or the responsiveness of an RTS.

I've been playing for about 4 hours this afternoon and I've gotten to 1580 AD on small map against 4 other Civs. The game has slowed down some but I'm still enjoying myself. I've had no problems with the game itself except for the sound issues that everyone else is reporting. I have all graphical settings set to low and animations turned off, including MinimapTrilinearFilter set to 0 in the *.ini file. I'm playing in a window at 1024x768 with mouse scrolling turned on.

FWIW, I've been playing on my lower end machine (not much lower than the PB 1.5Ghz but still); an upgraded Digital Audio 1.4Ghz G4 with 1GB RAM and a modified G5 Radeon 9600/64MB.

 

[kdoran]

Do you have two video cards, or are both of your monitors driven by the same card?

One card - Radeon 9700. If you had a card devoted to each display it should of course run beautifully, but I have a PowerBook, so not an option for me :/

 

[ejday]

Another couple of tips:

On my 1.5 GHz PB, I switched on "Fast Unit Moves" which cuts out some of the transition animation – and the game seems to bog less.

ALSO: since I really wasn't hearing unit sounds (at least not the way I should), I turned off "Sound Effects" and the game seems to go a little faster. I'm not sure if this is real or just perceptual so if anyone else could try a little empirical testing with Sound Effects on and off, it would be handy.

 

[Pharaohx]

It does seem a tad bit quicker when I play in a window, but the top of the CIV IV screen is pinned down under the top Apple menu bar of the desktop. I don't have access to the top of the map and icons. Is there a keyboard command that will allow me to grab somewhere on the map (besides the top, which as I say is hidden) and drag it back down to the center of my desktop.

Changing screen resolution does not help. No matter what size, it glues itself to under the Apple menu bar.

Thanks

 

[kdoran]

It does seem a tad bit quicker when I play in a window, but the top of the CIV IV screen is pinned down under the top Apple menu bar of the desktop. I don't have access to the top of the map and icons. Is there a keyboard command that will allow me to grab somewhere on the map (besides the top, which as I say is hidden) and drag it back down to the center of my desktop.

Changing screen resolution does not help. No matter what size, it glues itself to under the Apple menu bar.

Thanks

Have you tried setting it to the lowest resolution in a window, then restarting the game? That worked for me.

 

[Pharaohx]

Have you tried setting it to the lowest resolution in a window, then restarting the game? That worked for me.

So, you had the same problem?

 

[Zaimejs]

Okay... I found the .ini file, but it's a .bak file, and when I opened it in text edit then saved the changes, Civ IV didn't recognize it and it just made a new file instead.

How do I save this as a file Civ IV will recognize?

 

[AlanH]

The ,bak file will be a backup of the real one. Someone has posted that the real .ini file is somewhere in ~/Documents/Civ4

 

[Beamup]

Yep, it's ~/Documents/Civilization 4/CivilizationIV.ini

You should see both that and CivilizationIV.ini.bak in the same folder. If you have no .ini file, you might try copying the .bak and changing the extension - that is, after all, what backups are for...

 

[Zaimejs]

DUH! I'm kicking myself for not knowing that!

 

[Cougarcat]

I just got the game today for my 1.67 Ghz Powerbook (10.4.7, 1.5 GB RAM, 128 MB radeon 9700.) I thought my decent graphics card would save me, but that isn't the case.

Kdoran, I don't know if I just have higher performace expectations than you, but I have to say I'm dissapointed. It's giving me painful memories of running Warcraft III on my old 350 mhz iMac. Right now I'm playing a small map with 4 AIs. It's been really laggy from the start, and I am now at 450 B.C. Scrolling, zooming, etc is all slow. Scrolling is laggy enough so that I try to avoid it whenever I can. Movies are laggy. The cursor, however, is fine. It is playable, but barely. The good news is it's been about the same slowness since the beginning of the game, so hopefully it won't get any slower towards the endgame. In between turns is speedy, which I found suprising because I thought my limiting factor would be my weak CPU.

I've been running in a window with everything on low, 1024x768, except for improvement animations. I turned that off, but the speed improvement seems to be small. I did play the game very briefly in fullscreen and it seemed just as slow. I played the Call of Duty 2 demo the other day, and it played great on low settings, which makes this all the more frustrating.

 

[Brad Oliver]

I just got the game today for my 1.67 Ghz Powerbook (10.4.7, 1.5 GB RAM, 128 MB radeon 9700.) I thought my decent graphics card would save me, but that isn't the case.

Did you see the minimum requirements before you bought the game?

 

[Brad Oliver]

Changing screen resolution does not help. No matter what size, it glues itself to under the Apple menu bar.

What is the resolution of your monitor?

 

[Welnic]

Just a tip for people that are trying the fullscreen/windowed difference. If you start the game by double clicking with the command key held down you get a dialog box where you can set fullscreen/windowed, the resolution, and the monitor you want the game on. It's quite a bit easier than loading the game, changing the options, and restarting.