Tricks to boost performance

[ManUnited4Ever]

It's been a while since any thread like this was made, so I thought I'd bring this up one more time. What tricks or tweaks are there for people who want to make Civilization IV perform better?

I currently use K-Mod (which runs a lot faster than vanilla BtS) and RAMDisk, but are there any other tricks I should be aware of? I have an Intel i7-chipset with Turbo Boost, but I don't know whether I actually leverage this feature, and I don't know how to investigate whether I do. I'm also wondering whether there is any measured benefit to manually setting the core affinities in Task Manager.

If you do have any tips or tricks, please mention them here! I'm ever eager to increase the map sizes I play on. Larger map, more fun!

 

[Lemon Merchant]

The best thing you can do to improve performance is make sure that you have a decent graphics card with at least 4 GB of RAM, and at least 4 GB of system RAM. Civ4 was only designed to use 2 GB of RAM, IIRC, so a small workaround is needed to get CIv4 to recognize more memory. The details can be found here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/i-fixed-the-maf-error-here-is-how.224178/

Most people are running 64 bit systems these days, so I am going to assume that you are running a 64 bit OS. Follow the information in that link I posted carefully. Some of the steps are unnecessary for 64 bit systems.

I've never found that setting core affinity does anything useful, so I would avoid doing it because it just adds an unnecessary complication to your computer's operation. A multi core CPU does help though, even though Civ4 only uses one core, Windows can offload all of its housekeeping to the other cores and free up the one core for Civ. It sort of handles the core affinity for you. When I play Civ4 on my 8 core CPU, I get at least 4 cores going nuts while I play, and it runs Civ4 pretty well.

tl;dr

Fast CPU
4 GB graphics card
More than 4 GB of system RAM
Run the 4 GB patch

Should be all you need.

Good luck.

 

[ManUnited4Ever]

The best thing you can do to improve performance is make sure that you have a decent graphics card with at least 4 GB of RAM, and at least 4 GB of system RAM. Civ4 was only designed to use 2 GB of RAM, IIRC, so a small workaround is needed to get CIv4 to recognize more memory. The details can be found here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/i-fixed-the-maf-error-here-is-how.224178/

Most people are running 64 bit systems these days, so I am going to assume that you are running a 64 bit OS. Follow the information in that link I posted carefully. Some of the steps are unnecessary for 64 bit systems.

I've never found that setting core affinity does anything useful, so I would avoid doing it because it just adds an unnecessary complication to your computer's operation. A multi core CPU does help though, even though Civ4 only uses one core, Windows can offload all of its housekeeping to the other cores and free up the one core for Civ. It sort of handles the core affinity for you. When I play Civ4 on my 8 core CPU, I get at least 4 cores going nuts while I play, and it runs Civ4 pretty well.

tl;dr

Fast CPU
4 GB graphics card
More than 4 GB of system RAM
Run the 4 GB patch

Should be all you need.

Good luck.

Thanks for the tip! I tried downloading the CFF explorer and opened to Civ4BeyondSword.exe file, but oddly, the >2 GB memory checkbox was already checked. I'm very sure I've never altered this setting myself.

 

[Pangaea]

Easy things that you may already be doing: Use low quality graphics and single-unit graphics. Turn off some effects, such as AA.

When playing for hours and hours, the game will become sluggish, so it helps to save and restart. Probably some type of memory leak or something.

 

[ManUnited4Ever]

Easy things that you may already be doing: Use low quality graphics and single-unit graphics. Turn off some effects, such as AA.

Does this help at all when I'm running a high-end GPU? I should have been more specific in the OP, but it's chiefly the turn loading time that impairs the gaming experience.

 

[Pangaea]

Yes, I do think it helps, especially on big maps or in the later eras, when there are loads of units on the map. In any case, it certainly doesn't hurt.