Turn times

[Xoatl_169]

First off, great mod. I`ve played Rise of Mankind A New Dawn, Caveman2Cosmos, Planetfall, and a bunch of others and this is the most complete mod I`ve ever seen. All the units, buildings, improvements, resources, religions, everything is standardized perfectly. What I mean, is that the things don`t come in various sizes, have odd audio clips, unbalanced effects or this sort of thing that mods seem to fall into as they try to jam a whole lot of content into one hodgepodge file.

However all mods seem to have problems with turn times. I read somewhere that Civ4 was made in such a way that it can`t use certain hardware or some other similar limiting factor that makes processing times frustratingly long. I remember Caveman2Cosmos had a BUG option where it made turn times a little better when checked and had a peculiar effect of freezing the screen between turns. Anyway, are there any techniques of decreasing the turn times in this mod? Some info first, I have windows 7 64 bit, playing inca on the large earth map, its 480BC, the file size is around 3800kb, and the turn times are above 5 mins long. Now if theres no way to actually help me, what are the kinds of hardware I should be looking for so my Civ 4 games have turn times as quick as possible.

 

[dreadknought]

I would run a newer duel core or quad? processor with 8gb or more of ram. Then you need a really good newer graphics card with the extra 2gb of ram processing. It will probaly be a $1500 or more gaming type system, the higher the ram the better. I have it running on a highend ASUS laptop and even late game turns on large maps are maybe 20-30 seconds at most. I usually play large maps/total war/ 12-14 civs. I suspect on huge maps even this laptop would slow some in late game but probaly could run it with some higher turn waits. At anything less than 10gb ram including the graphics card it slows down alot.

Also a couple of the mini-mods I posted here also helped tuns speed a little esp. the one that slowed military unit builds. The mod actually was designed really well to not let cities get extra huge which helps also.

 

[Xoatl_169]

Thanks, I`ll go try them out. When you started listing off the kind of computer I need to get I felt a little part of me lose hope of ever playing my inca empire again. Although I`ll keep all of this in mind next time I upgrade.

 

[dreadknought]

Noticed this on Amazon, great system for 1249, similar to mine but I paid 1600. Im not saying buy this but this is the kinda thing you need.

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Game...qid=1365746979&sr=1-1&keywords=laptops+gaming

 

[mbrady10]

First off, great mod. I`ve played Rise of Mankind A New Dawn, Caveman2Cosmos, Planetfall, and a bunch of others and this is the most complete mod I`ve ever seen. All the units, buildings, improvements, resources, religions, everything is standardized perfectly. What I mean, is that the things don`t come in various sizes, have odd audio clips, unbalanced effects or this sort of thing that mods seem to fall into as they try to jam a whole lot of content into one hodgepodge file.

However all mods seem to have problems with turn times. I read somewhere that Civ4 was made in such a way that it can`t use certain hardware or some other similar limiting factor that makes processing times frustratingly long. I remember Caveman2Cosmos had a BUG option where it made turn times a little better when checked and had a peculiar effect of freezing the screen between turns. Anyway, are there any techniques of decreasing the turn times in this mod? Some info first, I have windows 7 64 bit, playing inca on the large earth map, its 480BC, the file size is around 3800kb, and the turn times are above 5 mins long. Now if theres no way to actually help me, what are the kinds of hardware I should be looking for so my Civ 4 games have turn times as quick as possible.

5 Minutes, yes something is amiss. You say window 7 64bit, but what else? I my current game, I am well into the modern era, on the gigantic map, with a file size of over 11,000 kb. I have windows 7, 64 bit, and my cpu is 3.6Ghz (which due to civ 4's single core limitations, is a decisive factor for turn times) and my turn are around 45 sec at most

 

[sjodster]

I have windows 7 64 bit, playing inca on the large earth map, its 480BC, the file size is around 3800kb, and the turn times are above 5 mins long.

5 Minutes, yes something is amiss. You say window 7 64bit, but what else? I my current game, I am well into the modern era, on the gigantic map, with a file size of over 11,000 kb. I have windows 7, 64 bit, and my cpu is 3.6Ghz (which due to civ 4's single core limitations, is a decisive factor for turn times) and my turn are around 45 sec at most

Could each of you indicate whether you are playing 3.1 or the 3.2 beta (Subversion)?

I ask because a lot of work has been done to improve performance in the upcoming release, and that might explain the difference in your turn times.

Thanks!

-Josh

 

[mbrady10]

3.2 for me.

 

[Xoatl_169]

5 Minutes, yes something is amiss. You say window 7 64bit, but what else? I my current game, I am well into the modern era, on the gigantic map, with a file size of over 11,000 kb. I have windows 7, 64 bit, and my cpu is 3.6Ghz (which due to civ 4's single core limitations, is a decisive factor for turn times) and my turn are around 45 sec at most

My computer is in no way shape or form a gaming laptop I only say windows 7 64bit because I read the download thread and it said 32 bit operating systems will have trouble.

Could each of you indicate whether you are playing 3.1 or the 3.2 beta (Subversion)?

I ask because a lot of work has been done to improve performance in the upcoming release, and that might explain the difference in your turn times.

Thanks!

-Josh

3.1

Just out of interest though, if I patch the game to 3.2 will it break my saves?

 

[Erfeo]

Just out of interest though, if I patch the game to 3.2 will it break my saves?

Yes, it will.

 

[OneFootInThe...]

First off, great mod. I`ve played Rise of Mankind A New Dawn, Caveman2Cosmos, Planetfall, and a bunch of others and this is the most complete mod I`ve ever seen. All the units, buildings, improvements, resources, religions, everything is standardized perfectly. What I mean, is that the things don`t come in various sizes, have odd audio clips, unbalanced effects or this sort of thing that mods seem to fall into as they try to jam a whole lot of content into one hodgepodge file.

However all mods seem to have problems with turn times. I read somewhere that Civ4 was made in such a way that it can`t use certain hardware or some other similar limiting factor that makes processing times frustratingly long. I remember Caveman2Cosmos had a BUG option where it made turn times a little better when checked and had a peculiar effect of freezing the screen between turns. Anyway, are there any techniques of decreasing the turn times in this mod? Some info first, I have windows 7 64 bit, playing inca on the large earth map, its 480BC, the file size is around 3800kb, and the turn times are above 5 mins long. Now if theres no way to actually help me, what are the kinds of hardware I should be looking for so my Civ 4 games have turn times as quick as possible.

Ahhhh ... the question that I had on my mind few months ago.

I used to play on Intel Q9550 (2.8ghz) quad core processor and 4gb Win XP PC, and partally due to wanting to play this mod I upgraded. OK upgrade was kind of calling me anyway but this was the push I needed to finally do it.

This build is Win 7, Intel K2500 (Oc'd to 4.2 Ghz) 8Gb RAM, and I think those are the most important specs.

Civ IV is not multithreaded so only the speed of a single core counts, newer processors have better IPC and can clock higher and that is what matters most. RAM matters as you may want to free up to 4GB (or whatever the game may use in total, and that is more on Win 7 even though the game is 32bit), so 4+GB of RAM is welcome.

In terms of the speedup, playing the world on largest earth map is the slowest, with all the civs. I think I reduced my turn time about 3x moving from first config to the second one, and my turns were in the end just slightly longer than a minute. Which is bareable. The previous of "up to three min" was not so bearable for me at least.

At the moment I do not think you can speed the game much more than my current setup, perhaps another 20-30% but this is about it.

Right now I am playing mostly on highland map, huge scale and turns are only about 30sec in end game, which is great and good enough for me. (Largest world map is quite a bit larger than the huge map setting), so that is that.

Processor is the most important part, having 4GB memory is benefitial and gfx card does not matter at all, from what I can tell.

 

[dreadknought]

Ahhhh ... the question that I had on my mind few months ago.

I used to play on Intel Q9550 (2.8ghz) quad core processor and 4gb Win XP PC, and partally due to wanting to play this mod I upgraded. OK upgrade was kind of calling me anyway but this was the push I needed to finally do it.

This build is Win 7, Intel K2500 (Oc'd to 4.2 Ghz) 8Gb RAM, and I think those are the most important specs.

Civ IV is not multithreaded so only the speed of a single core counts, newer processors have better IPC and can clock higher and that is what matters most. RAM matters as you may want to free up to 4GB (or whatever the game may use in total, and that is more on Win 7 even though the game is 32bit), so 4+GB of RAM is welcome.

In terms of the speedup, playing the world on largest earth map is the slowest, with all the civs. I think I reduced my turn time about 3x moving from first config to the second one, and my turns were in the end just slightly longer than a minute. Which is bareable. The previous of "up to three min" was not so bearable for me at least.

At the moment I do not think you can speed the game much more than my current setup, perhaps another 20-30% but this is about it.

Right now I am playing mostly on highland map, huge scale and turns are only about 30sec in end game, which is great and good enough for me. (Largest world map is quite a bit larger than the huge map setting), so that is that.

Processor is the most important part, having 4GB memory is benefitial and gfx card does not matter at all, from what I can tell.

Agree with alot of what you posted except a good gfx card does matter, the 2gb ones that accelerate 3d displays will give you another nice boost. They are designed esp. for gaming needs. I found a big jump from a cheaper card to a 2gb card. I play larger maps and turns usually run in 10-15sec (quicker early on), maybe 25-30 sec late game at worse, around 5-10 sec up to industrial era.

 

[OneFootInThe...]

Interesting I moved from 368MB 8800GTS to 1GB 560 Nvidia card on the same setup, and I did not feel any change (card was the only upgrade), but you never know.

 

[OneFootInThe...]

Also using Super Pi benchmark may be indicative of potential increase in performance, do it on your current setup and find on the internet someone posted the time of the upgrade processor you want to buy. (proabably easiest to focus on 1M digits results)

The factor of the difference will tell you what you can expect, assuming the rest of your new PC is OK. For me this was a decent predictor of the potential speed increase.

 

[Cruel]

One detail that would remind them. Play in scripts is faster than in the scenarios.

 

[blue_inStinCt]

One detail that would remind them. Play in scripts is faster than in the scenarios.

hmmm, what does that mean?

greetings

 

[Cruel]

hmmm, what does that mean?

greetings

That scripts like Planet Generator are faster at turn change.