Upgrading RAM

[Velvet-Glove]

Hi. I have only had Civ IV for a couple of days. I have 512MB RAM at present - the game runs OK but once the world view gets quite big it is slowing down noticeably and, on closing the game, I can hear the hard disk thrashing away for a good minute or two as it tidies up after itself. My PC did used to struggle a bit with huge CivIII maps so this is not unexpected.

So... I'm thinking of an upgrade to 1GB or perhaps 1.5GB.

I would be interested to hear about recommended amounts (would 1.5GB really make that much difference over 1GB?) and anyone else's experiences with upgrading their RAM - how much of an impact did this make to your CivIV experience? I'm looking to get the optimal amount of RAM - there's no point in overkill if this is not realistically going to make much difference to the game.

Thanks for your input, guys.

PS. Other specs:
Pentium4 2.4GHz CPU
GeForce 4 Ti 128MB graphics card

 

[mist]

have you tried setting a minimum virtual memory size? this may help a little.

 

[Velvet-Glove]

Yes, I did that beforehand, after reading something on here about it. I have my pagefile on it's own hard disk partition (on a different physical disk to the game) and have it set to 766MB (recommended by Windows) up to a max of 2024.

I also defragged all my drives prior to installing the game.

 

[TheBarnacle]

Hi. I have only had Civ IV for a couple of days. I have 512MB RAM at present - the game runs OK but once the world view gets quite big it is slowing down noticeably and, on closing the game, I can hear the hard disk thrashing away for a good minute or two as it tidies up after itself. My PC did used to struggle a bit with huge CivIII maps so this is not unexpected.

So... I'm thinking of an upgrade to 1GB or perhaps 1.5GB.

I would be interested to hear about recommended amounts (would 1.5GB really make that much difference over 1GB?) and anyone else's experiences with upgrading their RAM - how much of an impact did this make to your CivIV experience? I'm looking to get the optimal amount of RAM - there's no point in overkill if this is not realistically going to make much difference to the game.

Thanks for your input, guys.

PS. Other specs:
Pentium4 2.4GHz CPU
GeForce 4 Ti 128MB graphics card

well, i only have 512 also and was thinking of upgrading, but since i already put in a new vid card, i refuse to put any more $ into my machine for this (and only this!) game.

that said, i too get to play 'ok' for a bit (20 fps? mostly 10-12), then after a while it just pegs downs to 1 fps. i get this regardless of how much of the map is revealed, seems to be more of a time issue. or sometimes, after a leader head pops up.

all this has made me think 'memory leak'. mind you i know just enough tech jargon to make me dangerous, but from what i've read, and the anecdotal evidence from my experience and others (you), it seems this COULD be the case. resources just not getting freed.

if that ISN'T the case, and you need more RAM, then this game sucks worse than i already feel it does. and i'd read around on the forums, some folks have great success with just 512, others are still having problems with 2gb. so...you might solve your probs with more mem, or not....my advice would be if you're committed to spending the coin to upgrade, go the distance.

 

[MattJek]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138299

just a warning.

 

[userlain]

Velvet-Glove: More ram will definately help game performance.

PM me with your system specifications and I'll tell you what ram you need.