Very jerky gameplay

[qaz0101]

I've had jerky gameplay / crashes from day one, and have tried everything in this forum to fix it! My comp exceeds the reccomended system requirements and i've tweaked and patched everythingi can get a hold of to get the best performance.
The NVhardpage SE app is great, it cut the time between crashes from 3 turns to 10 turns. but the graphics are incredibly bad, as expected, it's like playing a nintendo 64 while looking through stained glass!
Fraxis really screwed this game up tho, the coding appears to be at fault, and as far as i can tell there is a memory leak somewhere in the program. Perhaps someone who knows python can look at the game and find the hole.

 

[vertigofm]

I've had jerky gameplay / crashes from day one, and have tried everything in this forum to fix it! My comp exceeds the reccomended system requirements and i've tweaked and patched everythingi can get a hold of to get the best performance.
The NVhardpage SE app is great, it cut the time between crashes from 3 turns to 10 turns. but the graphics are incredibly bad, as expected, it's like playing a nintendo 64 while looking through stained glass!
Fraxis really screwed this game up tho, the coding appears to be at fault, and as far as i can tell there is a memory leak somewhere in the program. Perhaps someone who knows python can look at the game and find the hole.

same here, its so frickin gay

 

[markh]

I use a 6600GT and also had jerky gameplay. I installed the 81.85 driver and afterwards reinstalled the NForce drivers for my mainboard. After that it was much better. The gameplay was almost smooth and it was well playable. No problems with zooming or graphics. I did play about 2 hours and had one crash being catapulted back to Windows. Autosave loaded and worked. Will play further this evening to see whether constant gaming is possible.

 

[michael747]

I fixed my problem and now the game is much smoother.

What I Did;
-I used RivaTuner 2.0 (you can download it off the web for free)
-In the ForeWare section I went ForeWare>Direct Draw and Direct X Setting>Shader then I forced 1.1 for pixel sahder and 1.1 for vertex shader and im telling its like night and day!

Specs:
P4 2.4ghz
Nvidia 5500 OC
PC2100 RAM (768mb)
533 FSB motherboard (Dell 4500)

 

[ImmortalU]

Guys, just want to make one thing clear here.
If you have a low-end GFX card the game will be slow no matter what tweaking you do, this is cause ur GFX card doesnt have the power to handle all the graphics etc...
What i mean by low end is:

ATI
Radeon X300 - all variants
Radeon 9550
Radeon 9500 non-pro
Radeon 9200 - ALL Variants
Radeon 9000 - ALL Variants
Anything below (Radeon 8500 *possibly* exempt)

nVidia
Geforce 6200 - All variants
Geforce FX5200
Geforce 4 MX - any model
Geforce 2 - any model
Anything Below

Now, other cards that i beleive should work and are considered mid/high end are:

ATI
Radeon X1800 series
Radeon X800 series
Radeon X600 Series
Radeon 9800 series
Radeon 9700 series
Radeon 9500 Pro


nVidia
nVidia 7 Series
nVidia 6 series (except 6200 even the Turbo Cache one wont work)
nVidia 5800
nVidia 5600

If you got one of them, make sure uve updated to latest graphic drivers.
Apart from GFX card, fast CPU and RAM are also vitally important and also system drivers like chipset drivers etc...
Anyone tried a defrag too?

Hope this helps.

 

[TheBarnacle]

just to update (sorry, at work, don't remember specs of desktop entirely)...

i had the intel 8xx, got black terrain, etc. AND slow/choppy play. got the fx5200 which solved the black terrain (T&L) problem. but still video issues -- i was a little impatient and a little subborn. i refused to pay $150 or more for a new card when i don't game that much on the computer and my old card runs everything else just fine!)

big maps obviously are the problem for my machine. on normal (sort of) and small size maps, the game runs fine (except for the vid/sound issues still).

so i'm wondering a couple of things:

1: is this a SYSTEM memory problem? (i have 512mb and a 128mb card)
2: is this a GAME memory problem? (i.e. memory leak eating up resources?)
3: is this purely a sound problem? (soundblaster live! 24 bit with newest drivers)

seriously, for now, the game is playable on small maps. big maps just kill me (which sucks b/c i like the HUGE map games). AND, i am running on "high" graphics settings - again, stubbornly refuse to water down the game unless necessary...besides, reducing the graphics did NOT seem to help the speed/lagginess on big maps)

i did see there was a page file solution out there. i'll try this later. but i have 1.25mb for that, and just checking, the game really slowed and the PF was at like 700 or so. not sure if that equates to a potential problem or not. thoughts?

 

[xNitex]

just to update (sorry, at work, don't remember specs of desktop entirely)...

i had the intel 8xx, got black terrain, etc. AND slow/choppy play. got the fx5200 which solved the black terrain (T&L) problem. but still video issues -- i was a little impatient and a little subborn. i refused to pay $150 or more for a new card when i don't game that much on the computer and my old card runs everything else just fine!)

big maps obviously are the problem for my machine. on normal (sort of) and small size maps, the game runs fine (except for the vid/sound issues still).

so i'm wondering a couple of things:

1: is this a SYSTEM memory problem? (i have 512mb and a 128mb card)
2: is this a GAME memory problem? (i.e. memory leak eating up resources?)
3: is this purely a sound problem? (soundblaster live! 24 bit with newest drivers)

seriously, for now, the game is playable on small maps. big maps just kill me (which sucks b/c i like the HUGE map games). AND, i am running on "high" graphics settings - again, stubbornly refuse to water down the game unless necessary...besides, reducing the graphics did NOT seem to help the speed/lagginess on big maps)

i did see there was a page file solution out there. i'll try this later. but i have 1.25mb for that, and just checking, the game really slowed and the PF was at like 700 or so. not sure if that equates to a potential problem or not. thoughts?

i suspect no. 1

try running a map smaller then standard , have u got all the problems mention
[ scroll lag , UI lag , ingame moives disstorted , etc ]
if answers to the above is all NO, chances are it's not yr system fault, wait for patch

 

[oldStatesman]

Guys, just want to make one thing clear here.
If you have a low-end GFX card the game will be slow no matter what tweaking you do, this is cause ur GFX card doesnt have the power to handle all the graphics etc...

<snip>

If you got one of them, make sure uve updated to latest graphic drivers.
Apart from GFX card, fast CPU and RAM are also vitally important and also system drivers like chipset drivers etc...
Anyone tried a defrag too?

Hope this helps.

I applaud your hard work and attempt to help; however I do believe your list is slanted more from the perspective of someone who plays high powered RTS games etc. A more realistic list IMHO is in this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133278

As an example, the ATI 9550 AGP 256 is by no means a 'low' end card - it is most definately considered a mid range card. Perhaps one of the most popular cards on the market for general usage.

 

[OGGleep]

Ya, I have 2 6800 GT's in SLI with 2 Gigs of Ram. If the game is not ment to run on that on huge maps (I also like it) without slowdown so be it. But from all reports, people with much lower systems are having no problems.

 

[sirhiss]

Guys, just want to make one thing clear here.
If you have a low-end GFX card the game will be slow no matter what tweaking you do, this is cause ur GFX card doesnt have the power to handle all the graphics etc...
What i mean by low end is:

snip

Geforce FX5200

snip

Hope this helps.

This card should be able to render the game just fine. On minimum settings the game renders at 7 fps. Thats ridiculusly slow. I'm confident firaxis will release a patch to adress the issues with these chipsets.

 

[TheBarnacle]

i suspect no. 1

try running a map smaller then standard , have u got all the problems mention
[ scroll lag , UI lag , ingame moives disstorted , etc ]
if answers to the above is all NO, chances are it's not yr system fault, wait for patch

yep. i may have stated here or in another thread that when i'm playing on smaller maps, it runs [somewhat] smoothly. always have video/sound stutter no matter what map size. but the game play itself is less choppy/laggy on smaller maps.

that said, if this turns out to be a system problem (ie that i don't have enough memory), i'll be doubly pissed b/c i have more than the min reqs, and (i'm just putting this out there, disagree if you must) any game that only BARELY plays at the recommended specs, is a pretty crappy product.

 

[Graaf Floris]

I have the same problem of an intro moving that has difficult playing and laggy gameplay.

Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
Memory: 1024MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Video Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)

What is the best thing I can do? I've tried reading all above comments but I'm having difficulty finding what's best for my specs.

 

[erap129]

i have a geforce FX 5200, 512 DDR, P4 2800 and the game is very choppy on HIGH settings (10 FPS) but i cant change the settings from high..
when i change them i exit the program and when i enter again it goes back to low.. guys plzzzzz help me i wanna change settings to low so i can play

 

[Turpentine]

I have the same problem of an intro moving that has difficult playing and laggy gameplay.

Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
Memory: 1024MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Video Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)

What is the best thing I can do? I've tried reading all above comments but I'm having difficulty finding what's best for my specs.

So I have pretty much exactly the same system, except for P4 2.8, and I would say that the game works pretty well, though maybe it's because I'm not that advanced yet. In any case, there are many cases on this forum of lower-end systems showing better performance than high-end ones, so who knows what's going on. Anyway, tonight I'll check what drivers version I have and post them. Maybe that's the reason for your problems.

 

[Graaf Floris]

So I have pretty much exactly the same system, except for P4 2.8, and I would say that the game works pretty well, though maybe it's because I'm not that advanced yet. In any case, there are many cases on this forum of lower-end systems showing better performance than high-end ones, so who knows what's going on. Anyway, tonight I'll check what drivers version I have and post them. Maybe that's the reason for your problems.

I do hope so. I would be very grateful if you did. These problems I have with lag and a problematic intro-movie have caused me to spend my time searching for a solution on this forum, a solution which apparently doesn't exist yet. This means I have an expensive new game and I'm not able to play it properly, even though my system specs are above the reccomended specs. I had looked forward to today with great anticipation. Too bad it has turned out to be an anticlimax. I sadly can't return this unplayable game since the shop has a maximum guarantee period of 24 hours and I'm unable to return it tomorrow. I do hope a solution will present itself in the comming days. 44,95 Euros is a lot of money.

 

[Turpentine]

I do hope so. I would be very grateful if you did. These problems I have with lag and a problematic intro-movie have caused me to spend my time searching for a solution on this forum, a solution which apparently doesn't exist yet. This means I have an expensive new game and I'm not able to play it properly, even though my system specs are above the reccomended specs. I had looked forward to today with great anticipation. Too bad it has turned out to be an anticlimax. I sadly can't return this unplayable game since the shop has a maximum guarantee period of 24 hours and I'm unable to return it tomorrow. I do hope a solution will present itself in the comming days. 44,95 Euros is a lot of money.

Just checked, and I am using the version 77.77. Hope this helps.

Actually, I now have updated to 81.85, and the graphics quality is much higher, with no change in performance. The only problem now is that there is insane stuttering during wonder movies, but I can live with that.

 

[Graaf Floris]

Just checked, and I am using the version 77.77. Hope this helps.

Actually, I now have updated to 81.85, and the graphics quality is much higher, with no change in performance. The only problem now is that there is insane stuttering during wonder movies, but I can live with that.

I too have 81.85. I don't like the stuttering wonder movies. But let me especially elaborate on my main problem:

I especially hate the slowing down of the game when a certain amount of time has passed. In the beginning the rivers and coasts show fluent waves and streams (it is actually a very beautiful landscape, I like what they've done with the place ) and the units move nicely and almost (but not quite) lag free.

Gradually during the game though the steams and waves and troop movements become shocky and there is considerable lag between telling a unit to go somewhere and it actually going there. (This has been said by some on this forum to be a memory leak).

If this slowing down process of the gameplay is fixed and does not occur anymore, in other words when the game keeps showing nice flowing streams, waves and troop movement and furthermore lagless unit response like the game has when starting or reloading a game, I would be very happy. If nobody knows a real solution (and I don't mean symptom management by for instance minimalizing the graphic sophistication) I will be very, very disappointed.

I mean it when I say that when this problem isn't solved I will in the future think twice before buying a Firaxis game. This game has the potential to become a worthy successor in the Civ-series, don't blow it!

 

[TheBarnacle]

i agree graaf. it's not a bad GAME, and the graphics are nice even if unnecessary. i get the same issues you do. i play pretty well for a while, the sys resources must just get eaten up b/c it slows...a lot. and for some to suggest i need to simply play on a small map, that's stupid. of course i COULD play on a small map forever, but i'd have half a product!!!

i also agree w/you that much of the "solutions" are just symptom management. not permanent fixes.

 

[misterben]

Okay, it sounds like this method has got some good results. But what about us ATI people? Is there any way to change this for us? Anyone with a Radeon card (mine is 9600 Pro) has any luck getting Civ4 to run at all smooth? Mine is still laggy as hell and is nigh impoissble to play.

OK to try this for ATI cards pixel shader 1.3 thing, download this:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=391

Install it and stuff, then find run tweak and find the pixel shader settings thing under direct 3d(I think). I haven't tried this myself yet so be careful and all that , hopefully it will work cause I am having the same problem here.

About to try it will post if it works.

 

[arcan]

i've got a radeon 9600 SE AGP and I still experience some "still times"...