Very jerky gameplay

[i42]

Now here's the kicker to my above post - I had the exact same perfromance problems with Sid Meiers Pirates 3! Fortunately, I only had this issue during the dance scenes - acceptable, but still really annoying. These are the ONLY 2 games were I get this issue. I have to beleive that the underlying issue is the graphics engine used for both games.

Anyone else have the same problem with both games?

 

[Mosaic]

I've got the same problems as everyone else here. Pirates ran great for me and was a great game but civ4 is really laggy and jerky. I can barely move any unit. And sometimes even when I hit directional key they don't even move it's so bad.

My computer meets the specs fine but I do have a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro Video Card with the current ati drivers and SP2. I've tried all the tricks in here and nothing has worked for me.

Guess I'll have to wait for a release. I hate it when software is released to early. *sigh*

 

[animalstyle]

same problems here....mostly slow unit response and slow map movement...whyd they have to make the graphics like that....shoulda just kept with really nice looking 2D

 

[Kamaru]

You know, it's a shame I'm having these problems cause I was so hype to play this game. The game is so choppy, I can't even play it.

My PC specs:
Pentium 4 2.8GHZ
1gb DDR RAM
Geforce 4 6800 GT 256MB
Windows XP

I have the most up to date drivers, I have nothing running in the background and I have turned all the game video options and all my video card options down as low as possible and it still doesn't fix the problem.

I've read this forum and cannot find a fix for it and I see many others are having this same problem. Sometimes if I alt+tab out of the game and then go back in, it'll fix the problem for a turn or two, but I am pretty annoyed at this point. I play many games on this PC that are way more graphic/resource demanding than this game and I have no problems with them, it's only Civ4.

Anyone have any suggestions? Anyone have a fix? Anyone have a link to help me? The good thing is, I can see I am not the only one with this problem...
The bad thing is, no one can seem to fix it.

I have slightly different specs but the same seems to be happening to me, funny part was I was able to play the tutorial for hours this morning.. These problems started after I shut the program down for the first time..

 

[grzelakc]

I have GeForce 4400Ti and having the same lag problems that everyone else seems to have with this game. My bet is that it's frigging Python that they used for UI that is slow as molasses.

 

[kefka01]

I have also been experiencing problems very similar to what others have mentioned here. Click on "show grid", opening the civics menu, waiting in between turns, waiting for leader heads to pop up - for all of these things I could go watch a new moon transition to a full moon and back again before the game finishes whatever it is it's trying to load. Not to mention the laggy gameplay. I don't have an FX5200 like many here, but I do have a Geforce Ti4200, 128 mb. I hope a solution for this shows up soon

 

[Tyrole]

I am almost starting to think the problem has to do with a mis-rendering of the civilization boarders...

 

[kazzyliciouz]

I am having the same problem all of you are having. Skipping video/audio on opening movies, wonder movies (which used to crash until I updated my vid card driver), slow unit movement, sometimes scrolling around the main map will make 3/4 of the screen disappear and it hangs for a few minutes, periodic dark terrain, disappearance of control interface but still showing the map around....

i've updated drivers, tried the no hardware accelaration on audio, and none of that has made any improvement.

does anyone have any other ideas?

i'm on a:
P4 3.2
1 gig ram
Geforce 5200fx- 128mb
soundblaster live!24-bit

 

[kefka01]

As an addendum to my earlier post, the game actually plays (relatively) smoothly when it very first starts (after waiting 5 min for the game to load). It loads, I see the "Press ENTER to end turn" message, and at this point everything moves pretty smoothly, city menus are fine, etc. However, once I try to advance to the next turn, everything goes to crap. Even if I do have the patience to wait several minutes in between turns (I don't), once I am in "control" of the map, everything is extremely slow and laggy. Just thought I'd clarify.

 

[sgrig]

I'm actually kind of glad that lots of people have the same problem - because this means that hopefully there will some more permanent fix from Firaxis.

 

[grzelakc]

Don't get your hopes to high sgrig. It looks to me like they have a few performance problems going on. One is the ultraslow UI which is probably not fixable unless they rewrite all of their Python code. Two, they appear to either have a memory leak (hard to trace) or a memory thrashing problem (just as hard to trace) ie commonly accessed data is constantly being swapped in and out of memory.

Couple that with useless 3D effects that distract more than they help and we have a real dud of a game on our hands.

Sorry guys, but we have to face the music. Sid really blew it this time.

 

[Pushead]

You either need to install your chipset drivers or enable AGP in your BIOS.

Check for new sound card drivers, too.

Dave

Thanks Dave, I'll try that.



**edit Gee thanks Dave, now I've got the Failed to Initiate issue.


j/k I'll go through that fix tomorrow. Hopefully all will be well.

I appreciate the help.

 

[TheBarnacle]

Don't get your hopes to high sgrig. It looks to me like they have a few performance problems going on. One is the ultraslow UI which is probably not fixable unless they rewrite all of their Python code. Two, they appear to either have a memory leak (hard to trace) or a memory thrashing problem (just as hard to trace) ie commonly accessed data is constantly being swapped in and out of memory.

Couple that with useless 3D effects that distract more than they help and we have a real dud of a game on our hands.

Sorry guys, but we have to face the music. Sid really blew it this time.

hmmm, you sound like me the past 48 hours. after 2 days of frustration, i think i've given up and am resolved (not content mind you) to simply wait it out. i agree, it seems there is a memory problem (leakage). at least that's what my symptoms appear to indicate but i'm no technician to be sure.

i'll say this, for the 30 minutes or so i CAN play the game before the lag become unbearable, it does seem to be pretty good. not a great leap from civIII imo, but some of the new features do add to gameplay. and the automation is better as is the AI. the graphics do look great, but might not be worth the problems (and sometimes, i feel like i'm watching the sims play out my civ game).

i was ready to swear off this POS, but the more frustrated i got, the higher my expectations became for the game (since i figured it has to be an INCREDIBLE game to make suffering through this crap worth it). obviously, they released knowing they'd have problems. and that's a pretty crappy blueprint for a business...but not at all uncommon for software rollouts of any kind.

i'm clueless as to other possible fixes we can do for ourselves. the load logs show some errors on the audio but i have no idea what that's about.

 

[FrantzX]

How do you find out the current FPS of cIV?

 

[sirhiss]

edit:nevermind

 

[ledhed]

late in the game it becomes almost unplayable , no matter what I have tried and that includes installing every update I could find from this thread . Whens the patch comming ? They had to know this was a problem .

 

[Speed Of Sound]

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X (Dell)
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0181&SUBSYS_01B610DE&REV_A2
Display Memory: 64.0 MB
Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (75Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.13.0010.4238 (English)
DDI Version: 8
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 3/14/2003 14:59:00, 2889802 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
VDD: n/a
Mini VDD: nv4_mini.sys
Mini VDD Date: 3/14/2003 14:59:00, 1223562 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71E3E-42C1-11CF-E063-BC2100C2CB35}
Vendor ID: 0x10DE
Device ID: 0x0181
SubSys ID: 0x01B610DE
Revision ID: 0x00A2
Revision ID: 0x00A2
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_A ModeMPEG2_B ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D
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{212DC723-3235-44A4-BD29-E1652BBCC71C}: Format(In/Out)=(UYVY,UYVY) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_MedianFiltering
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Registry: OK
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled
DDraw Test Result: Not run
D3D7 Test Result: Not run
D3D8 Test Result: Not run
D3D9 Test Result: Not run

-------------
Sound Devices
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Description: SoundMAX Digital Audio (emulated)
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24D5&SUBSYS_01551028&REV_02
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Driver Name:
Driver Version:
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WHQL Logo'd:
Date and Size:
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Driver Provider: Analog Devices
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Cap Flags: 0x2F
Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 100000
Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 0, 0
Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0
HW Memory: 0
Voice Management: No
EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No
I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No
Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No
Registry: OK
Sound Test Result: Not run


I seem to be having the exact same problems, except mine seem to be more of a grphic problem because when i zoom way out everything gets red and gray, when I talk to people they have major problems, everything is slow, and when I move around, i can see any part of the map, with a viewing circle equivalent to my current map size. Ive tried almost everything on this thread. (Except I cant get SP2 because everytime i try to it says that Active X is prohibited no matter how many times I change it in the security tab). HELP!

 

[Fabius]

Oddly enough I have similar issues (game is good at first, then gets choppy, and large maps are always bad) and I have a FX 5900XT. My wife also has problems, even worse than mine, and she has a FX 5600. Now my one buddy has a GeForce 6600 I believe and it runs fine. My other friend has one of the older GeForce4 Ti cards and he too runs it fine.

I really believe something is up with the GeForce 5*** cards.

 

[1c0n]

i made a post that deals with the lag issues in part... here
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=134873

 

[Tyrole]

If you try running the Tutorial, i believe you will find framerates fairly good until you found your first city. Then something goes terribly wrong. I have a hunch it has something to do with the illustration of the civilization boarders or possibly the city animations (even when frozen).


Hopefully someone from Firaxis will read this thread and at least acknowledge that they are aware of the problem and trying to fix it...