Very Sluggish Gameplay (need assist)

[la cosa nostra]

Thanks in advance to anybody who can help. I'll cut straight to the point.

My Specs:

Gigabyte K7 nforce2 mobo (latests chipset drivers - 5.10)
Athlon 2500+
768mb ram
128mb Nvidia fx5200 (latests gfx drivers - 81.95)
nforce2 audio (latest audio drivers - 4.62)
WinXP pro

Currently running Civ4 at:

1024x768 res
Low gfx settings
Fullscreen (changing this doesent help tho)

Other Stuff

Also using Harkonnens patch (little impact)
Current test map - huge, 12civs, pangea

As of now the game runs very sluggishly, not unplayable, but its very sluggish (i.e. delays to open advisor screens, delays when zooming in and out), I cant play this game for more than an hour without closing it cuz of the speed. Even when scrolling its somewhat delayed, infact the only screen that seems to not lag is the global view. Additionaly it doesent really matter how big or small of a map I run, if there is a difference, I cant feel it. I have not had any cdc or error message problem, its just this notable delay. Currently my AA and anisotropic filtering settings are "application controlled" - so maybe this could impact a card like the fx5200?

Well theres my problem, anyone experience something simular or know how to rectify?

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Would more Ram help?

 

[la cosa nostra]

Would more Ram help?

Well ... from the box:

minimum - 256
recommended - 512

I have 768

And I am sure that people with 512 have run this game perfectly, so no, I dont think ram is the issue

 

[Neon Deon]

Please post a dx diag and the in game graphic settings you are running. IE: AA setting, graphics set to low/med/high etc etc.

Also list what settings the config of harks patch is.

 

[Zanmato]

I have a similiar spec and it's gets abit slow later in the game from around 1500s, standard map, 6-7 civs. Considering upgrading the video card to something better with at least double the video RAM. The FX5200 is getting alittle tired, I think it's around 1 and a half to 2 years old now. Tried the Memory fix (abit of improvement) and also makes little difference fiddling with the control panel for the AA setting, app-controlled or off. No CTDs tho with Harkonniens patch.... yet. VSync off also makes a very slight improvement.