What map size has good inbetween time at the end of the game?

[Davor]

Hey all I just completed my very first game of Civ from begining to victory condtion. I landed on AC.

I played on the Eath map, I believe is huge. In the middle and end stages of the game when I hit end turn, it took about 2-3 minutes to process and even in my turn to scroll through the screen to a while.

What size map should I use for my next game? I have an Acer Aspire 5520 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor, 2 GB ddr2 ram.

I tried setting up my video settings to 512 memory and then to 32megs and see no difference at all. I went to 32 megs so there would be more ram, since buying more ram is not an option for me right now.

I am thinking large should be ok, but I want to ask you guys first before committing any time to the game and find it runs slow again, because I don't want to start over again untill I win or loose.

What do you think I what map size I should play with, and also

What map size do you guys play with and why?

 

[MrCynical]

I'm on a similar spec machine, and I only really have problems on the Huge map setting. Large maps are generally free of lag when scrolling around, and Ive never seen the interturn take more than 30 secs (and that was with nukes flying around) Moving to huge maps does seem to be a big step in terms of game performance. 2-3 minutes I still don't see that often even on that setting.

 

[Davor]

Thanks MrCynical for the quick reply, will try it out now.

 

[Gumbolt]

I play huge maps all the time.

core 2 duo cpu 2.4ghz
4gb ram
256mb nvida 8600gts

The game play is fine for me. I think ram is the biggest hurdle on this game. Although I am told 2gb ram is the sweet spot. Game can slow slightly in 1900ad+ with over 100-200 cities on the map. I have not found waiting times an issue. Perhaps I am just patient? Hmmmm

 

[TheDS]

With turn-lag like that, I'm inclined to believe they've got a lot of the movement animations turned on.

 

[AppleTheMan]

Can't you turn off a lot of graphics in the options? Would this help, or not since that fixes a video problem, and not a memory problem?

 

[MqsTout]

One thing you can do is play with a smaller map and have lower sea levels -- you'll have more land plots in the game that you actually play on, so the game will feel bigger.

 

[Inky]

Processor and RAM should be sufficient, so I think the likely limiter is your video card. I'd set the video memory size larger, say 256MB, because even if it doesn't affect Civ4 (though I'd think it would affect if you use high graphics settings), other games might perform better.

A huge map with many AIs can take a while simply due to the number of units being moved. The 3.17 patch improves the AI, speeding it up some, but it can still take a while if a lot is going on. If you have show friendly moves turned on, it will take even longer.

One obvious thing: On a laptop, make sure you're running high performance, not power saving. This applies to many games, not just CIV.

To me, though, the graphics settings make little difference to game play. You can set everything to low, then selectively enable things to see how it affects play with your current, slow-running game. Some changes (such as single-unit graphics) require you to restart the game. You should be able to find a setting which is good enough for you.