why does civ5 take so long to launch?

[civvver]

I don't know if others experience this, but launching from steam it takes civ5 a good couple minutes to get to the start menu where I can start or load a game. Then loading games takes another couple minutes. The loading games I sort of understand but why does it take so long to start up? It's super annoying because while civ series is a notorious one more turn addiction, because turns don't take that long it's also a really great game to play when you have 20 minutes to kill. But when it takes over 5 minutes to get into a saved game it's not really worth it.

For example I had a half hour left on my lunch break. I'm currently playing through LA Noire but because the save points suck so badly you can't play that game for less than an hour without losing half your case progress. So I thought oh I'll do a few turns of my civ save but ending up just surfing the net instead while it loaded.

I should also note I have a fast pc more than capable of playing civ5 (i5-760 overclocked, 4gb ram, overclocked gtx460). I do not have a ssd, probably the biggest factor in loading a game.

 

[Unresolved]

I noticed that my loading times slowed down after the last patch. Not sure if anyone else has experienced that.

 

[Heerlo]

Starting the game always takes a long time for me. Loading saves does, too, unless it's a really new one.

 

[Aleok]

It takes a decent 7-8 minutes to launch the game and load a map with many civs on my laptop.

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

Takes me a few minutes for initial loading, 5-10 for a save game. If it's a weekend and a really big save file, I'll take a shower in the meantime!

 

[Tabarnak]

Quad cores resolve many problems. Under that you can wait several minutes. I will wait 20-30 sec to load the game(for the first time after i opened my comp...otherwise it's only a few secs) and wait 20-30 sec to load a standard map, 45-50 a large map, etc.

Between turns with quick everything(combat/movements) it's only a few secs.

So yeah quad cores rulez!!!(especially with 8+g ram)

 

[civvver]

I have a quad core. Do you have a ssd?

 

[scheva007]

Im planning on getting an ssd in july/aug, the endgame turns and loading times take ages. Into the renaissance is basicly unplayable after turn 120

 

[Pengui6668]

I've got a quad core i7 (not sure on speed) 6 gigs of ram and a GTS450 video card and it takes me forever to load also. Standard hard drive, but still, nothing else I play takes anywhere near this long to load up.

 

[Aristos]

Sometimes it may be easier than what we think... consider if you have your SATA drives connected with the SATA cables that came with your MoBo... if that is the case, you may be using a small part of your max. data transfer capabilities as those cables are always cheap (and with low data transfer ratios).

A pair of very good SATA II/III cables are under 10 $, far less than a SSD. You may want to try that first. In the end, even if you have to migrate to SSD, you will need that type of cables as the default ones will neglect any advantage the SSD may bring to the table.

Bottom line: try to change your SATA cables first.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I noticed that my loading times slowed down after the last patch. Not sure if anyone else has experienced that.

I was experiencing something similar to this a while ago, but after the most recent update to Steam, it seemed to fix itself:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=497062

Nothing - updating drivers, clearing the cache, deleting old save games, closing all background programs - made any difference until the Steam update. I already have an SSD and it's still a newish computer, so didn't think it was a hardware issue.

 

[kamex]

Takes my PC 2 mins to load game max. Late save games take longer - another 2 mins max

 

[civvver]

Sometimes it may be easier than what we think... consider if you have your SATA drives connected with the SATA cables that came with your MoBo... if that is the case, you may be using a small part of your max. data transfer capabilities as those cables are always cheap (and with low data transfer ratios).

A pair of very good SATA II/III cables are under 10 $, far less than a SSD. You may want to try that first. In the end, even if you have to migrate to SSD, you will need that type of cables as the default ones will neglect any advantage the SSD may bring to the table.

Bottom line: try to change your SATA cables first.

That's a great idea except other games load very fast. Also I built my computer, bought an asus mobo so might not be the best cables but probably better than a prebuilt dell or hp or what not, right?

I think this is a civ5 architecture problem tbh, because the game is very demanding for how uninspiring the graphics are. Just wondered if my load times were close to normal and it appears they are.

 

[Aristos]

That's a great idea except other games load very fast. Also I built my computer, bought an asus mobo so might not be the best cables but probably better than a prebuilt dell or hp or what not, right?

I think this is a civ5 architecture problem tbh, because the game is very demanding for how uninspiring the graphics are. Just wondered if my load times were close to normal and it appears they are.

Nope. I have an ASUS mobo too (since forever, never built anything without an ASUS), and they come with brand-less cheap SATA cables that are probably rated for 150 Mbps (SATA II is max 3 Gbps and SATA III is 6).

My new WD SATA III is coming home soon, together with some new branded cables for SATA II/III from Ultra. Although my MoBo is old (the glorious P5Q), and its SATA interface is SATA II, I expect the new cables to make the WD HDD shine... I will tell you the difference in 10 days or so... but I expect it to be huge.

 

[Justice1337]

Yeah, I had really bad loading issues on my otherwise up to date computer, then I upgraded the hard drive and it runs very smooth. I think the maps just take up a ton of data. And I find that a lot of people don't keep track of their hard drive specs. It might be that most games don't tax the hard drive nearly as badly, so it ususally doesn't matter.