Computer speed

kcbob · November 7, 2001, 15:28

Okay. I've pre-ordered the LE version but it isn't here yet.

In the meantime, I"ve got a question for those of you who do have the game. I'm planning on running on my old PC which is a 333mhz. Supposedly, that's fast enough. How about it? Anybody running on one that slow? Is it noticeable?

DaveV · November 7, 2001, 15:36

kcbob- I've run it on a Celeron 266, 96 Mbyte and a PII 333, 64 Mbyte, playing several games to about 1000 BC. There are noticeable pauses when the advisor windows pop up, but it's playable for me. The Celeron actually seems to run a little better: the music is so choppy on the PII that I turned it off.

I've been running all the default settings: standard map, 8 civs.

kcbob · November 7, 2001, 16:03

Hot damn!!! Thanks, DaveV. Now, if the sucker would only show up at my house today, I'll be in fat city.

Andrew_Jay · November 7, 2001, 18:00

I have a 700MHZ AMD Duron in an IBM. I played with 12 civs in all on a large map and by the mid industrial age it was slowing down a good bit. There were pauses of 10 seconds or so when I changed production in a city after the sugestion box came up. Also, the wait got to almost a full minute every turn, but that wasn't so bad, because I was at least actually playing the game for just as long as I was waiting, or more. But eventually I gave up on it, partly because I just didn't like how it was going (too well and boring to be percise) and now have a small map with just the six, there is very little waiting.

Tingkai · November 8, 2001, 02:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Andrew_Jay
I have a 700MHZ AMD Duron in an IBM. I played with 12 civs in all on a large map and by the mid industrial age it was slowing down a good bit. There were pauses of 10 seconds or so when I changed production in a city after the sugestion box came up. Also, the wait got to almost a full minute every turn, but that wasn't so bad, because I was at least actually playing the game for just as long as I was waiting, or more. But eventually I gave up on it, partly because I just didn't like how it was going (too well and boring to be percise) and now have a small map with just the six, there is very little waiting.

I've got a 500 AMD and 64 ram. and Civ3 is incredibly slow before I even hit the industrial age. Playing at the warlord level with a large map.

I tried playing the huge map and the game just bogged down big time. I spent more time waiting for the game to go through each turn then I spent playing the game by the time I hit the industrial era. It got to the point where I just game up.

This is crazy.

Any suggestions on how to speed things up?

Basilisk · November 8, 2001, 02:31

ok i have a p2 350mhz with 192mb of ram... i'm hoping that the ram will speed things up for me...

Rasbelin · November 8, 2001, 03:39

Quote:

Originally posted by kcbob
Okay. I've pre-ordered the LE version but it isn't here yet.

Then you might want to have a look at the
Bisquit Tin Coalition's website. A campaign for
the Civ III LE.

http://we-want-civ3-bte.cjb.net

David Murray · November 8, 2001, 05:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Tingkai

I've got a 500 AMD and 64 ram. and Civ3 is incredibly slow before I even hit the industrial age. Playing at the warlord level with a large map.

I tried playing the huge map and the game just bogged down big time. I spent more time waiting for the game to go through each turn then I spent playing the game by the time I hit the industrial era. It got to the point where I just game up.

This is crazy.

Any suggestions on how to speed things up?

I have your solution...

www.crucial.com

Voidman · November 9, 2001, 22:35

I run it on a PII 333, 192 Mbyte, played several games without noticeable slowdowns and very playable for me. I've only got 2.5MB of video memory and not a problem yet (fingers crossed).

Love the game, even if there are a few issues needing fixing.

Alex 14 · November 9, 2001, 22:51

Quote:

kcbob- I've run it on a Celeron 266, 96 Mbyte and a PII 333, 64 Mbyte, playing several games to about 1000 BC. There are noticeable pauses when the advisor windows pop up, but it's playable for me. The Celeron actually seems to run a little better: the music is so choppy on the PII that I turned it off.

I have a Pentium 3 700Mhz, 128Mb ram and a Celeron 333Mhz, 64 Mb ram, i havent got the game but i will be mostly using my Celeron to play it so i'm glad it runs well.

smellymummy · November 9, 2001, 22:52

i have a p3 800, 380 something MB ram, win2k and I use a radeon 32 ddr card. Game has run fine from day one. No slowing down, no lag in gameplay: its great!

Asides from random lockups because of some bad installed directx drivers, and having to turn friendly animations off (they were just tooo long!), all I've experienced is bliss

uglyduck · November 9, 2001, 23:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Tingkai

I've got a 500 AMD and 64 ram. and Civ3 is incredibly slow before I even hit the industrial age. Playing at the warlord level with a large map.

I tried playing the huge map and the game just bogged down big time. I spent more time waiting for the game to go through each turn then I spent playing the game by the time I hit the industrial era. It got to the point where I just game up.

This is crazy.

Any suggestions on how to speed things up?

Yes - up your RAM to 128mb. That way the game will run from memory instead of the HDD. Running from memory is way faster....

Laszlo · November 9, 2001, 23:39

I first installed mine on a 266 mhz PII, planning to slide by with my 128mb ram, and played on a Normal-size map. And it ran agonizingly slow.

There was a lag time for just about everything; it was like I was playing from the moon and had to wait a few seconds for the responses to come back. There was a slight lag during the animations for moving units (which I deselected in Preferences, though they later turned back on by themselves), and a more noticable one when entering new screens or scrolling across the board. Plus it takes a long time to start up and load saved games.

Then I looked at the box finally, and it says "500 mhz recommended" (which of course they chose to omit in the system reqs on the webpage).

Well, now I have it installed on my new 1.6 ghz computer (which arrived two days later) and there are no complaints. It's very responsive, even on larger maps. I think it runs faster than Civ2 on my other computer. Very nice.

Uncle Thade · November 10, 2001, 03:02

I am in the latter stages of the Industrial age, playing with 8 CIV's mine included(America), a huge map of archiplegos and the slow down is horrendous. I am playing on a PII 400 with 256 MB SDRAM and tons of disk space.

My last turn took over 61/2 minutes to process. Yet I run Max Payne at maximum levels (video card is 64MB Radeon) and nary a hiccup. I could go on about games that run just fine, but the end game of CIV III is really starting to get boring and the process time is frankly killing my love for this series. Other gamplay issues I will discuss, at length in another post once I finish this game.

VetteroX · November 10, 2001, 03:53

If things are slow try adding more ram, do a defrag of the HD, or even reformat it. If you have a computer slower the p2 400 128 mb of ram... don't complain that the game won't run on your comp... youve got an old machine, go out and buy a new one. Computers are so cheap now that if you cant afford to buy a new one, it means you have made mistakes in life, don't blame the game.

joey703 · November 10, 2001, 05:21

i can play on any map except for the games on a huge map. even on a large map with 11 computer players the turns dont take too long.

i have a piii 933mHz w/256mb ram

Simpleton · November 10, 2001, 06:50

I am playing it on a Pentium 233 (overclocked to 262) MMX with 128 MB RAM. I have played a game on the tiny map and am presently playing a game on the small map. All animations are off and I turned off the music because it was choppy. The game is definitely playable even with such a slothy system. The only things that really could be better is map scrolling is slow, when moving your units with the mouse the pointer can be hard to control and when you open the advisor screens it takes a little longer than I think it should. BUT like I said completely playable. You should have no problems on your system.

PS: I pick up my spanking new kick ass system on Monday. (Athlon 1.333, 512 RAM, Geforce2 GTS , 19" Samsung 950p monitor are the highlights). I can't wait!!! The only think I am concerned about is the reported crappy performance on Nvidia chips....

Uncle Thade · November 10, 2001, 12:05

Hey Vettorox, the listed specs on the site and the box state that MY computer would run just fine. It's definitely not my computer... it's the game. Maybe you can find it in your heart to send me a new computer?

Can't afford one right now.

Basilisk · November 10, 2001, 18:14

Quote:

Originally posted by VetteroX
If you have a computer slower the p2 400 128 mb of ram... don't complain that the game won't run on your comp... youve got an old machine, go out and buy a new one

what about if it is a p2 350mhz with 192mb ram, and a 8mb vid card?

Basilisk · November 10, 2001, 18:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Voidman
I run it on a PII 333, 192 Mbyte, played several games without noticeable slowdowns and very playable for me. I've only got 2.5MB of video memory and not a problem yet (fingers crossed).

Love the game, even if there are a few issues needing fixing.

so judging by this it's the amount of ram you have that does it. i have a p2 350mhz with 193mb ram and a 8mb vid card, so by this it should be sweet. But everyone says that the slowdowns occur around the industrial age, have you played up to/past this yet? If you have, what was the speed of the game like?

Soren Johnson · November 10, 2001, 19:18

If you have a machine with near-minimum specs (especially on the memory side) and are experiencing slowdowns, try adding the line "NoSound=1" to Civilization3.ini. This will not only turn off sound but prevent the game from even loading any sound into memory. Of course, the game will be sound-less, but some people might prefer this if it speeds up the game...

Basilisk · November 10, 2001, 22:03

cool thanks for the tip. i should be getting my copy within teh week