PTW Much faster?!?

Frugal_Gourmet · November 3, 2002, 02:09

Am I the only one who has noticed significant speed differences between PTW and old-Civ3? When I play Huge-sized maps now, the game just seems much faster.

Theseus · November 3, 2002, 02:29

I'm seeing it too... everything: loading, gameplay, switching apps. Evidently not reported, but Firaxis did some tweaking. I'm not that far enough along yet, but what I really want to see is a speed-up in the post-industrial Worker dance.

alva · November 3, 2002, 11:41

Well, maybe the maps have become bigger too?

(in the editor)

Effraides · November 3, 2002, 12:03

Yeah it has definately sped up. On a 180 by 180 map for my PII 400 (old beast I know) late industrial is only taking about 1 or two minutes a turn... that is nothing next to the 7- 15 minutes between turns in the old Civ3. Yeah I said 7 to 15, sometimes as much as 30 minutes. Definately worth the 30 dollar price tag for me in just the speed improvements alone. Time to upgrade this monster.

DeathByTheSword · November 3, 2002, 13:23

so the speed is more like civII again? great! no only wait until i can buy it

-proletarian- · November 3, 2002, 15:23

That's strange. Moving units about now is worse than before for me. I have a 500mghz processor and 64 mg of RAM, and it never ran great before, but now when I'm moving units about it's even more jerky and choppy than in the original game.

If only I had a few grand laying about.....

Minuteman · November 3, 2002, 15:52

That's odd. I haven't really noticed any appreciable increase the game's speed. Then again, I'm still only in the year 2900 BC in my first game with PTW installed.

Even the original was fast in the early stages of play. The real test will come after industrialization, when playing on a huge map would produce AI turns that could take up to 15 minutes to complete.

FrostyBoy · November 3, 2002, 16:21

proletarian, you only need to upgrade your ram to get it working smoothly. another 64 would be enough.

Firebird · November 3, 2002, 16:27

If that speed increase is going to happen on my machine too I can't wait for PTW to enter Denmark.

vmxa1 · November 3, 2002, 16:29

You can get 256 mb for less than $100, depending on the exact type. It could not hurt and is a lot less than a new rig.

Accipiter · November 5, 2002, 14:40

I can say that increased RAM does help turn speed, went from 128 MB to 386 MB of RAM and only cost me $20 (ok, $40 - $20 mail-in rebate) from best buy. A cheap investment that goes a long ways.

Sardaukar_dk · November 23, 2002, 11:11

I see it too, but i hit the 'not responding' (if i look at taskmanager) problem on both PTW and CIV3 .. its darn annoying .. when this accures each turn wait takes upto several minutes.

i have windows 2000 on a duron 800 with just under 400mb

-proletarian- · November 23, 2002, 12:20

RAM is that cheap? Nice.....

Switch · November 23, 2002, 13:34

I haven't noticed much of a speed difference, except the turns seem a bit smoother and faster with the BTM

.

Hey testers, what ever did you do that improved speed? The difference IS noticeable

.

aebrahim · November 23, 2002, 13:38

Quote:

Originally posted by -proletarian-
That's strange. Moving units about now is worse than before for me. I have a 500mghz processor and 64 mg of RAM, and it never ran great before, but now when I'm moving units about it's even more jerky and choppy than in the original game.

If only I had a few grand laying about.....

My friend was having the same problem, and I upgraded him to 320MB RAM (extra 256MB) for US$40. Very cheap, PTW runs excellently now.

Verto · November 23, 2002, 13:41

I bought 512 DDR for 80 bucks at Circuit City.

candybo · November 23, 2002, 16:45

I'm generally happy with run times, except for game loading. Anyone else seem to pause at 38%?

Coracle · November 23, 2002, 21:22

Quote:

Originally posted by -proletarian-
That's strange. Moving units about now is worse than before for me. I have a 500mghz processor and 64 mg of RAM. . .

Good luck with that! Two years ago with 128 RAM my PC kept crashing until I went up to 256. You should upgrade.

wilbill · November 24, 2002, 05:09

Quote:

Originally posted by candybo
I'm generally happy with run times, except for game loading. Anyone else seem to pause at 38%?

Yeah - and the bigger the map, the longer the pause.

Pre-PTW, it always paused for me at 37%. Guess this makes PTW 1% better?

candybo · November 24, 2002, 10:14

Quote:

Originally posted by wilbill

Yeah - and the bigger the map, the longer the pause.

Pre-PTW, it always paused for me at 37%. Guess this makes PTW 1% better?

...That must be the map-drawing phase..

Alex · November 24, 2002, 11:08

More RAM definitely helps.

But if PTW is really faster than vanilla Civ3, I can hardly wait for it to be released here in Brazil.