Hello everyone... I have a system that is a bit higher than the min specs: 1ghz, 512mb RAM, nVidia 256mb video in summary. Running at 32b colors, 1024X768 resolution in game.

I haven't seen a lot on how to tune performance on the boards, so I'm looking for any lessons learned or tips you might share.

Here's my scenario:
Small game, eight factions, mid-way through the game.

() I get fine turn performance and usually don't have much of a wait for the AI players (good!)
() I get ok performance on the cutscenes and various screens like civ manager, foreign, domestic, etc. (good)
() I get fine performance when viewing the map with symbols instead of 3-d rendering - get 25+ frames per sec (good)
() I get terrible performance when viewing the map in 3d with more than a few ships and planets 2-5 FPS (awful)
() If I zoom in while in 3-d mode, I tend to get better frame rates around 7-10 (tolerable)

Here's what I've tried
() Tried to run the game with 16b colors, but it prompts me it will work better at 32 and then crashes (bad)
() Ran the interface without background stars and nebula, but that didn't make a difference with frame rates (oh, well)
() Toggled off textures to everything but ships, planets, and stars (game looks buh-land without)
() When toggling off ship textures, I get a 5 FPS boost (good, but looks bad)
() zero antialiasing and disabled hardware transform and light

I would think that running at 16b colors would have to be a performance booster, but I can't seem to make this happen. If there was some way to stop the 3d visuals from re-rendering (i.e., ships are bobbing, planets are spinning, starbases are rotating, ...) that would have to be a big performance helper, too.

I'm kindof running out of ideas. What's more is that I'm losing interest in the game because it feels so bloated on my tiny machine. I managed to get Civ IV working pretty well after a few tweaks, but can't seem to replicate the same performance yet on GalCiv2.

Any help is appreciated...

-cc