Severe Game Slowdowns

from GalCiv2 Forums
First of all, my game settings are as follows:

Vs. 9 Races - 8 Minor Races - Tough Difficulty - Gigantic Galaxy
All Set At "Abundant", with "Loose Clusters" or "Scattered"
I play as Terrans, heavily focused on Tech & Diplomacy

Game runs fine for a few hundred turns. However, about 250+ turns in
my game becomes a little slow, and gradually progresses to become agonizingly slow.
I expect some of that. As races expand and things get more complex, clicking
TURN expectedly becomes a longer process, and that's fine.

The issue I'm having, occurs OUTSIDE of a period when my PC is "Running a turn"
My problem is, clicking on objects (ships, starbases, planets, etc.) becomes a
sit and wait process. I click something, and the game pauses, and seems to "Hang".
At 200 - 250 turns, the game's "wait-for-me-to-think-about-it" time is only about 3
seconds before the screen goes into auto-focus on the object (Or calls up the appropriate menu) But at, say, 700+ turns, this wait time is more like 4 minutes per-clicked-object!

I use the Blind Exploration option, and the more of the map I've
uncovered, and the more everyone colonizes planets and builds starbases, the longer my click-and-wait time becomes. Any clue on why this is happening? Is there anything I can do to fix this?

My PC pushes a lot of newer games much faster and harder, so I doubt it's my config. Not sure though. In any case, here are my core system Specs:

AMD Athlon XP 2800+ ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro (Single Montior Setup)
1 GB (512 x 2) DDR (x4) W.D. 750 GB HDD (3 TB Total Non-RAID Array)
Audigy 2 Plat. Audio
*Nothing is OC'd - 13 Internal Fans Total - 14-Bay Case - 750 Watt Antec PSU
5,198 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have the same problems as you: https://forums.galciv2.com/?aid=153449#1234511

I think now that the AI has gotten so complex that a single move now requires massive calculations as the AI decides what it can or cannot do. Turn off advance AI if its on - it helps a very slight amount. But what I do not understand is that I have four cores, the games uses 2 cores at best, and they never get pegged above 70% or so.

Maurice
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If that is a straight 250 turn playing session, it might help to save the game, exit and reload the game. It will take a little less memory when freshly loaded.

If it is freshly loaded and it still does that, then it sounds like you are simply too low on ram and going too far into the swap file. 1GB is really bare minimum for gigantic galaxies, 9 majors and 8 minor races. You will use that up pretty quickly.

Throw another 1 or 2 GB in there and see how much better it does.
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have 4gb of ram, dual dualcore opterons, 8800gts g40mb gfx card - still battling this problem.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Real-time virus scanners can sometimes slow things way down. Have you excluded all the GalCiv folders (both in My Docs and Program Files) from being scanned in your real-time virus scanner? That can make a big difference.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have 4gb of ram, dual dualcore opterons, 8800gts g40mb gfx card - still battling this problem.

Have you seen this thread? Dual Core Machines may need a driver update

Real-time virus scanners can sometimes slow things way down. Have you excluded all the GalCiv folders (both in My Docs and Program Files) from being scanned in your real-time virus scanner? That can make a big difference.

I play offline with the AV service stopped(why have it waste memory and CPU time?).
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's more than just computer memory. I actually ran my last game completely into the ground. It took 30+ seconds to select a ship when backed out to the two dimensional view with most of the graphic options turned off (as low as 0.1 FPS). I was only using 1Gb of my available 3Gb real memory. I used to think it was the ship count, but I've done some checking and I'm sure it's not that (or at least not just that). My best guess right now is that I'm blowing out the video card memory somehow (I have a 128Mb card)
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If that is a straight 250 turn playing session, it might help to save the game, exit and reload the game. It will take a little less memory when freshly loaded.

I've tried that many times Moosetek13. But in fact, loading a saved gamed seems
to only amplify the problem.

I have 1 GB Phys. memory, and 3 GB Virtual. But as you suggest, I'm gonna
pick up a 1 GB stick and throw it in there soon, hopefully that will do at least a little something.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have 4gb of ram, dual dualcore opterons, 8800gts g40mb gfx card - still battling this problem.

Have you seen this thread? Dual Core Machines may need a driver update


Real-time virus scanners can sometimes slow things way down. Have you excluded all the GalCiv folders (both in My Docs and Program Files) from being scanned in your real-time virus scanner? That can make a big difference.

I play offline with the AV service stopped(why have it waste memory and CPU time?).


I have run with all programs stopped, all non-eesential services stopped, 2gb 4gb, dual core dingle core - i can test all options you want - I even tried an 8800gts 640mb card- no difference. I have to believe that the ai is runnning away at this point. whatever changed from 1.5 final to 1.6 final is slowing things down and there are endless postings about it since the betas began. I am still waiting pateiently for a fix. Now, I just play until it gets too slow to deal with then save the file and start a new one. Usually gets to a little bit past the mid game when 1-2 majors are gone already.