AI seems very slow

st. dexter · November 16, 2000, 23:43

Anyone else experiencing slow (one minute more or less) gameplay between turns? I am running a P2/233 with 64 ram. I have Win ME, and my res is set to 800 X 600. I have next to nothing installed on my hard drive (4.3 gig with half free). I got about one hour into a medium level game, and the AI was taking forever to cycle. The game is a full install. When I tried the Alexander scenario, forget about it, it took forever to cycle through that (yeah I know that scenario says high end systems with 266mh but come on) It's frustrating to play like this! any suggestions?

Dida · November 17, 2000, 00:40

your computer is way too slow man. and note that, Windows ME takes up a f***king lot of memory.

eluttre · November 17, 2000, 03:16

I agree the game slows terribly. I hope it's just a mem leak or something geeky that can be resolved with a patch... This is going to be a major complaint area for Activision unless it can be fixed.

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Atahualpa · November 17, 2000, 03:22

Its the CtP Engine I guess!
A P2 233 with Win ME is suicide on the other hand. Try getting Win95. It should be faster there.

I guess for halfway descent play you'll need at least a P2 400 with 128MB Ram.

ATa

SeveB · November 17, 2000, 05:51

I would splash out for at least an extra 64 Mb RAM, either that, or bin WinME and put 95/98 on there.
I've got a P2/233 with 128Mb (running Win98), and I've ordered a new processor, as I noticed that several recent games (CM 00/01, Shogun) were taking a bit longer than I liked. My new P3 should arrive just as CTP2 hits Europe :-)

Builder · November 17, 2000, 07:02

hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have p200 with 40 megs RAM!!!!!!!!!!!

will it work???????

Solver · November 17, 2000, 07:12

Actually it is enough to play CTP. RTS, like AoE2 need more system than that, but I recommend you run either Windows 98 or Linux, not Windows ME or 2K. My first attempt to play CTP (just to feel what it is) was on P166 with 16 MB RAM, where the AI turns went for some 4-5 minutes! But I saw the game is very exciting and went to a real computer then.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

Savant · November 17, 2000, 10:27

The AI portion of the game is very integer-intensive. The best processor out there to speed up that portion of the game is an AMD Athlon. There are great deals out there and I suggest you upgrade to an Athlon 750 or so that will run you about $95 on pricewatch,com and get a Abit motherboard so you can run it at 850 or higher.

Then get at least 128mb 133 SDRAM and a good AGP videocard with at least 16mb of SDRAM.

You will be rocking and the opponents just whiz through their planning!

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'Blood will run'

November 17, 2000, 10:32

you can lower the limits of time the AI has to complete his turns(from a text file, i dont recall which one tright now) and/or play with less civs

Yoleus · November 17, 2000, 10:33

quote:

Originally posted by Savant on 11-17-2000 09:27 AM
...AMD Athlon. There are great deals out there and I suggest you upgrade to an Athlon 750 or so that will run you about $95 on pricewatch

Isn't it a Duron? I think a Thunderbird Athlon is a little more pricey... By the way, isn' the configuration you soggest a bit of an overtkill?

MidKnight Lament · November 17, 2000, 20:33

I just realised that my motherboard can only handle up to 2xAGP.

I was going to buy a new 32MB card which are 4xAGP, but if I buy one I won't be using half it's power. And I really don't know that I can justify spending money on a new video card as well as a motherboard (and while I'm at it why not throw in a processor?)

Anyway, the upshot of it all is that I don't think I'll be running CTP2 until I move in with my brother mid-January, and even then we won't be able to play MP like I was hoping. What a let down!

I'm feeling rather deflated right now. You guys appreciate what you've got!!!

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- MKL
"And a sun that doesn't set but settles" - Augie March
Shameless Plug: http://www.poetic-license.org ............. All welcome.

John-SJ · November 17, 2000, 21:12

Undoubtably, slower computers with smaller memories (64Mb or less) will benefit greatly from a memory upgrade. For a game that requires lots of resources like CtP2 a large memory is as important (maybe more) important as a fast processor.

Short of that, there's still something you can do though. Use Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the "Close Program" dialog and close everything except "explorer" and "systray". If you have limited memory this will give CtP the maximum available to run with.

I would guess also that smaller worlds and/or fewer civs would help as well.

John-SJ

November 17, 2000, 21:16

to people with 64mb ram(or less): do yourself a favor and go to 128mb. not just for ctp2, for any use of windows....

eluttre · November 17, 2000, 23:51

People, people I HAVE the "recommended" specs for the game 233 w/64mb of RAM. The turns are long and the game controls get sluggish and buggy with more units. Many, many bugs...

Kyle · November 18, 2000, 01:33

Nope, T-birds are quite cheap. Check out www.windrivers.com for price comparisons.

Mad-Kat · November 18, 2000, 01:35

Oh come on! Who the hell still uses a 233 mhz PC for games? If you do and still have less than 128 meg of ram, save your poor, little valued pennies since you are obviously a complete tightwad. Stick to playing windows solitaire!

Jen Dragon · November 18, 2000, 11:17

like someone above said dont waste your money on memory up grade of pii get a piii or anthalon 700 to 800 range for a couple of hundred thats only 4 or 5 computer games. pii 233, your not a gamer, you cant be.

zaz · November 18, 2000, 12:40

quote:

Originally posted by Mad-Kat on 11-18-2000 12:35 AM
Oh come on! Who the hell still uses a 233 mhz PC for games? If you do and still have less than 128 meg of ram, save your poor, little valued pennies since you are obviously a complete tightwad. Stick to playing windows solitaire!

Those of us who don't have $1,000, for a new P3-4 system.

By the way, I currently play SimCity 3000 Unlimited, which is a resource hog RTS, on my P1 166MHz and it works fine. Can't wait to see how this compares since it is only a TBS game.

Depp · November 19, 2000, 01:25

Got a Athlon T-Bird 800 Mhz and 256 mb PC133 SDRAM. I hav no problems

And that the AI takes time is a GOOD thing... Maybe it´s smarter eh ?

MidKnight Lament · November 19, 2000, 02:44

quote:

Originally posted by Mad-Kat on 11-18-2000 12:35 AM
Oh come on! Who the hell still uses a 233 mhz PC for games? If you do and still have less than 128 meg of ram, save your poor, little valued pennies since you are obviously a complete tightwad. Stick to playing windows solitaire!

Thanks. That's very helpful, Mad-Kat.

Obviously if I had the money to buy a complete upgrade I would. It may surprise you to know that some people don't have money to be throwing around on computers. If being a gamer means that my computer sits higher on my priority list than rent or food, then I'm glad I'm not a gamer.

In six months time I'll have more than enough to spend on a big-arse PC, but until then a little sympathy wouldn't go astray.

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- MKL
"And a sun that doesn't set but settles" - Augie March
Shameless Plug: http://www.poetic-license.org ............. All welcome.

violent · November 19, 2000, 03:28

build a computer...it's a lot cheaper than buying a complete system. A 1 gig amd processor costs around $280.

Sky Dog · November 19, 2000, 07:20

Bringing this topic back, I think there may be a memory leak. The AI slows down after I've been playing a long time, but after I reboot, the AI turns get quite a bit faster and are not a problem. I'm using an AMD K6-2, 475mhZ, 128MB system.

Savant · November 19, 2000, 15:17

Yes, you're right. I forgot that memturbo does have a TSR and will run on it's own. I disabled the TSR on my game drive though bc I found that it would crash some games. I forget if CTP was one of them.

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'Blood will run'

Savant · November 20, 2000, 01:00

OK, a memory leak. I think you may be right. That also makes the game a real memory hog but with 128 mb dimms at $42 (see Pricewatch.com) that is less than the cost of the game.

The other thing, which is not as good a solution is to spend like $10 for memturbo which is a memory defraging program designed to recover RAM from those memory leaks. Of course, you would have to alt-tab to run memturbo, interrupting your game. But that is a low-cost option.

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'Blood will run'

Rebel Rick · November 20, 2000, 01:28

quote:

Originally posted by Savant on 11-19-2000 12:00 PM
OK, a memory leak. I think you may be right. That also makes the game a real memory hog but with 128 mb dimms at $42 (see Pricewatch.com) that is less than the cost of the game.

The other thing, which is not as good a solution is to spend like $10 for memturbo which is a memory defraging program designed to recover RAM from those memory leaks. Of course, you would have to alt-tab to run memturbo, interrupting your game. But that is a low-cost option.

Nope you don't have to. Memturbo has a TSR which runs every x minutes (customizable) to recover y megas (customizable also), or when it reaches bottom level of z megas.

It works fine, cause it puts all the windows stuff (if not accesed, which is the case when you play a game) into the swap area, so physical memory is free for the game.

You should test it. Evaluation version works for 30 days.

Give it a try

Rebel Rick

Cyrius · November 20, 2000, 01:54

Um, I have a Celeron 300 running at 450 and 128 mb or RAM, game runs perfectly well for me with 8 civs. My computer is 2 years old, too. Guys, if your running a pentium 233, it might be time to consider an upgrade.

I haven't seen any animated goods yet. I liked that in CTP1, even though it slowed the game down. Am I missing something?

Solver · November 20, 2000, 08:56

64 MB is enough, 32 is not. CTP doens't need that much memory, as I will not degrade to Windows 2000, I think this is enough, though I yet consider going to 128...

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

Locutus · November 20, 2000, 10:20

Well, I've been playing pre-release versions of the game (with all kind of debug-code in it that slows things down) on my P200 (64 MB) for quite a while now and I'm very satisfied with the speed. Okay, the Alexander scenario is a wee bit slow, but for the rest it's very acceptable and the final game should be even faster.

The thing is, it's not just processor speed and amount of memory that counts, it's also how you use it. I've been optimizing the speed of my computer for several years now and I'm convinced that my P200 is faster in running apps and games (not in pure processing power of course) than some of those PII400's out there (in fact, I know for a fact that my system is faster than the PII 300 of my neighbours). Not loading components of Windows you don't or hardly use, not having any TSR's running, optimizing the BIOS settings, using the right amount of cache and virtual memory, etc., etc. It all helps improving the performance of your computer. People who've never done any of this can probably boost performance of their system with more than 50%. It's just that it takes a lot of time and patience to squeeze everything out of your system that's in it. But the fact that it doesn't cost a penny makes it, at least for a poor student like me, well worth the effort. (In fact, at one point I spent 40 bucks or so on 32MB extra memory and I was quite dissappointed with how little improvement that gave me, whereas reconfiguring my BIOS was free but much more effective).

Savant · November 23, 2000, 01:37

Locutus you are so right!! It's not just the resources you possess, but those available to your machine in time of need.

I agree that you should keep TSRs to a minimum. For my gaming machine, I have two swappable master harddrives for this reason.

On drive 1 (AbitaPro), a 14.4 GB IBM @ 7200RPM, I have all my work and internet applications and it's loaded with TSRs, reducing my available RAM from 256mb to 140mb after bootup. It also has several device drivers to load not present on my gaming hard drive like a swappable slave and a parallel port drive. The registry is also large at 7.5 mbs in size.

On drive 2 (AbitaPlay), a 20.5 GB WD @ 7200 RPM, I have a "trimmed" set of work and internet applications.. just the basics (IE 5.0 not 5.5 for example). On this I also have my games, prominently featuring CTP1 with Wes' Mod on a separate partition. When I boot up on this drive, I have 180mb of free RAM. The registry is about 4.5 mb in size.

It is faster, leaner, and boots up in about 1/2 the time all bc of TSR, registry, and device loading differences despite being the same machine.

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'Blood will run'