Civ3 is a ram hog

delsolsi · June 6, 2002, 01:33

I noticed that when I loaded a previous save that it sounded like my swap file on my hard drive was kicking in so I opened up task manager to see how much ram civ3 uses and I was shocked to see that it was using 134,636KB of ram which works out to 131MB of ram. Is it normal for this game to use that much ram. It doesn't see like it when the required specs say 32MB and recommended is 64MB. Is there something wrong with my game or is this normal. Heres a pic so you can see for your selves that its really useing this much.

EDIT: typo

Pythagoras · June 6, 2002, 02:26

Maybe it has to do with NT...

statusperfect · June 6, 2002, 04:13

Maybe it uses more RAM tp run faster?

Nym · June 6, 2002, 04:35

It can probably run with 32MB, but tends to use as much memory as available to run faster.

MarkG · June 6, 2002, 04:53

a minimum requirement is exactly that: a minimum requirement
just because a program uses all that ram(especially it finds it availiable, you have 768mb!), it doesnt mean it cant turn with less

delsolsi · June 6, 2002, 05:22

Quote:

Originally posted by statusperfect
Maybe it uses more RAM tp run faster?

If thats the case I'd hate to see it run with less ram. It takes 2 or 3 seconds per turn later in the game with the ram I have.

Quote:

Originally posted by Nym
It can probably run with 32MB, but tends to use as much memory as available to run faster.

Your probably right, I've just never seen a program use all the available ram. Even windows will leave some ram for other programs to use.

Sava · June 6, 2002, 07:30

Man, you have a lot of other programs running. Does the game seem slow with all that other sh*t?

There is a lot of math and processing needed for any game, of course it's going to hog memory. It's not Freecell, you know.

Cesa · June 6, 2002, 09:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Sava
Man, you have a lot of other programs running. Does the game seem slow with all that other sh*t?

There is a lot of math and processing needed for any game, of course it's going to hog memory. It's not Freecell, you know.

Most of those are standard programs/services that Windows use, WinNT/2k/XP anyway. Except Civ 3 I could only see 3 or 4 programs that is not running on my computer (XP).

SpencerH · June 6, 2002, 10:30

Isnt that 768 Mb of RAM the swap file? How much actual RAM do you have.

The Viceroy · June 6, 2002, 10:40

Hmm I could see 7 that don't run on my XP set .. but then, I always remove all unwanted services etc .. probably why.

It certainly can run on a 32Mb machine .. even if it was 130Mb in size .. remember, Windows can allocate much much more memory that is actually available .. it will only use actual memory when its committed and active, anything not active will get paged into the swap file .. the swap file will be as big as your hard disk (or set limit if you have one).

Obviously, the constant paging from HD to memory and back is going to slow the game down hugely .. especially if you have a billion services running ..

I think the size of the games exe has more to do with the memory resident graphics/sound/data .. rather than the code pages themselves .. raw maths can be acheived with very very small code size .. even the amount of maths in a game like civ would not amount to much compared to the 130Mb you can see ..

Jahi · June 6, 2002, 10:51

its the trade newtwork that take that much ram.. on a 16 civ game i've been known to go as high as 260 MB of ram. as cites are destroyed you can actually watch it go down. i'm guessing they used a fully meshed network design when calculating the trade newtork which accounts for the long time between turns.

kmill25 · June 6, 2002, 11:19

I shut down as many programs as possible before running CivIII, but then I only have 64 megs of RAM.

ChaotikVisions · June 6, 2002, 12:36

If its there, it'll use it. Since you're playing Civ3 I don't think it using moe ram will adversely affect it, probably just makes it faster. I've got 512mb of ram in my comp, and i've seen it using 200+mb of it before.

chiefpaco · June 6, 2002, 12:38

Whenever I dip down to virtual memory Civ3 freezes up. I always reboot before I start playing it & shut down all my other processes if possible. It still takes up a ton of memory & I prefer to keep IE open if I can - a dangerous combo.

Panag · June 6, 2002, 15:39

hi ,

on some comp's , like a MAC with 1.5 giga ram it uses 400 m of it ,....

have a nice day

aebrahim · June 6, 2002, 18:28

On my old computer with only 144MB RAM, Civ3 used to complain and crash all the time due to lack of memory. Now, with my new 512MB RAM machine it doesn't complain at all.

Jethro83 · June 6, 2002, 20:23

I used to have 64MB of RAM. Civ III just wouldn't run properly, and took five minutes just to bring up the screen (you can imagine how slow it would be on huge maps).

Since adding an extra 256MB, its been fine. And that's even without enough space for a decent sized swap file.

AIL · June 7, 2002, 03:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Jahi
its the trade newtwork that take that much ram.. on a 16 civ game i've been known to go as high as 260 MB of ram. as cites are destroyed you can actually watch it go down. i'm guessing they used a fully meshed network design when calculating the trade newtork which accounts for the long time between turns.

I think the pathfinding of the AI-Workers has more to do with the game to slow down so much between turns. I tend to think so because when in peace it's my Workers that need most of the time.

The Viceroy · June 7, 2002, 03:38

Path finding certain is a processor hog , but not the ram hog .. although I certainly do not know what datastructures are enflating the Ram usage, it has to be something which lasts the entire game .. The fact that it grows suggests its dynamically allocated (which would make sense) .. so my guess is we have a linked list of cities/units/map improvements .. which grow as human + AI build .. I may well set off a log of Ram usage, and compare it with specific events such as city building, unit building, AI turns .. trade routes etc .. see where the most memory usage is comming in.

Sava · June 7, 2002, 09:12

Still, I'd go into your registry edit and get rid of a lot of those start-up programs. My philosophy is, if I want to run a program, I'll run it, don't automatically start it.

Just eyeballing, about half of those programs don't need to be running.

Panag · June 7, 2002, 14:07

Quote:

Originally posted by Sava
Still, I'd go into your registry edit and get rid of a lot of those start-up programs. My philosophy is, if I want to run a program, I'll run it, don't automatically start it.

Just eyeballing, about half of those programs don't need to be running.

hi ,

when you look at the pic above , most comp's are like that , no to much extra , ......of course we dont know what is at the second part of the pic , ....

the editor also use's a lot , but hey , what do you expect , with such a program , ........

also when on a high resolution screen it use's more , but then again you can see a lot , .....

its all about balance , the more you use , the more it eats , ....

have a nice day

Jahi · June 7, 2002, 15:43

everytime you build an airport or harbor watch the ram usage go up a little :P.. conversly, start destroying them and watch it go down a little too.

Panag · June 7, 2002, 18:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Jahi
everytime you build an airport or harbor watch the ram usage go up a little :P.. conversly, start destroying them and watch it go down a little too.

hi ,

yeah it goes up , about "zero point zero one percent" , ...........

have a nice day

MBD · June 7, 2002, 19:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Jahi
everytime you build an airport or harbor watch the ram usage go up a little :P.. conversly, start destroying them and watch it go down a little too.

That's very interesting. I would have thought that building an airport in a city would only result in a flag being set in the city's data, so no additional memory would be needed, and none would be saved if the airport is deleted.

I have wondered for some time now if there is a memory leak in the game, because I often get that "low on resources" message box if I haven't saved my game and exited in a while.

Panag · June 7, 2002, 19:17

Quote:

Originally posted by MBD

That's very interesting. I would have thought that building an airport in a city would only result in a flag being set in the city's data, so no additional memory would be needed, and none would be saved if the airport is deleted.

I have wondered for some time now if there is a memory leak in the game, because I often get that "low on resources" message box if I haven't saved my game and exited in a while.

hi ,

checking on that resource box shall only use more ram then all the new stuff in PTW , ....

have a nice day

zulu9812 · June 7, 2002, 19:20

Quote:

Originally posted by MBD
That's very interesting. I would have thought that building an airport in a city would only result in a flag being set in the city's data, so no additional memory would be needed, and none would be saved if the airport is deleted.

Presumably, the added optiosn for movement mean more comlicated path-finding, which which is the main factor turn-end lengths. However, this only affects the AI and automated workers. Then again, perhaps the CivIII engine has to recalculate resource allocation every turn and thus more options would result in more memory being used.

Panag · June 7, 2002, 19:24

Quote:

Originally posted by aebrahim
On my old computer with only 144MB RAM, Civ3 used to complain and crash all the time due to lack of memory. Now, with my new 512MB RAM machine it doesn't complain at all.

hi ,

its not always the fault of the ram , .....

have a nice day

MBD · June 7, 2002, 21:11

Quote:

Originally posted by zulu9812

Presumably, the added optiosn for movement mean more comlicated path-finding, which which is the main factor turn-end lengths. However, this only affects the AI and automated workers. Then again, perhaps the CivIII engine has to recalculate resource allocation every turn and thus more options would result in more memory being used.

I can understand about needing more memory for pathing, although if the code is allocating and freeing memory for calculating every path, that seems inefficient.

For resource allocation, when the airport or harbor is built, you just go through each affected city and set another flag, indicating that a resource is now available because of the airport or harbor. Of course, it's never as simple as the description.

rhenric557 · June 7, 2002, 22:57

There are alot of factors as to what makes turns go longer as the game progresses:
1. Is the obvious amount of AI and automated human players.
2. There is alot more strategic resources as the game goes on each Strategic resource uses a dice roll basically to decide wether or not it is depleated and is then re alocated to some other place on the map.
3. It isn't always the RAM that makes the difference, you have to look at the speed of your Hard Drive( Plus wether or not it's been defragged lately, plus if it is near full it will also swap file much slower), The CPU is being run at nearly 100% while in the game.
4. Plus I am sure many more which I've yet to name. The list goes on, but the point is that it goes way beyond your RAM.

Travathian · June 8, 2002, 00:23

Actually I've had Civ3 chewing up over 400mb of memory on a 256x256 map in the late game.

I am so glad I went with 512mb back when memory was cheap