Optimizing turn resolution speed

JaydedOne · #1 March 24th, 2004, 09:20 PM

I realize that, given the cross-platform status of the game combined with the huge variety of OS setups, there's probably not a lot that I can be told to do aside from close all other programs and perhaps buy more memory. However, I thought I'd ask on the off-chance that someone had some pointers all the same.

Right now, I love the World War map but find it prohibitively slow when playing with 16 AI players (on Difficult, but I imagine this doesn't matter.) Turns once I get out to around 20 start bogging down my computer (specs below) to the point where it's taking two or three minutes for D2 to crunch out the subsequent set-up.

I run on a laptop XP 1.2 ghz with 256 mb RAM. I keep all other programs closed while playing and don't minimize in-between turns and I'm still seeing this sort of lag. Any ideas on how to work with the system I've got to upgrade performace? I have no idea if increasing the page file (my first idea) would help as I'm fairly, much to my shame, tech-illiterate beyond the basics.

Help appreciated! Here's hoping that some general tips for other PC XP Users may surface so that this thread doesn't feel completely selfish. Apologies again in advance if this is a repeat of sorts thread-wise. I searched for five minutes with a variety of terms but didn't find anything relevant.

[ March 24, 2004, 20:22: Message edited by: Miguel Duran ]

Peter Ebbesen · #2 March 24th, 2004, 09:27 PM

It may sound silly, but the single best thing you can do is probably to slot in an extra block of 256MB ram. Just running XP eats a huge chunk of the 256MB you have already got and leaves a minimal amount to the application, which often leads to excessive page-swapping.

That said, later turns on the world map do take a long time even on my 2.4GHZ desktop, but 2-3 minutes by turn 20.. That's really bad.

JaydedOne · #3 March 24th, 2004, 10:11 PM

Not silly at all, really. I'm just being cheap and seeing if there are other internal alternatives I can turn to before going out and spending the admittedly-small amount of cash on another 256k stick. Odds are I'll resort to that anyway, given my growing addiction.

magnate · #4 March 25th, 2004, 01:04 PM

Bring up the Task Manager (ctrl-alt-del) and shut down everything that isn't needed to run Dom2. You need to be careful not to shut down any essential services, but you can google for a guide to doing it safely.

My apols if you are a conscientious system admin and have nothing running except the base OS, but the chances are that something you installed is using up some resources without you realising it. The older your install, the more likely this is. The number of icons next to the clock is a good rough guide.

CC