Civilization 4 with x3100 is pathetic!

Just tried this game and I get the SAME fps I got with my intel 915gm. FRAPS reports about 15fps average, regardless of what I have the graphics set to.

 

I thought the 'secret herbs and spices' of the X3100 chipset was only going to be unlocked when Intel releases new drivers for it in Q1 2008.

And by herbs and spices I meant the unified shader architecture as found on the GF8 series. That would surely boost texture and fillrate performance, but until then it's no different from prev gen integrated gfx.

 

I'd rather have a good processor, I have to wait like a minute in the 17th century in rhyse and fall for a turn to process on my VAIO (started as Babylon in 3000BC and then switched to Rome when it popped up(was getting owned by the Indians and Persia popped up and stole the saudi peninsula)

 

Could someone please run civ 4 with FRAPS and report their fps? Just to compare with what I am getting.

 

Turn off all eye candy for the best graphics performance. It ran mostly OK on my old HP with an AMD 2400+ CPU and the ATI IGP320M shared memory card up until the start of the modern age.

Besides, long end-turn wait times should have absolutely nothing to do with the graphics. It's all the CPU there, calculating moves and trade routes etc. What CPU do you have? And what are the map size and # of civs you are playing with? Even the best rigs experience slowdown with large maps and 18+ civs.

 

1: I had an increase in FPS when switching from an:
Pentium M 2.0 on GM915 chipster (GMA900) 1GB RAM
to a:
Core2Duo 1.67ghz, GM965(x3100), 2GB RAM.

Particularly when playing the Europe 1936 scenario. Which was a little bit choppy on my old laptop.

2: I thought Civ4 was mainly an intensive CPU games; whatever the GPU you had, it was secondary.

3: I love Civilization; I'm playing the series since Civ I, Civ IV is wonderful, particularly since the new expansion with the new A.I.. But I think the game graphical engine is badly optimized.

 

T7300 Processor
1gig ram
X3100 w/ latest driver

When I tested my fps I just started a new custom game with all the default settings. I believe it was a "standard" sized map. I didnt actually process any turns, I just zoomed in and out. The fps was between 20-15 at all times. This seems extremely low considering it wasnt late game and i had not even explored the map. The graphical settings did not make a difference for fps.

*edit*
for those of you with a x3100, what is your 3dmark05 score with the latest drivers? Im only getting 730 under WinXP.

 

when I tried civ4 demo it ran pretty well.

x61tablet with 1.6LV and 3gb ram

 

Hey noxxle99. You using Vista or XP? I had sh*t performance with Vista on Acer Aspire 5100 (Turion64 single core 2.4GHz, Radeon Xpress 1100). Installed XP and it ran like a charm.

 

Vista. I have upgraded to 2 gigs of ram and I now get a score of 875 in 3dmark05. However, im still getting sub 20fps in Civ4. This is NOT late game, this is when creating a new "small" map before playing any turns. For those of you that think you are getting a decent frame rate, can you check it with FRAPS?

Btw, the x3100 Vista driver lacks support for hardware shaders. Unlike the xp driver, which recently added hardware shader support. This might have something to do with it. However, I have a friend with the x3100 under XP and he claims he gets sub 20fps too.

 

Civ4 does put a slight strain on the GPU because it's 3D and not sprite based like the last versions...

Try it under XP, that should help... (100point difference in 3DMark05 isn't much so don't get your hopes up about the "improvements", my m9750 gets up to 39,000 in 03 OC'ed and 36,000 stock) I'd test an Intel 950 with an Intel P4 and 1GB RAM but I don't have 3DMark05 just 03 and 06, but I'm surprised the X3100 under Vista is so... bad...

 

it's just because of the lack of driver support, as soon as they get hardware t&l/vertex shaders working, hopefully it will be not too bad

 

People, stop claiming it doesn't support it. It does. Yes, it doesn't work all the time and it has bugs, but it has hardware vertex shader support. Just because it doesn't say it supports hardware T&L/vertex shader on the release notes doesn't mean it doesn't. If you look at the beta 15.6b drivers you'll notice they didn't say anything about hardware T&L/vertex shader, yet it shows it on the XP beta driver. But it does, because the description for the driver does, and people say it supports on the 15.6b driver. It's just Intel's way of not putting all the information on Vista.

Do you really think 15.6b, which is a 15.6 BETA supports it while the final version took it out? Neither says it supports it but people claim 15.6b driver supports it, weird.

 

The official 15.6 Vista final driver? To the best of my knowledge it has neither VS 3.0 or HW T&L support. The 15.6B driver was supposed to preview those features, but it was buggy and actually decreased performance in some DX8 games, and as far as I know the current Vista driver does not have those features. The 15.6b Vista and the current XP driver specifically had a notice about HW T&L and VS 3.0, but that was removed from the final Vista driver, most likely because it was too buggy to release in a non-beta driver.

 

Oh come on, yes the 15.6b driver said it supported new features on the download page. But look at the release notes: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/13639/ENG/relnotes_gfx.htm

Features Added in Baseline 15.6
No information is available at this time

It says nothing on the new features supported, while you'll see one for the 14.31b. Doesn't mean it doesn't support it, because it surely does. It's Intel's way of putting descriptions on the release notes, they put all the new features supported paragraph on the XP version, but not for the Vista version.

This is just like people initially believing GMA X3000 based based on the Kyro because at the similar time Intel bought the rights to it. But so far, they only bought Kyro licensing to make it for PDAs, which is the same market Kyro also advertises for.

 

What are you saying? I agreed that 15.6b added support for those features, however it was merely a "preview", and it was buggy. However the final Vista driver does not appear to support those features, they were removed from the final release.

 

Oh, and btw, you are likely not gonna get faster performance in older games over the 915/945GM with the X3000. X3000 will run it better for newer games because that's how they are designed for. You'll never see Geforce 6150 outperform geforce 4 ti 4400 on quake 3, but you'll see it outperforming on games like Farcry because it has features Geforce 4 Ti doesn't.

The benchmark back when 14.21 drivers were out with GMA 950 and Core 2 Duo E6300 still beats my system with GMA X3000 and Core 2 Duo E6600 on XP using Quake 3 Arena benchmark. In fact, significantly, they get 200 fps while I get 120 fps.

 

How would you explain games like Battlefield 2 running on the 15.6b/15.6 driver?? 15.6b driver was a preview, but doesn't mean it emulated the features, it actually enabled the hardware features, it was just a beta version. Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 2 doesn't run on graphics cards without hardware T&L because the game specifically checks for it. And one person in this forum ran World in Conflict with his Vista system, while mine with XP wouldn't load the menu, in fact, it would give me bluescreen.

You remember when the driver with Pixel Shader 3.0 support first came on the X3000? Vista counterpart driver never stated the support. I don't know why Intel doesn't show on the Vista driver release notes that it supports the newer features, but they just don't say it.

The 15.6 driver is just bugged, like the 14.31. Both 15.6 driver and the 14.31 driver has a bug that sometimes gets stuck in perma-software VS mode. 14.31.1 driver fixes those problems. You just need to wait for the 14.31.1 counterpart to the Vista driver. Intel is a big company, but is very new to graphics. The fact that money isn't all you need to make a good GPU is shown here. Rumors say Intel is gonna have a driver problem with their discrete project, Larrabbee. Intel may topple AMDTI/Nvidia in graphics in the future, but they have a long way to go. They just don't have the guys that are experienced enough.

 

Again, I never said it was emulated on the 15.6b, I absolutely agree that the Vista 15.6b included VS3.0 and HW T&L (I called it a "preview" because that's what Intel called it), however the support was buggy and prone to crashes. And I haven't seen games that require 9.0c running on the final 15.6 Vista driver, in fact Intel specifically states in the release notes that one of the known issues is:

 

Check out Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 2 and see if it runs.

Funny thing is it shows it for XP & Vista, not just Vista. They are probably referring to the 14.31 driver, because the 14.31 driver does have a problem, although to a lesser extent. Meaning both of the drivers do support hardware VS/T&L, but has a bug making it not run sometimes.

And again, World in Conflict runs with Vista driver, while I can't run it on XP, check out the other thread about the GMA X3000.

 

Do the graphics look jumpy at those FPS? It is possible CivIV is only supposed to go up to 20 FPS - I'd test it myself but don't have both installation CDs with me.

IntelUser has a good point with low-end new cards not outperforming medium-end old cards on relatively graphics non-intensive cards, but my 2002 GeForce4 MX440 handled Civ4's graphics fine once I got enough memory - it wasn't jumpy, at any rate. Surely the X3100 equals that 5-year old medium-low end card?

In terms of demand, though, CivIV stresses (1) Memory (RAM), (2) Processor, (3) Graphics. And no, it's not a particularly optimized game - especially in the RAM area.

 

It's probably the bad drivers that's contributing there too. Remember Vista drivers lost performance with Nvidia/ATI cards?? It wasn't too apparent with DX games but it was significant with OpenGL apps. And that was from graphics companies that knows how to write one. We are talking about Intel, who barely got a driver out, so maybe Vista driver is getting a significant hit from it. Maybe it'll be different in XP.

I do agree Vista drivers are crap whether noxxll or I am right about the hardware T&L support.

 

I don't have access to any x3100 machine that has vista on it (only XP), so I can't. However I haven't heard any definite reports of the final Vista 15.6 driver running 9.0c required apps.

Nope, they are referring specifically to the Vista 15.6 final release driver in it's release notes.

And which other thread are you referring too? The x3100 driver thread appears to agree that the 15.6 drivers don't support the lighting or VS3.0 functions, there's even some evidence there.

 

Here's the page, scroll down to see it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=148045&page=13

Sigh, there are lots of X3000 driver threads. Please link. And from what I have seen people are just believing it doesn't support it from random posts.

This I theorize is again speculation derived from posters having Vista systems. Unless there is more evidence I don't buy into it. Specifically when people claim 15.6b supports it because it has a paragraph saying it does, but guys like you don't believe the sentence I just showed you saying XP drivers have a problem too. Why the hell would a 15.6 beta driver support that 15.6 doesn't, especially when they are named the same thing.

14.31.1 driver says: Automatic HWVP/SWVP selection can get stuck in SWVP mode for the bugs fixed, which is strangely similar to the bug that says:
HW DX9C_Lighting All fails on Windows* XP & WINDOWS VISTA*

And I gained more than 50% in performance from Company of Heroes, and another user reports 30-40% gain in Half Life 2. This isn't just a minor bug fix, its because previously it ran them in wrong modes.

Actually I am asking Vista users to run Battlefield 2/Call of Duty 2 to see whether it supports hardware T&L/VS, because those games require them or it won't run at all. Also try Supreme Commander and Warhammer 40000 series, because they both NEED hardware T&L/VS to start up the game in the first place.

 

This thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=128777
Specifically look at the later posts concerning 15.6.

You think Intel's release notes are speculation?

The first is referring to the shader selection (hardware or software emulation) which is not necessarily related to the 9.0c hardware lighting which is known to cause errors in the 15.6 final Vista driver.

To be clear, Battlefield 2 only requires DX8.1 shader 1.4 to run and Call of Duty 2 only requires shader 1.1 to run.

 

Tsk tsk tsk. Of course not. But you guys are making speculation based on it. Because the X3000 thread guys were basing it on 3dmark06, I'll show my results with 3dmark06. I will make a new thread about this. I am the same guy that posted the results at XP with the beta drivers. I'll now show what 14.31.1 driver says.

Sure does, but they REQUIRE hardware T&L and vertex shaders. It doesn't really care about shader versions as long as you have them. Try running on a GMA 950 and see if they run. They get DirectX errors. Intel also says: http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2007/08/gaming_on_integrated_graphics.html on the video that CoD2 and BF2 needs hardware T&L/Vertex Shader.

also try the older graphics driver versions that doesn't have hardware T&L/VS support, THEY WON'T RUN, so does supreme commander.

 

now you guys are talking about civ4 but anyone have any experience running this game with GeForce 6150 Go and Vista?

 

What speculations are we making based on it? I merely noted that not only does it not include a mention of support for either HW T&L, it specifically mentions a known error with DX9.0c hardware lighting.

You're correct, the do require HW T&L, however even if they run it says nothing about the state of the DX shaders supported by this driver. Even the earliest drivers had hardware shader support, the main issue now is whether or not we have hardware support for 3.0, and whether we have hardware support for T&L. I'm guessing, based on some more digging into other forums, that these 15.6 drivers included the T&L from the beta, but dropped hardware 3.0 because of the bugs, which is why it quotes an error with DX9.0c.

 

I have told you numerous times that the beta 15.6b drivers didn't state HW T&L support and VS either. XP drivers however does.

On page 10, epictrance4life mentions about 3dmark06 and how he doesn't have *Max Active Hardware Lights 0 support and vertex shader 3.0 support while another with XP driver has both. Well go see my thread and see what I got with the 14.31.1 driver.

Here's how I think the speculation ensued:
-Vista driver release notes say nothing about new supported features, while XP driver does
-People are reporting reduced performance
-3dmark06 reports no mention of hardware lights and VS 3.0
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=128777&page=10

1. The beta driver didn't say anything either on the release notes, it did on the download page though
2. Some people report reduced performance with XP too, I experienced reduced performance with beta drivers
3. Mine doesn't say hardware lights and VS3.0 with latest drivers either.

 

On the download page it did, and Intel claimed it had support for both T&L and shader 3.0. And you still haven't adressed the fact that Intel acknowledges a known issue with DX9.0c lighting on the Vista release notes, which is not mentioned (because it's not an issue) on the XP release notes. So clearly the support is not the same between the two drivers.

I've seen your thread, however it does not address anything but 3dmark06 and World in Conflict, and to be clear WIC does not require hardware 3.0 to run. It seems to be true that T&L has been enabled with these vista drivers, but you've given no evidence that full hardware 9.0c compatibility is there.

 

It's pretty obvious that Intel describes two drivers differently. But again what's important is the release notes, not the paragraph on the download page. You can notice Intel never said 14.31 is a hardware T&L supporting driver either when they released the production versions, but it says on the release notes. Release notes are what's important, not the download page. What if Intel never put the paragraph on the download page?? The fact is though because Vista driver is developed after the XP driver they feel they don't need to state new features.

It says neither for Vista, but what makes you guys conclude it doesn't support it?? They have not said anything on the release notes either for Vista, yet they claim on the download page it supports one. On the production notes, they just took out the description on the download page. In my eyes that changes nothing, they just took out the description, 15.6 is every bit a 14.31 counterpart.

Initially the debate was about whether it supports hardware T&L or not, but now it changed to whether it supports SM3.0?? BTW, even the 14.31pb and 14.31b drivers stated the actual Shader Model version is 2.0, not 3.0. 3.0 support came with the production versions. They say its SM3.0 on the download page, but it says on the release notes that it enables VS2.0 and hardware T&L: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/13638/ENG/relnotes_gfx.htm

There is no compatibility difference with SM2.0 and SM3.0, the difference is that it just supports more graphical features with SM3.0 that SM2.0 can't support. It has nothing to do with compatibility. You can run Voodoo3 with Doom 3 if you lower the graphics all the way down. The bigger problem is that the overall driver is screwed up. It supports hardware T&L, but the switch that enables either software VS or hardware VS is screwed up.

 

this thread is hilarious.

 

I'm curious as to whether you have any evidence or statements from Intel to support this, because it appears you're just assuming things about the way Intel documents their drivers.

I've concluded it doesn't support it because it's not mentioned in the release notes (which it is for XP) and a 9.0c lighting error is mentioned in the known issues (which is not mentioned in XP). If the drivers were the same then the release notes would be the same, clearly they're not, they each have their own known issues list.

Actually no, the initial debate was about hardware vertex shader support, then you brought up T&L, and now you're only addressing T&L :

And anyhow, the link you gave is for the beta XP driver, on the final XP driver (which you're claiming is the counterpart to the final 15.6 Vista driver) it specifically says in the release notes:

That is not true, there is a compatibility difference. Some games require SM3.0 to run. And the screwed switch is fixed in the XP driver, but isn't in the Vista drive which is further proof that the drivers are not the same.

 

Not to get in the way of the driver conversation, but this does look like the best thread in which to ask for Civ IV performance advice. I'm running it on a T7300 C2D w/2GB and an 8600M GT GPU. Game runs great, but the loading lag is driving me crazy. Any suggestions for decreasing the time I'll have to wait after using Control-L to erase my mistakes from history, e.g., disabling antivirus, shutting down other programs, etc.?

 

Hm, that's pretty much the same as my setup (Asus G1S), and it's working plenty fast for me. Check to see if you've got the latest patches - some of them considerably improved loading times and late-game speed. I know the expansions are considerably improved over the vanilla game, but since once I get an expansion I never go back in Civ, I can't tell you how much better the patched vanilla game is from personal experience.

 

No vanilla here; I'm running Warlords off the the Gold Edition. Good advice on patches; I actually haven't downloaded any, since I was under the impression that GE incorporated all of the latest patches. I'll go back and check to make sure that I have 2.13; would you recommend that I also go back and download all other earlier Warlords patches? What about vanilla patches? Again, I assumed that the Gold Edition would have shipped with everything included, but maybe I shouldn't have assumed that.

 

I think it only came out recently, so I'd have thought the Gold edition would have every patch except for the more recent BtS ones (none of which are very worth it - wait for the BIG one v3.13 which is supposed to be this/next week). It's worth checking out though, definitely. And you don't need any but the latest number patch, as they include all previous changes in the latest.

BTW I booted mine up just now, and was getting 40-50fps using FRAPS on my 8600M GT 256MB DDR3 in the early game. All settings on the highest, including 16x AA and native 1680x1050 res. I have recently killed some bloatware though, and noticed a definite improvement corresponding to probably about 5 fps on average in games like F.E.A.R. But I saw no problem with cIV before the bloatware extermination, so something's up, as the Dell 8600s shouldn't be THAT far behind the Asus ones.

 

Sorry, but it does not say for Vista beta driver release notes either. It says on the download page though.

And you mention the lighting error, however it says it has a problem for both XP & Vista. And the 14.31.1 driver fixes a problem: "Automatic HWVP/SWVP selection can get stuck in SWVP mode". This isn't just random coincidence to me, the XP driver in fact did have a problem.

Hardware Vertex Shaders replace Transform & Lighting on the later DirectX versions. And if we want to talk about whether it's on or off on the Vista driver, having T&L off would also mean Vertex Shaders are off.

I repeat, sorry, but it does not say for Vista beta driver release notes either. It says on the download page though. This is why I linked the XP beta driver page so you can see that while XP driver release notes say it supports the latest features on the "New features" section, it does not say for the Vista drivers on both the beta and the production driver.

On the RELEASE NOTES, not the download page, it says nothing about new support on the Vista BETA drivers either:

Beta 15.6b driver
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/13639/ENG/relnotes_gfx.htm

Features Added in Baseline 15.6

No information is available at this time

According to the Release Notes, 15.6b beta driver do not support the hardware features. Which is why I keep stating Intel is just not stating support on the Vista driver. It certainly doesn't mean Vista Beta drivers don't support hardware features either because it says on the download page.

Like?? It said on the XP beta driver notes that even though it only supported SM2.0 everybody ran the games fine, it was the final driver that brought support for SM3.0.

Beta XP driver: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/13638/ENG/relnotes_gfx.htm

Vertex Shader support targeting VS2.x hardware vertex processing
Production XP driver:

http://downloadmirror.intel.com/13883/ENG/relnotes_2k_xp_gfx.htm

Vertex Shader support targeting Vertex Shader 3.0 hardware vertex processing

Clearly the Shader Model support changed, and if games required SM3.0, it should not have run on the beta driver.

 

I don't think it has anything at all to do with the GPU- game play, graphics, etc. are all flawless at the highest settings. The only issue is that when I load up a game, it takes longer than I'd like. To be honest, I'm not sure there really is a problem- maybe I'm just impatient (one can only re-read the "hints" that display as a game is loading for so many times). How long does it take you to load up a saved game?

 

A fair point there - this game will depend much more on amount of RAM, RAM speed and CPU ability than graphics.

It depends on the year of said game save, that is to say the game with more developed civs and more complex trade and diplomatic ties will take longer than an early game one.

Just trying now, without a reboot, 20 s for a BtS game at 2000 BC, and 70 s for a game with a large map, 6 civs at 1830AD, where I'm at the industrial age of techs. That's from when I click 'load' to when the map is all loaded and I can scroll around. The second load was longer than I thought, but when I've put that many hours into a game to get it to that time, I load it and then go do something like getting a drink before coming back. I just don't expect it to take an instant to load something that I have invested so much time into building up. Hopefully those sorts of times mirror your own.

 

I never said that it did say it on the Vista beta driver, I do not care about the Vista beta driver. It's absence in the release notes on the Vista beta and it's absence on the Vista final driver does not mean that it is actually present on the Vista final driver.

Yes, and that problem was fixed on the final XP driver, as stated. However a problem is clearly still present on the Vista final driver, as it explicitly says so in the release notes. And for clarification, the selection issue mentioined in the XP notes is not necessarily related to the DX9.0c lighting issue mentioned in the Vista notes.

I am not discussing the vista beta drivers. What part of that don't you understand? I was comparing the XP final driver to the Vista final driver, which have two different release notes.

Like R6 Vegas, DiRT, Bioshock, MOH:AA, etc.

I'll refer you to this post:

 

Got a aspire 5312-2153 with the x3100. On the topic of lighting with the vista driver... I currently have version 15.6.1 installed and farcry has issues. If the lighting quality is on anything other than LOW you get a screen that is basically all white/lightblue and faintly can make out geometry objects. If you turn that option to low you can play it but for some reason the water is like see through and the ground is missing. I assume this proves or is related to the lighting being broken in the vista driver. If I turn on the AntiAliasing at all in farcry it just locks the app and I have to end task.

 

supposedly the 15.7 driver will be out within a week. It contains a TnL fix