Constant nonstop freezing when nothing is happening

from GalCiv3 Forums

It's making my game completely unplayable. The game runs easily at 60 fps cap and turns are very fast, but I get constant long freezes when I'm not even moving the screen. All other games run perfectly, but GalCiv3 feels like an unoptimized nightmare. Is it just me or is this the games fault? As for my system, my processor and GPU are more than good enough, my drivers are updated, I even fiddled around with virtual memory to see if its that. The only problem I can think of is that I only have 4gb of memory, but this happens even on the smallest map sizes when nothing is loading.

Thanks in advance for any help.

9,361 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


The only problem I can think of is that I only have 4gb of memory,
End of quote

could be it.
The game does not seem to run very well, with only 4gb RAM.  Although it should be ok on the very small maps.
But in any case, submit a report to Stardock with a saved game exhibiting your problem and the support logs.  It could be bad optimization for their game or it could be something else.

The instructions are here:

https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/default_import/Knowledgebase/Article/View/496/161/general-galactic-civilizations-iii-troubleshooting

 


EDIT:

if you run any other software while playing Galciv3, make sure to disable them before launching the game.  Anti-virus can consume some memory, but aside that, stuff like browser window, torrent software, downloader, office app, etc, should be disabled if you only have 4gb.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

What redviper37 said is very correct. 4GB is the minimum. I would suggest if after turning everything else off on your PC besides the game, check the video settings. Without knowing your hardware, it'd be difficult for me to give any more thoughts.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I too get this, but I'm running 8GB of memory on an i5 (2500k) and GTX670.

In my case, GalCiv3 seems to be chewing up every spare bit of system memory available (By comparison, only other game that does this seems to be GTAV) and it causes the hard-drive to fire up and chug away.

Only things running apart from Windows processes are Steam, GeForce Experience, Curse Client and my Audio software (good old realtek). No on-access AV etc (I play on hardmode.)

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Same here. Running nice and smoothly with heavy freezes that take minutes (!) to resolve.

My System Specs are:

Win7 - 64bit

Phenom II X4 945

4 GB Ram

Radeon 6870

 

I know it's not high end, but honestly GalCiv3 isnt technically a breakthrough too. If the game requires better hardware to even run campaign map 1, then (sorry) it's just bad code imo.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

If I may suggest the obvious, it may not be the game.

 

* turn off windows updates (do it manually once in a while):

damn thing eats up your cpu/memory whenever your pc goes idle

 

* use free online scanners to scan for problems:

google free online virus scan, install/enable, run it, then uninstall/disable

 

* run msconfig.exe and disable startup crap you don't use, free up memory:

C:\Windows\System32\msconfig.exe (make an icon of this on your desktop)

 

* press ctrl-alt-del / task manager / processes when pc slows, and see which processes are eating up the cpu

 

 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Well, i just reloaded campaign map 2. Took just a few turns to reproduce that common freeze.

Memory usage was around 70% total (~1.6 GB Civ3), CPU at 30%, no peaks,

but the HDD peaked in writingspeed, pagefile.sys to be specific and causing unusual page faults resulting in that freeze.

 

I have no other game or program causing that problem.

Including large scale games, games with heavy video usage or rendering software.

And it's repeatedly reported by GalCiv3-Players.

So i'd prefer to stick with Occam's Razor

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Started a new game, large map, 8 civs. Freeze occurance is random. Can be on galaxy map. Can be on colony management screen. Can be early combat. Does not appear in later stages of any distinct game "phase" - does not happen near end of combat, does not happen when I've been sitting on the same turn a while.

Memory usage was around 70% total (~1.6 GB Civ3), CPU at 30%, no peaks,
End of quote

My system memory during one freeze was 45% (about 2.8gb GC3) with CPU utilization at ~60% total (No cores at 100%), but both values are irrelevant if they're not maxed. Wasn't watching HDD health last I checked though but considering I'd already noted a considerable bit of noise from my HDD during this phase I would assume it's also a pagefile issue.

I also don't get this issue on any of the following games I've played for 5 hours or more in the last month: Football Manager 15, Rome 2 Total War, World of Warcraft, Battlefield 4 or Mass Effect 3.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

thegory1, 

Next time you get a freeze can you submit a ticket (https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit) with the auto-save game attached so we can take a look?  Thank you.  

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Next time I get playing. will do!

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting supersolid, reply 4

Same here. Running nice and smoothly with heavy freezes that take minutes (!) to resolve.

My System Specs are:

Win7 - 64bit

Phenom II X4 945

4 GB Ram

Radeon 6870

 

I know it's not high end, but honestly GalCiv3 isnt technically a breakthrough too. If the game requires better hardware to even run campaign map 1, then (sorry) it's just bad code imo.
End of supersolid's quote

4GB Ram and a video card from 2010. GC3 is a 64bit game that will attempt to utilize your hardware in ways 32bit games can't. This Prefs file may help you run a smoother game:

http://sd.stardock.com/Support/games/GC3/LowSettings/Prefs.zip 

Also what Drokmed said is good advice to follow in general. That said, please submit your information as pshaw pointed out later in the thread so we can take a look.

Download and run the tool below:

http://sd.stardock.com/Support/supportToolTest/SDSupportTool.exe 

Then attach the .zip that's created and send it in with a ticket to support:

https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit 

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting The_Gear, reply 10

This Prefs file may help you run a smoother game:
End of The_Gear's quote

Sadly, this hasn't worked.

I just updated my ticket and attached the .zip

Looks like scrolling the map favours causing a freeze. like clicking the minimap a few times or entering a planet which is also performing a mapscroll.

But may also happen when hovering a button.

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top

Thank you for submitting your info to the ticket. I hope we can help you change some graphical settings or figure out what may be causing this. :)

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

This hasn't stopped bothering me. Meanwhile i updated the graphic drivers, played around with the prefs.ini and relocated the pagefile while increasing it to 6 GB to a different physical drive without any difference.

 

I found that when you completely zoom out (might take a bit), you can edge-scroll and jump by minimap pretty nicely. The further you zoom in it's getting worse.

Zoom Level 1 (completely zoomed out) working nice

2 still nice, small lags appear

3 lags may take a second or two when scrolling

4 this is where the symbols turn to ship-/planetmodels, you may guess what's happening.

The backround-stars are already visible, but it takes forever to draw the fog of war, grid and objects while the HDD is working really hard.

 

Testing on GalaxySize=Large StarFrequency=Abundant PlanetFrequency=Abundant Turn 160 (where it turns from annoying to unplayable)

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Sorry for double posting

 

Ok: Here is the very ugly and dirty workaround to reduce the heavy RAM-usage until there is a proper solution.

 

1. Go to your steamapps\common\Galactic Civilizations III\Gfx\Models\Ships\Textures

2. Sort files by size and delete all files above 5 mb :omg:

Notice: You should make a backup of the files first, but when moving them into a sub-folder the game still seems to find them. I made a quick .zip instead.

 

This is a first-aid-treatment, no solution!

The Treatment reduces Game-Data of ~2.2 Gb. This will of course have a visual effect on your game, though there is no error-message or something. Also there might be issues, that i haven't experienced yet.

The Ship-Models and colors still seem to be okay and it's playable, though they might flicker a bit due to missing textures/shaders/maps.

 

The problem: The game seems to use multiple and really big texture-files per shipset.

e.g.

AltarianTexture_A_Data.dds 42.6 MB

AltarianTexture_A_Lean1.dds 42.6 MB

AltarianTexture_A_Lean2.dds 85.3 MB

AltarianTexture_A_Normal.dds 42.6 MB

AltarianTexture_A_Diffuse.dds 10 MB

AltarianTexture_A_Light.dds 10 MB

Total: ~232 MB that has to be crawled over and over again every time it draws an altarian ship. Not sure if the visual benefit at a common zoom-level justifies the texture sizes in general, but for me it doesn't ofc. So, for the 4 GB ppl (and 8 with background programs running), the game seems to need an optimized texture pack or the option to disable/reduce certain texture-effects.

 

There is definetly more room for optimization or a more elegant workaround, but i dont have time for further testing, i have to stop a Drengin Invasion! >_>