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I have pretty decent hardware and I run many games on it. But Civ 5 is unacceptably slow when it reaches an advanced stage where it shows the whole map and there are many units.

I tried to monitor the CPU and memory and I couldn't find the bottleneck. I run it in a fast SSD and I didn't monitor my GPU.

I noticed a speed improvement when I changed from DX10/11 to DX9. But the performance isn't acceptable yet.

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Try to play when the view is a bit more zoomed in, perhaps? I've noticed a significant drop in performance the more you zoom out. – Oak♦ Feb 22 '11 at 0:33
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When you say it is slow, do you mean that the graphics and scrolling are slow, or do you mean that it takes a long time for the computer players to take their turns? – bwarner Feb 22 '11 at 13:03
@bwarner both. sometimes just the npc turns that bother me – Jader Dias Feb 24 '11 at 2:15
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5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Get FRAPS or some other tool to display the frame rate and monitor the effects of your changes.

There are a quite some things you could try to do:

  • reduce the graphics settings
  • play at a lower resolution
  • use the strategic view (doesn't help as much as one would think)
  • play on smaller maps
  • don't zoom out as much (as Oak already said)
  • win before the modern age
  • install the latest graphics drivers

If you're talking about the time between turns, you'll be happy to know that the next patch is supposed to significantly reduce that time.

You did not write your exact specifications of your computer, Civilization V is a pretty resource-hungry game, you'll need a relatively new and powerful CPU and GPU to play it at decent settings.

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Win before the modern age =) It sounds easier than it is – Jader Dias Feb 22 '11 at 11:48
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@Jader I know, but it is actually one of the best ways to ensure good performance. The difference between early game and late game is pretty big. – Fabian Feb 22 '11 at 13:00
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up vote 3 down vote

CTRL + G: I find removing the grid lines improves the game speed dramatically in the late game.
CTRL + R: Removing resource icons.

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up vote 2 down vote

I was having some horrible slowdowns on two different machines during later eras. For me the solution was to to add both the save directory (My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5) and the game directory (Program Files (x86)\Sid Meier's Civilization V) to AVG Resident Shield's exclusion list.

The game still has some memory leakage that slows it a little over time but i'm no longer getting the 1.5-2 minutes per turn i was getting (now the max is like 30 seconds).

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up vote 2 down vote

Civilization V can be a very demanding game when it comes to your computer. one way you could improve the speed is by closing out of other programs and also turn down some of the graphical settings. Also the map size and the amount of leaders you are playing with can also effect your preformance.

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up vote -1 down vote

From the official forum:

The game is REALLY laggy/slow/has graphical issues.

This is most likely a video driver problem. If you are uncomfortable DLing the most recent BETA drivers for your card (if you have Nvidia), then just make sure you have the most recent driver and as long as you do, do a CLEAN reinstall of it and then reinstall DirectX11.

If you are ok with DLing the Beta, go to the Nvidia website and go to "Archived and Beta drivers", select your card, and select the most recent from that list. Download it, and select the "Custom Install" option and select "Clean install." If that alone does not help, reinstall DirectX11 and hopefull it will be smooth sailing.

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