Why is it soo long to wait for a turn later on??

What size map?
What kind of processor?

i have a 733 intel pentium and i only play on gigantic

733 Mhz? Gigantic? Well... seems like we have all the reasons here...

Seriously: I even get some waiting time on my XP 2000+... but ONE HOUR? Do you run any programs in the background?

Gigantic does cause some delay on the slower computers. Even if you don't encounter the delay, it's also very tedious in some cases if you have to manage a large quanitiy of ships. Perhaps you should tone down the size by at least one level... (i.e. Large or smaller)
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I have the same processor, but haven't played on larger than medium...sorry. no trouble on medium, though.

OK, available RAM will have a much bigger impact than processor speed, 733MHz should be fine. My guess is you have 256MB of RAM, which is really not enough for modern Windows (is that an oxymoron? systems. Once you reach a critical point with disk swapping, it's all over, the PC just spends all its time swapping out pages of RAM and doing very little actual "computing".

Also, someone posted in an earlier thread that there is a small memory leak in the app. Try saving the game, exiting GC, then restart GC and reload the game. If that makes a big difference, then the memory leak might be the problem.

Or it could be a combo of both.

I doubt that memory is the issue and nobody answered the original question. I have a PC (athlon 900 with 512Meg) ram and a work laptop with a faster processor.

In both cases I get a slow down in mid game which happens especially on larger maps.

Memory: If you look at your perfromance info on the pc you can see how much memory the game is taking + total memory usage. In my case, if I am not running much else then the memory usage is well under 256Meg ( ~SDC~
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Is this in a single game or happens in all games?

If in a single game then I suggest you end the game to Stardock as there may be a bug which they can identify and fix from your saved game. If it happens in all games then I'm very surprised. You hardware is well within spec. Again you could try sending a saved game to stardock,

Paul.

~SDC~

Turning on Background Loading can help, but then again I have heard that it can slow it down. You may wanna give it a try.

I get atrociously slow turn loads in the later game too, on my Athlon XP 2200+ with 640MB ram... In fact sometimes the game just hangs there for 5 minutes or more when it's getting ready to throw a random event at me (usually one where the AI gets 100 Precursor Corvettes--this event happend at least 5 times in my last game). It's pretty annoying that I have to get up and go get a drink, and flip through the channels on the TV while I wait for the thing to process a single turn...

I have the foillowing specs and NEVER have a delay on any map size or any part of the game:

* OS: Win XP Home SP1
* Directx 9.0A
* Processor: Athlon XP 2700+ (333 MHz bus)
* Motherboard: Asus A7N8X
* Bios Rev: Version 1004
* NForce II drivers: 2.0
* Memory: Corsair 1 Gig DDR 3500 CL2
* Video Card: ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Cat 3.4
* Sound Card: SB Audigy 2
* 3 IBM Hard Drives: ATA 100 - 80 Gig 7200 rpm
* Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2060u - 22”
* Pioneer DVD Drive

I have a 900 mhz Athlon with 512 megs RAM and I see no slowdowns on any map size up to Huge. Gigantic does slow it down but that understandable. 900 mhz is slow now adays.

Anyway, make sure to turn off the option to see the AI moves and battles. That will greatly increase turn speed. You can also turn off the option to see your auto moves. This will also speed things up.

At least some things to try.

Also it gets slower as time goes by because the AI are doing more managing more ships,planets,etc. one reason it gets slower.

~SDC~

I get slowdowns, but nothing near that. On a Gig map, late game, it takes about 3-4 minutes to load and a turn is about 30-60 seconds, but occasionally longer. I am running on an old comp though (PIII, 600MHz, 128MB RAM) so I'm not surprised at my slowdown.

I think you're exaggerating a bit, but compare it with civilization 3.

I timed a turn for gigantic with 5 AIs still active. 19 minutes on a 650 MHz with 256 MBs of RAM. On faster computers(1.6 GHz), it still takes 8 minutes. Just for the AI.

The multithreading technique for generating AI strategy is genius. Older cpus might not have the architecture, so interpret as you see fit.

The reason the game gets slower later is rather obvious. As the game progresses, there are a lot more things going on to compute than before. Tons of ships, colonies, events occuring to both player and AI.. etc etc etc.

There, question answered. Happy?

But the delays you're getting sound downright atrocious.. especially the fellow with a rather fast system and yet he gets slowed like that. I have slight delays on gigantic, into the game a ways.. but nothing like THAT. A minute or two, tops. Usually more like 30-45 seconds, in fact! I have a Pentium 4 1.7 ghz with GeForce3 Ti500 GPU. 512 MB RAM, fully updated drivers, Windows XP..

I'm curious, what operating system and how much RAM do those of you having issues have?

~SDC~