Poor cache management

The Core 2 Quad is an extremely old CPU line; nearly 7 years have passed since the Q8200's initial release! This is indeed ancient; your PC may very well be too weak to properly handle an Insane sized map.

Actually, yes it is.

Still doesn't explain the behavior where the game runs fine and then lags. If his computer couldn't handle the load then it would just always lag. But it sounds like a threshold case. His computer is good enough to run the game, but not good enough to overcome some occasional (and unexplained) load.

If the problem is sloppy memory management, then identifying it and fixing it would mean that the game would be playable by a much wider range of machines (and it would also mean that you people with beefier machines would be able to play "Dangerously Insane" maps).

The Core 2 Quad is not equal to an i5 CPU; you do not meet the recommend specs. That being said the behavior you are experiencing is weird and does merit investigation.

My PC died after I did something...stupid. But my drive is intact so my next build should be able to play insane maps without any problem for 1000+ turns!

But I remember this when i last played; caches are important and what not but with this game you need every bit of 8GBs of RAM and a good CPU/GPU. Or else you get CTDs like I did on insane maps, back when I had a PC. :p

Also, anti-analizing and texture-scopic-filtering (or something with a similar name) really slow down fps and memory so turn those off if you turned them on. (as the defult setting is off)

DARCA

Is there a dangerously insane map size!?!

also, those requirements aren't for insane maps. God knows what you need for them, as the requirments would likely be double what it is for a constantly stable game. The maps really are insane and iirc, Stardock has said play it if you can but no guarantees.

Quoting DARCA1213, reply 6

Or else you get CTDs like I did on insane maps, back when I had a PC.

Also, anti-analizing and texture-scopic-filtering (or something with a similar name) really slow down fps and memory so turn those off if you turned them on. (as the defult setting is off.

Well, I've played 139 hours without a CTD, so at least that much is stable.  And I don't recall activating anything that wasn't already activated, but I'll check if anti-aliasing and anisotropic were preset to ON the next time I start up the game.

Hmm.  It does seem that the lags picked up as more of the map was revealed.  Makes me wonder if EVERYONE gets lagging on Insane maps, sooner or later.

[Interesting note on those Insane maps:  I started a game with me and 5 AI opponents.  The galaxy is a HUGE hex, and I started on the center bottom of the "South" half of the hex.  I haven't uncovered half of the hex yet, but I _have_ encountered all 5 of the other AI Major races.  So that "North" half of the hex must be pretty underpopulated.]

Forgive the post doubling, but there was a major change in performance.  Came back after dinner and started playing.  Three hours later, still no lagging in performance.  HOWEVER, for the first time, I had a CTD... sort of.  The game screen disappeared and I was looking at my monitor's wallpaper.  The music was still playing, but there wasn't a minimized program icon on the task bar.  In fact, there wasn't a task bar.  So I did an Alt-Ctrl-Del to bring up Task Manager, the game was still running.  Closed TM and there the task bar was back with the GC3 minimized icon.  Clicked on that and that brought back the music, but an entirely black screen.  Nothing I could do would cycle back to the game screen.  Like looking off into space, but with no stars.

Now I'm totally confused .  I haven't a clue as to what causes this kind of thing.  I'll run an antivirus scan and malware zapper tonight, but I suspect both of those won't find anything.

Nope. I have played one insane map game to completion, and am on a second one now. Running 50ai opponents as well, with max minor races. But my rig is also a hell of a lot newer then yours too. So dunno.

I've discussed this on a couple other threads, but I'm coming back to this one.  I think I've found the culprit: Steam.

Over most of this last weekend, I was able to play for hours on end with no lagging.  Today, the lagging is back.  5-10 minutes good; 5-10 minutes of lagging.  Back and forth.  The fact that I was able to play for several hours straight with no lagging demonstrates that my PC setup IS capable of carrying the load.  (Especially since I've now revealed @85% of the Insane-sized galaxy.)  I checked my video driver, which is 353.06, and it's the same driver I've had since 5/31, before I started playing GC3.  Everything is starting to suggest an outside influence that is interfering with my PC's operations.

That's where Steam comes in.  With all of the hoopla circulating because of the new games revealed at E3, Steam has been going crazy with sales and deals.... Monday through Friday, office hours.  That annoying Steam popup you often get when exiting a game you have been playing has been changing 2-3 times a day.... Monday through Friday.  If you have a Steam account, you may have noticed that while first booting up your PC, there is a "Steam is updating" panel that runs for a minute or two.  For the most part, what is being updated is the day's Steam Sale info.  But with Sales being altered and adjusted several times a day, Steam slips into the background to update that popup you get when shutting down a game.  My theory is that when Steam is futzing around behind your program, it's competing for the active use of PC resources.  And GC3 is a VERY resource-demanding program.  And Steam is VERY selfish about sharing resources.

It's a theory anyway.  The best one I can come up with to explain why GC3 keeps fluctuating between running just fine to crawling-through-molasses lagging.

My ex said I have poor cache management as well. I paid a lawyer to take care of that

Started to play the game after 11 p.m. PDT.  As I suspected, no lagging whatsoever.  Whatever/whoever is interfering with the game during office hours.

Wait, what? You can play this game during work? 

I suspect steam doing a lot of things myself.  I havent tried it, but is there a way these days to play "offline" from steam?  I know there was a way years ago, when internet was not "reliable".

You misunderstand.  It is during Steam's office hours that they are constantly interfering with subscribers' PCs.  It's probably those hourly flash sales being updated that is causing the interference.

These days, it seems that the only time the "Play offline" option comes up is when the user's Internet connection has flaked out.  Otherwise, Steam is constantly updating the user's game files.  (Which is how, if your PC gets fried, you can restore all your current games onto your repaired/replacement PC.

You only need steam to install and update gc3 you can then just launch the exe and should be able to close steam entirely

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

Disabling the Steam Overlay seems to have eliminated the problem (for now).

If you try to play GalCiv 3 while Steam is shut off, then the game wants to start Steam first before you can actually play. 

So if you are in game, can you X out of Steam and close the operation in the program/services tab on right hand side? I have not tried to close steam while playing. I may try that. 

I play fine on insane and no lag. 

according to brad excessive and insane maps are for 16-32 gigs of ram. Imense should be fine.

No, you can't. The game requires Steam to be running in order to function. Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my last post, but that is what I trying to say.

I can't hook the computer to the internet. If you unhook the internet it runs in offline mode. It will check for steam, and give you an option to run in offline mode. Since you don't. Have 16 gigs of ram you should be playing immense. It helps to run low performance, since I think they mean quality not performance. Windows does not run a big enough paging file you need to customize that 24 gigs of ram.

Now that I've turned off the Steam Overlay --

-Turning off Steam Overlay

Uncheck the box that Enables the overlay.

-- my game on an Insane map works fine, even though I have only 8 Gb of RAM.  (And I've uncovered >85% of the entire map.)

It may be that the need for more RAM arises when playing multiplayer.

just to clarify I meant unhook the internet before you start the game. You will have to wait for updating. After it fails at updating it will give you an option for offline mode. Also every computer I've seen automatically gives you balance power options including desktops. I recommend setting this to high performance. You can also set windows for best performance.