Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (Full Version)

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tassox33 -> Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/29/2010 11:06:27 PM)

Hey guys ive been playing for awhile now and love the game, but i seem to be getting some lag. I'm wondering if this is just the way this game is, or if its my computer.

Running 32bit xp with a 2.2ghz dual core, 2 gigs 800mhz ram, and 9600gt. My RAM usage while in game is 1 gig steady and cpu is at 51%. Will upgrading to a quad 3.4 ghz, 4 gig ram and a 240gt hellp at all... if the system i have doesnt seem to be being used fully?
( I can play assasins creed, call of duty WaW, Supcom1/2 , Sins of a solar empire flawlessly and they are 3d games. )

Im running the 1.0.60 beta version



Florestan -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/29/2010 11:47:24 PM)

The lag is partly fixed with the 1.0.6.0. If you didn't, you may give it a try.
Upgrading your graphic card will do no good for this game, I think, as it is not a graphic intensive game. CPU at 51% may hint that one of your cores is maxed out. The beta also makes better use of multi-CPU, so the other CPU could light the charge of the first one.
The only real flaw is, you will have to start a new game...
My own CPU is at 2.40 GHz, not so higher than yours, but the 1.0.4.9 was also quite slow, but playable anyway. The difference is, I have 4 GB of RAM. I doubt it, but perhaps some more RAM may help ? Note that memory usage is a tricky thing to read in windows. And you'd need a 64bits version of windows to get to use more than 3GB correctly.
A good hint to a need of more memory is often when the computer randomly freeze for some split seconds now and then. It happens when windows saves parts of memory and then loads the parts that are needed by the program at the moment, that is called swap.
To finish, the usual recommendation when a computer is running slow : check for malware, and if/when clean, close down your anti-virus software before launching the game. Antivirus software lower the computer's performance.



Starfry -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/29/2010 11:55:26 PM)

What kind of lag you are getting? I know Supreme Commander and Sins suffer from late game slowdowns if there is so many particles going around and all strategy games suffer slowdowns late game as many units get built and not blown up ASAP.



LeonTheNeon -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 12:06:49 AM)

I don't think upgrading will make a tremendous difference. I just upgraded my system, so right now I have a very high end computer (AMD 1090 OC to 4GHz, 8 GB RAM, 2xGTX 470s), and on the large and huge galaxies the game chugs very slowly in the mid to late game. Even on normal, by the late game, it is noticeable in that if I hit the "speed increase" button there is no speed increase. LOL.

YMMV



tassox33 -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 12:15:47 AM)

Yah more of the lag is in endgame, but im still only playing a 100star map. Hard to explain what kind of lag it is.. its i guess more of a stutter then a start and stop, but after playing games for several years (real life not ingame) you can kinda "feel" lag.

I thought 50% of both cores meant.. 50% of both cores not 100% of one, i guess it has to do with how the game splits up the threads. Like music and other crap is on the 2nd core, and the main game functions on the 1st core?
Forgot to mention that im on the 1.0.60 beta. I'm aware of the lag in supreme commander 1 late game with largest map and 8 people, but thats also online and alot more units than are this game i would think. Supcom 2 there isnt any lag at all, with maxed everything, im sure they had more money the second time around to code it differently.

Starting a new game doesnt bother me, i tend to play on 4x and only play untill i know im going to win. Trying to bombard 100 systems is only fun for so long... though its still fun eaech new game.

I could probably steal a windows 7 from a friend and get some ram, but id have to buy new sticks, no upgrade possible. I'd like to hear from someone who has no lag at all with a supercomputer and try to figure out if its more just the game, and less of the computer. I am sure that a quad 3.4 and 8 gigs would help though... im just wondering how much.

Thanks for the replies guys.



tassox33 -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 12:17:28 AM)

Thats what i was expecting to hear leon lol, thats really too bad, this game is awsome aside from that.



Baleur -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 12:33:52 AM)

I think its just the way the game was programmed. No offence, but it seems very amateurish (i personally couldnt have done it better, but thats not the point[:)]).
I mean, even the main menu takes half a sec to load, where you can see black "boxes" where the buttons go before they pop into existance, etc.
It almost feels as if it's a word document with animated images [:'(]

I'd love to see this game (the concept, gameplay, everything) on a proper graphics engine, im not talking about better graphics, just a proper graphics engine that runs smooth and stable, smooth scrolling and zooming and no delays in the interface which again loads as if it isnt even using your graphics card (much like those old software-only engine games). No offence, but thats just the way the game feels. Anyone who's played anything else knows what i mean.
Even really low budget indie games like Sunage and others, at least appears to be running with some form of i-dont-even-know-what-to-call-it-because-im-no-programmer.... directx? graphics engine that doesnt run like ms word or a web browser? an engine that actually preloads and unloads stuff properly and fast, and renders elements as quickly as your graphics card allows for.


Of course, the late-game lag relates to your cpu struggling with all the ships calculating their stuff, but thats not what im talking about :)
Even when paused it lags.
Its really sad how the only game that was truly spectacular in terms of rendering a HUGE actual galaxy, was Spore, which utterly sucked in the gameplay department lol.

My dreamgame?
Distant Worlds in Spore's engine (the fully zoomed out galaxy map that is, couldnt care less about the editors or other levels). Oh my....................



tassox33 -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 2:35:43 AM)

Lol i was thinking the same thing, spore still lagged when you zoomed in and out though. Even when i had my better computer.. before UPS decided to lose mine in shipping. Mabye with charging $40 dollars for a 2d game, they will have money to make the second one like the first should have been. Reminds me of supreme commander.. and that story came true.

I still wont stop playing this game though heh, i just love the concept sooo much, its a "dream game". Though.. removing the civilian sector completely and basing income on tax alone might improve this lag.. less units rendered. Might be a good fix untill they fix the lag. It would play more like Sins of a solar empire.



Baleur -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 7:51:48 AM)

But without the civilians it would feel as alone as all other 4x games :/
Omg can you imagine if Civilization also had little citizens and cars running and driving along in your lands?
Some of the best ideas come from indie games :)



Shark7 -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 9:12:04 AM)

With huge galaxies, there will probably always be some latency when populating the tables and lists (IE planet list and ship list) just due to the sheer number of items to gather information on.

Even with the minor inconvenience of the latency DW is still far and above the best 4x game I have every played.

Besides, MoO also had a tendency to slow down turn resolution as the game moved into the later stages. I think all 4x games have this weakness to an extent, as the empires get larger, more ships are milling about, and more planets have to be tracked for growth/changes it simply requires more calculations and processing to resolve the turn. It is more noticable in DW because DW is not turn based, but rather real time, thus the resource usage is constant, not just at turn resolution.

However, as someone who recently upgraded from a system similar to yours, you will benefit from an upgrade. Granted I went from a 32 bit XP machine with 2 GB of RAM and single core 1.8 ghz processor to a quad core i7 with 12 GB of RAM and 64 bit Win7. The difference was big...and the slow down while still there is greatly reduced, even on huge maps where I have 200+ colonies. Obviously, I went from one extreme to the other, but it was very worth it for me (plus the fact I won't have to upgrade for a while). Any mid to high end machine 64 bit and dual or Quad core with 6-8 GB of RAM would give you a significant improvement in running DW. My machine was overkill for what is actually needed. If you decide to get a new system, you probably won't regret it.



Florestan -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 10:25:12 AM)

quote:

seems very amateurish
As a programmer myself, I thing the main flaw of the game is not the quality of the programming. In fact, I have seen hints of pretty advanced optimization in DW. At the rate our man makes improvements and fixes, this games has probably a very good level of programming quality. The real flaw is the choice of .NET instead of standard C++ as a programming tool. .NET was not intended to create demanding games, and its concepts explains why. But it is quite cool to use, and modern computer are so powerful that try it must have been to much a temptation...
But once you're halfway to finish and discover your error, you can't go back for all the work that was done, so you continue the road, wherever it may lead you.
quote:

but thats also online and alot more units than are this game I would think
Supreme commander has been made by a very big and experienced team, with a game designer that made games at least ten years, one of the great masters of this time, and, as you may guess, they used C++. Moreover, this game is one of the finest pieces of optimization ever seen (with the latest patches). Beside, I'm not sure there are a lot of difference in the number of units between them. SupCom, however needs a lot more precision to work out. It's true the online part is a big strain, too.
quote:

plus the fact I won't have to upgrade for a while)

So you upgrade to avoid having to upgrade ?[;)]



Shark7 -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 2:29:52 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Florestan

quote:

seems very amateurish
As a programmer myself, I thing the main flaw of the game is not the quality of the programming. In fact, I have seen hints of pretty advanced optimization in DW. At the rate our man makes improvements and fixes, this games has probably a very good level of programming quality. The real flaw is the choice of .NET instead of standard C++ as a programming tool. .NET was not intended to create demanding games, and its concepts explains why. But it is quite cool to use, and modern computer are so powerful that try it must have been to much a temptation...
But once you're halfway to finish and discover your error, you can't go back for all the work that was done, so you continue the road, wherever it may lead you.
quote:

but thats also online and alot more units than are this game I would think
Supreme commander has been made by a very big and experienced team, with a game designer that made games at least ten years, one of the great masters of this time, and, as you may guess, they used C++. Moreover, this game is one of the finest pieces of optimization ever seen (with the latest patches). Beside, I'm not sure there are a lot of difference in the number of units between them. SupCom, however needs a lot more precision to work out. It's true the online part is a big strain, too.
quote:

plus the fact I won't have to upgrade for a while)

So you upgrade to avoid having to upgrade ?[;)]


No, I just bought way more computer than I needed so maybe I won't have to upgrade again for 3-5 years...if I'm lucky. [;)]



Hertston -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 7:53:34 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shark7
No, I just bought way more computer than I needed so maybe I won't have to upgrade again for 3-5 years...if I'm lucky. [;)]


It has been getting a little easier on the wallet recently. Seven or eight years ago I was finding I really needed to upgrade something every few months; stuff was outdated almost before you bought it and many games written for 'tomorrow's' PC not 'today's'. Now I'm running what was mid-high range PC I bought three years ago and it still handles everything I throw at it without dropping below 'medium' graphics settings even on shooters.



tassox33 -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 8:15:24 PM)

So do you think they will make a second game? With C++ and better optimization? I mean as far as they are concerned, i spent the money already. me playing it further wont benefit them.



Baleur -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (7/30/2010 9:53:35 PM)

I just noticed, turning off solar system nebulas bring a HUGE preformance increase.. Holy ****. I never tried turning them off before because i figured, how much difference can a little nebula background make, usually in games backgrounds and such makes absolutely no fps difference, but here... Omg... Must have tripled my zoom in / zoom out preformance.



Florestan -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (8/1/2010 9:32:32 AM)

I can't speak for the author, but I hope so!
The thing is, I don't know if he has any experience in C++, for example. If he needs to learn it, it will require more work. Anyway, For what I've seen, programming in C++ is more demanding in matters of time than in C# (the main language used in .NET ; but he may have use another one, like Visual Basic, or even... C++ with .NET!).
Plus, when you restart a project this size entirely, you tend to know little errors you made the first time and avoid them.
But maybe he'll want to make some other kind of game, next?
But we're not there yet! Let him finish the improvements he has planned first! We'll then have to wait a couple of years to see what comes out. Hopefully something as good, or, with even greater hope, something better!



Registered55 -> RE: Will upgrading the comp fix lag? (8/2/2010 4:00:40 AM)

there is if course .NET framework 4,

there are quite a few advancements in version 4, but as with all things, the developer will have to adapt his code to take advantage of these new features,

that in turn will of course mean .NET framework 4 would be needed to play DW,

Optimization of DW is clearly seen that is needed, if CPU usage is so low, then logic suggests that DW is being bottlenecked, it's probably .NET framework causing the lag, but version 4 promises to increase performance for multi-threading capability and scaling quite significantly.....

question is....can the developer be arsed diving back into the guts of DW and adapting it for .NET 4....unlikely,

perhaps for the expansion he will....we hope he will.

been reading some reviews of .NET 4, and people are saying that in the right hand, .NET 4 is upto 39% more efficient when dealing with multi-threading scaling.



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