OK thanks   Its just that the DS mod is exactly what i want, i mean i was using the TSOP mod and yes the game ran better than before but it made sins shit, research takes LONG and income is slow as hell. So yeah, its either boring sins or screenshot speed sins    

I will see what I can do about poking our lead coder. But no guarantees.

Yeah fair enough, i just tried to play a 4v4 on 'into the breach' and i started to get properly unplayable fps about an hour and a half in. I tried all the usual suggestions like not building mines and un pinning planets from the empire tree but could you guys give me any suggestions? How do you play sins with DS mod and still get a decent gaming experience, i.e what maps, how many players e.t.c. Its just that i find that the DS mod for whatever reason creates more fps drop than normal.

Didn't see your latest post, much appreciated

According to Harpo's research the speed of your RAM plays a big factor in performance.  Personally, I drop in frame rates 4 or 5 hours into a game but never to the point where it's unplayable, and I have no issues running any map with the maximum amount of players on my desktop, my laptop however is a different story but it's a few years older and a much less capable system, so it really is a system specific issue.  Outside of the reduced graphics options and not building things, you're not going to find any more suggestions that lead to a quick fix.  It's a limitation of the way the game was designed.  Until the next version is released, you're unfortunately stuck with trial and error finding out what works best...

Turn down the settings and turn off things like colored skyboxes and dust clouds.

That seriously speeds things up.

And I think that sums up why I think the two should be melded together.  At least the model reductions...

Too bad RL keeps us all from getting it done  (cause I still haven't finished the starbases yet for TSOP, Grrr)

I love the mod, I just hate that it limits the game to 2v2 and below.

We agree and we are working on it. But as you pointed out. RL rules all.

Well i have 4GB of DDR3 RAM at 1300MHz, now as far as i'm aware this is good enough to play more or less any PC game, i've never had issues. However with sins especially with DS mod i get FPS drop about 1.5 hours into a 4v4 67 planet game and its PISSING ME OFF!! What kind of jesus RAM do you have to play well for like 4-5 hours on much larger maps?

Well i have 4GB of DDR3 RAM at 1300MHz, now as far as i'm aware this is good enough to play more or less any PC game, i've never had issues. However with sins especially with DS mod i get FPS drop about 1.5 hours into a 4v4 67 planet game and its PISSING ME OFF!! What kind of jesus RAM do you have to play well for like 4-5 hours on much larger maps?

Sorry double post, web page froze.

that 2 extra gigs of ram won't matter, what are the effect settings at in your game? what have you turned off and have kept on. At most I never usually play with more then 3 AI cause I know it will tax the game and cause more memory usage. 4vs4 is a lot of memory usage... that's 8 factions which causes a huge usage of memory. 

Errm well bloom is disabled all qualities are set to very high, no AA. But i have tried turning details down and it doen't make any differnece. So all these big maps that you guys play, do you play them with few AI? I switched to the Star trek mod today and even though its soooooo obvious i finally realised that the game runs so smoothly because all the effects consist of lines and little red torpedoes, all explosion effects are kept relatively normal and there are FAR less strike craft as there are few ships that can build them.

Anyway i just feel eternally frustrated because i'm gettign the impression that everyone can play sins better, i tent to play 4v4 on roughly 67 - 82 planet maps at which point i get fps drop about 1.5 hours in, what have you guys found to be the upper limit of players and plantets with DS mod?

all qualities are set to very high

that is your main problem right there, you have the quality set too high especially with 8 players you should have set the quality level down to at least medium if your running that kind of game with 7 opponents. No wonder your game has low FPS only an hour and a half in.

Well I rarely play past 4 players, but yeah detail dropping before you start the game is what is needed. For some reason if you start a game at high/very high the game keeps them in memory for that entire game. Its a bit lame, but when you consider this game is a first for Ironclad we have to leave it as something they hopefully will learn from in later games.

Which is why i dondn't notice a differnece when i lowered the graphics mid whay through. I thought that graphic qualities are dependant on GPU, mine is more than capable of dealing with these sort of graphics. I wouldn't really want to compromise on graphics so 3v3 on about 40 planet map is about the maximum then?

Stant said he dosent have any problem running any map mith max players, does that mean he has the quality set to low?

Most like he does yes. And I think you have a good max out for our current run. I hope our next update (so far the playtesting has shown a lot of promise) will run better. There will still be a max out point but it should be higher.

Awesome news, Ryat.  I know sevearl people who are eagerly looking forward to the next version.  Keep up the good work, guys, and know that what you're doing is appreciated far and wide. 

Sweet, i was getting the imression that everyone was playing the game perfectly on full graphics and i was getting problems for some reason. Thank you all, you'e all been a great help and i can't wait untill the update gets released. On another note, what have you guys found to be the threshhold on full for you personally?

You cant run the mod in highest due to the updated graphics. They use a super resolution for planets and such. It increases the RAM usages by a staggering amount.

With that said, you can run on high ok, but I suggest Med.

I run with planets on low unless Im attempting to video a fight.

Trimming your Empire tree to the bare min you need to be effective will be a huge boost to your FPS. HUGE!

There was a time where I was getting ~5FPS with and without the mod. Its b/c your computer is trying to keep track of evertyhing twice. I killed everything from my Empire tree, I dont even use it anymore. And Ive seen a massive difference. The only time I lag badly is when Im zoomed in on a battle with 3-4 end game fleets duking it out. And that is with my personal version that increases max fleet supply by 3x.

I usually run everything on high or med. Remove trade ship icons and planet elevators. No bloom.

Also if your someone who love to use SC...well, lol dont. SC are the single biggest source of issues due to sheeer massive number of them mid to end game. 1000's of things your computer must draw, track, etc etc. Double that if you have not trimmed your Empire Tree.

Anyhow, please know we are working on the next version. But given the fact we all work jobs that require us to work ALOT. We have lost alot our mod time. Hell, I dont even get to play anymore. Any SINS time is directed to doing what I can to the mod, lore, or other DS stuff. I know yall are excited for the next build for obvious reasons *Cough* our attempt to optimize the mod *cough* but we have been trying hard to polish the mod elsewhere also. Your patience will be rewarded young ones

Sweet, thanks for the tips are you guys going to incorporate the reduced SC and trade ship minimod? Does removing the planet elevators make that big a difference? One last question, how can you remove trade ship icons?

As for the reduced SC and trade ships, we actually already have that incorporated long ago and actually go farther then they do I believe. Yes the removal of the planet elevators is big. As for the trade ship icon removal, I believe it is in the same menu as that which you modify the empire tree, 'Options' I believe.

Thankyou, goodnight much love, i'm going to bed its 20:20 over here and i have a Uni lecture tommorow

No, I actually run them at high most of the time when I'm playing solo (no skyboxes or bloom), and definitely low on everything for online play just to be courteous to everyone else trying to play.  I also did say I deal with slowdowns in later stages, though never to the point I get frustrated and quit.  I'm an extremely tolerant person for certain things (not people obviously  ) so it's possible we're dealing with the same late stage slowing but I'm just playing through it and dealing with it.  Being experienced at modding and working with DS, I know that every reduction I can do only helps, so I do things like scuttling all of my tactical structures and starbases not on the front lines.  If another player HAS to go through 5 planets as the shortest route to get deep into my empire, only the first two have defenses, the other three are just farms providing me with resources.  That in and of itself reduces a huge amount of resources freed up since you have to consider the game is no longer tracking the values for hull/shields/antimatter/experience in real time for all of those structures and strike craft, easily a thousand or more addresses.  And then I go on a tank rushing kill frenzy and fight all of my ships to the death taking out as much of my opponent as I can in one slash and burn campaign.  Granted, I don't always do that, but if I find myself getting frustrated, you can tell at the end of the game by looking at the built structures count and you'll see a massive drop in numbers.

Yeah thats what i tend to do, but its the retarded AI that does everything in its power to prevent the game from running smoothly, tactical defences everywhere, bloody spacemines galore....not to mention the vast amount of SC they do love to build light carriers! As for the extent of slowdown in an intense battle it would go down to 9FPS normally about 25-30 but it kept sticking, it can't have been 30 fps. Anyway that was on a 4v4 on a 67 planet map with everything on very high with planet elevators and all that crap. I'm playing the star trek mod atm and granted it is a far less demanding mod due to low SC and basic attack effects, i have made several adjustments like disabling trade ships and space elevators and the game runs fine well into the first 1.5 hours. BTW what do skyboxes do?

the skyboxes are the pretty colour backgrounds.

harpo