PS: I don't mind if the game is demanding and makes my PC piss its pants but my PC is at 50% usages sometimes and it doesn't help.  Thank you AMD and Motherboard detection programs

Can anyone help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation

I have a dual core at 3 ghz each.  How ever if this is the case I would definitly consider this a PROBLEM with the game and needing fixing as EVERYONE is going quad now.  Who the hell runs single cores anymore while wanting to run current gen games?  The single core will puke itself.  We will soon be getting 8 core CPUs.  Not to mention turning the settings down would make a difference I believe.

PS: to the defragmentation comment.  I am currently defraggin the HD (400gigs) but from my long PC experience I am condifent that is not the issue.

Well... it might be due to Vista's WoW64 implemntation. I have a Core Duo (32bit 1.8GHz x2) and can run a game for about 10-14 hours (WITH saves) no problem.

well,  I am running 32 bit Vista premium edition.  Next time I run the game I will attempt to go to the background processes.  Though I don't even know where to start turnning them off.  First I will see if the defragmentation worked but I doubt.  By the way,  the game shows good usage of both processors it seems.  I am playing with only 3 players now and have 5-6 planets each on a single solar system map.  Granted I have a large fleet but come on.  The lag is annoying.   I have noticed the second core being used on the core monitor from AMD and not just for windows processes,  it does spike when i do something in the game so it seems the game at least uses some form of dual core optimization. I'm out of ideas,  I want to blame the game but it seems that you don't have that problem if you are playing that size of games. Specially if you are playing with the max 10 players.

Hmmm... you don't give a lot of detail on your own system but let imagine that your brother ( with SLI GTX 260,  8 gigs of ram and quad core ) use 32 bit Vista prenium edition...

32 bit windows system allow only 4 gb address range for ram ( unless your use a PAE kernel )... from these 4gb, some ram is removed for material... if like me, you have a 8800 ultra 768 mb, you will loose already 768 mb address range for only the graphic card... netwerk card/ship, sound card/ship, ide interfeca, etc use some ram too...

Now, let imagine the perfect situation... you use the PAE kernel who allow 36 bits address range... address of your material will be placed over the 4 gb limit so you will be able to enjoy the full 4 gb for your system...

From these 4 gb, 2 gb is reserved for application and 2 gb for the kernel... unless your use the 3gb flag ... who allow 3gb for application and 1 gb kernel ( who is a ninimum for vista )...

PAE and 3GB are easy to implement in Win XP from service pack 2... only need to modify your boot.ini... Vista is more complex and you need to manipulate register key...

Using 64 bits vista will help you a little... a 32 bits apllication like sins run in the WOW64  mode on 64 bits system... this allow 4 gb by application...

So, at the maximum, with Vista 32 bit, you will have 2 gb for application... don't forget that these 2 gb will be shared with the game, the anti-virus, the firewal and any other application running...

Now, some memory use for sins... i have no result with sins alone but i have result for sins with the mod 7DS 2.0 who will be out in a few days... OS used was linux since in one case, Windows have not allow to start a game due to the lack of enough memory address range ( mini-dump )

All graphics option on, resolution 1680*1050, AAx4... Huge Multistar map with one human player, 9 AI and 1 pirate... these value are start value, they grow with time

gfx on low : 1.0943 gb
gfx on medium : 1.2324 gb
gfx on high : 1.5051 gb ( in 32 bit system, game start but in a short time, mini-dump appear due to shortage of memory )
gfx on very high : 2.2962 gb ( don't work on windows XP 32 bits or Vista 32 bits because over the 2 gb limit for application )

Have just finish two more test... same configuration but with mod dissable...

gfx on low : 0.5943 gb

gfx on very high : 1.3901 gb

So in 32 bits sytem, any configuration will start a game... but in very high, the game is only 0.61 gb before the 2 gb limit... soon of later, with huge fleet, with planet fully developed, with numerous commerce ship... you will reach the limit...

Now about Vista... if you have a legal version, you have receive two package... a 32 bits version and a 64 bits version... if you have 4 gb or more, install the 64 bits version... same if the game is not a 64 bits application, it double the ram that a application can use for run... from 2 gb to a max of 4 gb...

Before you reply me that other high quality game like crysis, mass effect, etc run without problem, you need to understand the different between sins and other game... a lot of other game load a first map, followed by a second once the first is finish, etc... Sins need to load everything at the start because the "galaxy" is created at the start... Now, imagine all these top game loading all the maps in the same time... the memory use and lag will be more bad that with sins...

All this post was valid if your computer using Vista 32 bits was with a similar configuration that your brother computer... if you have a other configuration, maybe other "tuning" will allow some ease for the game...but i need the informations...

About Vista... Microsoft have release a KB ( update ) some time ago who resolve some problem in some game ( sins was one of them )... be sure that your system is fully upgraded... It was not a Stardock issue but a Microsoft one... Same think with the Nvidia card... when sins was released, there was a lot of problem with Nvidia card... problem was with the nvidia driver... it was corrected a few month later by a new nvidia driver... if your computer is one year old, that you have only install the driver from the CD, a lot of change that driver will lead to some problem...

For any game type of game, a 2.66 ghz processor ( better two core ) will be more that perfect... a top graphic card is not needed... RAM use was always a issue with sins... but the very recent sins update include a lot of memory optimization...

Myself, i have be working on optimization too... have make some test who was successful... have calculate that for a game with very high GFX setting, 350 mb of ram can be reclaim from the sins 1.05 ... if i have time, i will maybe release a mini mod later for low end machine... just need to modify all .mesh file, modify all da texture and delete the nm texture... i simply use the specular effect from the da map, specially the blue channel for create the bump map effect... since the nm map in sins is not a real normal map but a bump map, i can delete it... a sample of the result can be see below... the ship have a lot of relief, almost all made using the blue channel of the da map... and be sure that i am not a guy who know better that Stardock... at the begin, it is a error manipulation of my texture who have lead me to these solution...

Danman, the upper God of the mod 7DS have already find several way for go over the limit of the game... the Babylon5 mod have made ship with moving part ( thing who was say to be impossible when the game have go out last year )... Stardock itself have make some miracle in the last update related to speed and memory use...

Enough  blah-blah... please, post a detail of your material, OS, sins version, etc... i don't promise that i will find the miracle solution for you but i will try... it don't work, you loose nothing... it work and you become happy...

EDIT : forgot to post the picture of the ship with nm map but using the da map for the same effect... all the dots at the top, the big round thing on side with a light iside, the motor like thing at the extemity of wing, and more are created with the da map, no nm map was used...

PS: this model was made for the Halo mod of canadaman... a little publicity for him

If you only have 2 GB of memory in your system now. You might think about

adding another 2 GB to your system. Vista is a resource pig when it comes

to using memory.

I'm out of allocation room.  I maybe have only 320mb left.

Same problems.. different thread.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/341237

have to agree,  at a certain point,  online or single player... the game goes ahead crawling,  not lagging... just crawling ahead.. with sometimes alot of delay between commands or zooming in/out...

given that some friends of myn have epic gaming PC's "quad cores 4gig ram 2 terra harddrive etc".. they also complain about the gaming running slow mid to late game, and becuase people that should be able to run Sins with ease are experiencing lag i do believe the fault lies with programming.... its either that  or everyone's computer being at fault... the last option being unlikely

(just be honest, do you have lag mid to late game?   any proportion?  speed reduction of more then 1/4? thats the crawling thing were talking about... 1/4 may not sound much but an hour battle will suddenly take an hour and 15 min    3 hours of playing will suddenly take 3 hours and 45 min,  olmost an hour extra... it really does eat away your time... and i know of no people that dont have this crawling late game)

It seem that i have a hyper epic gaming PC's... 2 quad core Xeon 2.66 ghz, 16 gb ram, 3.5Tb hardrive, 7.1 + 2 HD audio, 8800 Ultra 768 mb ( sure the ultra mean power but related to watt... 350 watt only for the graphic card !!! )...

Have know lag when i was using windows with extreme mod... lag have dissappear with linux but have know some slow down during epic battle...

Myself, i think that problem is relate to material, OS, game and several other factor... in the PC world, make a game is not a easy task, it is not like console where everybody have the same material... what will be good for a computer will be bad for a other one...

At the code itself, if Stardock was using multicore feature and 64 bits code... Machine like mine will have orgasm with Sins... but the game will be dead for low end system...

When Stardock have launch Sins of Solar Empire, they have take a commercial risk... people who like space strategy game are not the majority of player... so, they have try to hit a huge base of potential customer... some already existing code who allow better performance was not used because it will totally exclude some computer owner not able to run the code with optimization...

And yes, sins have sometime problem... recently, a vicious bug related to sync problem was resolved... these bug was reveal by only a few gamers... other people having no problem... now, people have these problem need to gater together, submit the problem to the devs and wait... Solution will not come in one day...

More, we are maybe 1000 people who have know problem with sins ( lag, crash, slowdown, impulse issue, etc ) but we are really a minority when compare to the large mumber of people using sins... If they can, Stardock will try to resolve our specific problem but it will ask time and they will need the help of people having problem since Stardock cannot have all the computer who exist in the world, with all possible configuration of hardware and software...

The majority of people run sins without problem, the majority of AMD processor have no problem at all... something special, maybe a little detail, is the reason of the problem... who know, maybe all these who have the problem with AMD processor use the same brand of motherboard, or a same bios version or have a similar background application running, of .... a lot of thing is possible...

The only problem with Sins and Stardock is that they don't have a bug tracker system... this will ease to see if a problem is recurrent with some configuration, material or software... be sure that the biggest difficulty for the devs will be to reproduce your problem... if they can't reproduce it, they will not be able to resolve it ( if the problem is relatedto the sins code )...

From the recent post in different topic, i can say that code can be partially responsible... in the case of people who was without lag in the beta 3 entrenchment but with lag in the 1.0 release... for people who was always with lag, reason can be everything...

The title of these topic give a wrong signal to the devs... it imply that their code is bad... it was better to write : "i have poor performance and i need help"...

Yea,  4GB but TOTAL.  My GPU and Vista eat a good chunk of that as it is.  I add more and windows only recognized an extra 300 or so.

I think it's fair to say that, no one wants to upset the devs & everyone that comes to these forums loves SoaSE.  The game is a masterpiece.

I've really really tested this issue, and on more than one machine now, one has:

An Intel core 2 duo 2.8 GHZ CPU, 4 GB RAM (DDR2-800), Nvidia 8800gt 320MB Video card, running Windows XP

The other is an:

AMD X2 6000 3.0 GHZ CPU, 2 GB RAM (DDR2-800), ATI X1950 512MB Video card, running Windows XP

Both have hefty 700 watt+ OCZ PSU's

The lag issue happens on both systems starts about an hour/two hours into a game & gets continuously worse, until its unavoidably irritating.

Both systems are in tip top shape, no HD errors, defragged, No anti-virus running, newest drivers, etc.

It would be great if we could get some acknowledgement that the issue is being addressed. Blair (Moderator) stopped by the other thread we had going on this topic, but never came back.