My gaming rig...

You should be able to play medium sized maps on 2x speed unless you fight larger battles - then you'll most probably have to switch to 1x and still have a bit of stuttering.

At least that's my gaming experience with this system (and Sins is not GPU limited, but limited by the speed of a single processor core as it cannot utilize multiple cores):

Intel Core i7 975 @3.3 (turbo boost 3.6)

6GiB Triple Channel 1600MHz DDR low latency RAM

nVidia GTX 295 (2*896 MiB)

a VERY fast OCZ SSD

Although Sins does go close to the 32bit RAM limit on maximum graphics settings (they also apply on 64bit systems when running 32bit software), I've never had a situation where the limit was exceeded - and reducing graphics settings brings the game down to a few hundred MiB. It simply doesn't change game speed though.

I personally am dissatisfied with the experience and since Sins was advertised as Multicore in germany, after some months I finally went to return it to the store for complete refund. Still hope that things will be fixed, either by update or Sins 2.0, because I *do* miss the game. So, as a result, you may like the gaming experience you can get with your rig. Your only limiting factor is the speed of a single CPU core; that your processor has multiple cores doesn't add anything aside from the ability to run other apps on a second screen while playing.

Screet

long time ago, i have make some test... was able to have around 25000 LRM frigates in a gravity wheel... game have crash when i have try to make them jump all together to a other planet... surely a overload of particule effect for the shader...

Two quad core Xeon

16 gb quad serial channel interlease raid mounted ( yes, i can mount my memory in raid mode )... DDR2 1333 with ECC and 8 bits correction ( fully buffered )... max transfer speed is 30 gb/s ...

Nvidia 8800 Ultra 768 mb

and since Sins was advertised as Multicore in germany, after some months I finally went to return it to the store for complete refund.

If the guy from the store have refund you, he was stupid... sins use the second core for speed up the load of the game...

For the rest, main limitation is the windows OS and your material... sins can use more that one core and more that 2gb is the software layer below sins ( os, bios ) allow it... there is huge difference between a desktop, a workstation or a server... same the best desktop remain a low end computer !!!

For people with win 32 bits Os and who think that 4gb is the limit of a 32 bits OS, take a look at http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm ... for info, the old Windows 2000 Datacenter support 32 gb ram ( it was before the time of XP )... for Linux user, from the kernel 2.3.23 the max limit is 64 gb ram on a 32 bits system...

For use muticore and multiprocessor, it is more complex and expensive... a other software, a layer beween the bios and the OS is needed...

Point is that your material and your OS limit what you can make... there is no technical reason to these limit, only license limit... from the pentium pro, computer was 36 bits ( max 64 gb ram )... and the actual processor are in fact 48 bits ( 52 bit physical but only 48 bits address range )...

If there is something that you need to return to the store, it is not sins but your windows OS... microsoft is selling you a limited version of their server edition and make you believe that the desktop OS limit are due to hardware when in fact desktop OS have the same code that server one, only some portion of the code is inactivated for license reason...

The only reason to move to the 64 bits material/OS is only money... money that you spend on these new computer and OS...

Ironclad have wrote a wonderfull piece of code with sins... limit are mainly due to OS... and 64 bit OS will not resolve a lot of think... Windows 7 home basic ( the more used version ) have a limit of 8 gb !!!! The expensive windows Ultimate have a limit of 192 gb... if a sins 2 go out, using 64 bits, it will be made for the more used versions of windows... with a limit of 8 gb only !!!

If something need to be fixed, it is not the Stardock/Ironclad programming skill but all the citizen Joe who buy low end product, install a limited version of a OS and believe the lies from these hardware/software big corporation...

 

Well, it was not only that (although it's really the biggest problem) but also other things:

- vista performance rating is definitely not correct, even on another 5.9 machine sins did run so slow that I had less than 1 frame per second on medium maps after some time

- there's quite a number of bugs I've reported and got the reply that only some things may be fixed because of good will, but german laws cover 24 months, thus they still would have to either fix all bugs or refund the buyers

I just wish I'd have the proper dev environment and source so that I could fix most of this myself. I've completely written a game anew I had some years ago, because I was dissatisfied with the original, and really, would I not have burnout, I'd already begun to write some replacement for sins myself. Sadly, they would not like me to have a look at what I could fix in sins, even if I would sign an NDA.

Screet

Yeah my rig has windows 7 home premium 64bit.So what you guys are telling me is that i need the mother of all single core processors which aren't common anymore...or I will always have stutter in big battles? Thaat's unbelieveably deprreessing

That's pretty much why I decided to put pressure on the developers by returning the game to the store - and now checking the forum every now and then to see whether something may change so that I can rebuy the game

Indeed you might want to find out how it runs on your machine. Maybe you don't require the empire tree (which is a must-have for me) - I've read that removing the empire tree does speed up the game massively, so maybe your rig is then fast enough for the game, or you might enjoy it although it slows down.

Screet

Well, slow down is not so bad. I mean like, if all the warfare goes into a sort of slow mo, that's okay versus stuttering or chugging. That really just kills the cinematic experience that sins can really deliver on.

 

As for the empire tree, I remember when I used to play I would have it on most of the time, but then hit some combination of keys (I forget what it was) when I wanted to just watch a big battle for a couple of minutes (even if it meant my fleet suffered from lack of mircomanagement) to clear the entire screen of any interface and I remember that took some battles from chug-a-lug messes to actually watchable. So I'm hoping for a similar imporvement. That's for the tip Screet.