For people that like big maps

Does anyone have recommended hardware for somoene that likes to have about 8 AIs and a little over 100 planets? I have a decent computer (3 years old) and it cannot keep up near end game. Was looking into getting a GeForce GTX 670 to replace the 9800 GTX that I currently have but not sure if that will help. 

 

Love this game but when 1 second in game takes 5 seconds in real life it gets really tedious 

6,942 views 12 replies
Reply #1 Top

You should probably invest in a processor with a lot of Ghz' on each core. It will help more than buying a new video card.

Reply #2 Top

Quoting Teun-A-Roonius, reply 1
You should probably invest in a processor with a lot of Ghz' on each core. It will help more than buying a new video card.
End of Teun-A-Roonius's quote

This. It's a single threaded game, CPU single core speed is king.

That said, what you want to play is going to lag no matter what hardware you throw at it if the game goes on long enough. The engine simply can't handle it anymore.

Reply #3 Top

I'm running a Phenom II 955 (@3.7ghz) with a 9800GTX+ (stock speed so same as yours, it just runs a little cooler) with 4gb of ddr2 ram.

I don't get the slowdown you explained, and I just got out of an 8hour long game with 8 AI's on the huge multi random map. (Not the largest, but the 2nd largest multi system map)

I did get some chop when I zoomed in on the final battle, my max fleet cap vs their max fleet cap battle, but it only lowered from typical 55-60fps down to about 35-40, which is no where even remotely close to 5:1 seconds

 

Just throwing it out there.

 

Edit:

My OS & Pagefile are on an SSD. The game is still on a spindle drive. Unsure if any of that matters besides possibly the pagefile

Reply #4 Top

You can get a bare alienware laptop/desktop it should be fine. I can play 8 ai's with 100 planets easy if I want more just bring down the graphics.

Reply #5 Top

i have an i7 with 6GB ram and late game it slows down for me - but i have two screens running and sins and the TV are walways on at the same time so when sins slows down when you are 10+ hours into a large game i just let the game play out even if it is slow

Reply #6 Top

Quoting Tridus, reply 2

Quoting Teun-A-Roonius, reply 1You should probably invest in a processor with a lot of Ghz' on each core. It will help more than buying a new video card.

This. It's a single threaded game, CPU single core speed is king.

That said, what you want to play is going to lag no matter what hardware you throw at it if the game goes on long enough. The engine simply can't handle it anymore.
End of Tridus's quote

 

problem is that and the reason why multicore has come out to begin with, is we are very close to the theoretical core speed limit, hence why to get around that issue they released multicores to begin with.

A single core can only relay a single instruction at a time per unit of time. and the theoretical speed limit is C, meaning speed of light. the amount of heat being generated by these cores as they keep trying to make them faster and faster is a product of the sheer thermodynamic effect on channeling more and more power through them.

eventually you will reach a point where no matter how much cooling you have, how much power you have, the processor will not go any faster.

 

So the companies decided if you can make one core go faster, then just have more of them. since directing 4 instructions at once through 4 cores is actually better and more efficient then making a processor 4 times faster.

 

So now the current thinking is create nanometer processes that are smaller and smaller to fit more cores on the same die. thus indirectly yielding a faster core.

How ever this doesn't help SINS because it doesnt take advantage of multicores to begin with. If it did It would be WAAAAY faster and less laggy then it is now.

 

My hope is that SINS 2 takes advantage of this.

 

Reply #7 Top

Just invest in a small swimming pool and a liquid nitrogen-immersed motherboard, like I did. At 83.5GHz the game just about runs smoothly.

Reply #8 Top

Just OC your CPU. I did mine and lag disapeared 

Reply #9 Top

Quoting Greg30007, reply 8
Just OC your CPU. I did mine and lag disapeared 
End of Greg30007's quote

OC all the the time isn't a really viable option.

Reply #10 Top

Why not? Is you have decent cooling solution that keeps temp down .....

Reply #11 Top

Quoting Greg30007, reply 10
Why not? Is you have decent cooling solution that keeps temp down .....
End of Greg30007's quote

 

Not everyone can afford overclocked hardware.  (Also, overclocking is a skill that's not exactly 'easy' to pick up)

Reply #12 Top

I use a custom built PC wtih... AMD Phenom II x6 (6 cores, 3 ghz each) an ATI HD 5700 1 Gb, and have 12 Gb of ram.

I play very very large maps, usually in the range of 300 to 500 planets, with 6 to 8 AI. I have gotten around 8 hours in recently on a few games with very minimum slow down, but there is some.  I also play with my graphics on Max... everything on the highest setting.