bonscott

Honestly I don't think of Steam as a "3rd party download manager" for Sins. Steamworks is an integral part of the game and of the code. So it's more of a "1st party" software required. Just happens to be Steam. So Sins requires Steam simply because it uses Steamworks. Elemental doesn't appear to be using Steamworks so while it will most likely be available on Steam to buy, Steam won't be required. Now if they decide to do multiplayer it may

Works just fine widescreen for me at 1400x900. There are many widescreen options available in the video settings. Simply choose one but you may need to restart the game to see the new resolution applied (which is typical).

You can use Firefox all day long but why would you not upgrade to IE7? XP is very vulnerable with just IE6. IE7 is a lot more secure. IE is not just a browser, it's a critical component of the operating system. So upgrade to IE7 so you have the latest XP security patches and keep on using Firefox happily. Basically you are dumb and just asking for security problems if you don't keep IE updated, even if you never use it.

Why is it you can't buy it? I assume no credit card? Ummmmm, PayPal? Contact sales and mail a check?

Totally agree, a warning about starbases under attack please.

How could someone not have IE7? It's built into XP and if you don't keep yourself updated you're only asking for security problems. I never use IE7 except for one site that requires it, but I sure make sure I'm up to date with it. Frankly you are very dumb for not keeping it updated.

[quote who="SilentStryder" reply="4" id="1928584"] The only similiarity I see between it and Sins is they are both RTS games, MoM was turn based, but it does seem like it drew alot of inspiration from it, [/quote] Elemental is not an RTS, it is turned based. It is nothing like Sins. If anything it is more like GalCiv. The game is basically Civ 4/Gal Civ 2 but in a fantasy setting and with tactical battles.

I think your problem is 1) The video card. Kinda old now actually and 2) Vista However as said you can have the highest end game machine in the land and a 4x game will slow down late game just due to the high number of calculations going on. My PC smokes the specs for Civ 4 (2..3 yrs old now?) and late game in Civ 4 and things slow down, especially if there are a lot of wars going on.

Easy solution: Don't patch until you're done with your current game. It's been that way for 15 years of gaming. If you don't know that already then well...take this up as your first lesson. *Never* assume a previous save will work with a new patch for any game. Never.

Perhaps you should be turning down the effects to medium and maybe even the resolution a bit. A computer that old and not all that capable but having everything turned up and expecting it to be smooth is expecting a bit much.

What resolution are you running it at and what AA and AF are you set to? That can make a big difference. As for speed, actually the 8800 GTS 320 and the HD3870 are pretty much on par with each other performance wise, 3870 probably a bit better. Check this review of the 3850 which is a step below my card: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/videocards/article.php/3723966 It's pretty much on par with the 8800 and actually does a good bit better with AA and AF turned up.<br

So all in all your save was pretty smooth playing for me, no stuttering or any other problems. If I turned things down a bit I'm sure it would get higher frames but no need to if it's smooth, even if it says it's "only" 20 fps. I typically play with less players and thus probably why I'm seeing frames of 50+ and more toward 90-100. When there are 8 players with so many ships the game will slow down. Heck, Civ 4 or Gal Civ 2 slows down for me late game with 6 civs and tons of units an

So I loaded up your test save and ran 3 tests. First off, holy crap I have never seen so many ships! That was the coolest battle I've seen. Settings: 1440x900 AA 4x,AF 2x (set by ATI Tray Tools, not in game) Everything cranked to "highest" quality, all effects and graphic options turned on except bloom. Frame rates run 30-40 with the game in general. Sometimes 45-50 if I'm in a more quiet sector. In the midst of that battle at the volcanic planet fram

[quote]HomeHoly ****I definitely have a problem if you get 70 fps in a typical battle. If I post a savegame can you try it out and see what sort of FPS you get when watching the battle? 70 fps... by my computer's behaviour that's nuts for a 3750 no offense intended. You have ALL effects turned up all the way?[/quote] Sure, I can try it. Now I admit that I haven't played a whole game thru yet on this new computer because I've been sucked back into Oblivion (which never drops below 70

X-Fi Gamer here and I get well over 100 fps easy with everything cranked up to max. Drop to 70 or so in major battles. Intel Dual Core 3ghz 2 gigs RAM ATI HD3750 512 meg XP Home

[quote] To those who remain fanatical to windows: yes, its incredibly easy to use - but at the price of ones freedom.[/quote] I can run my programs on Windows, not Mac or Linux. Thus why I have Windows. Doesn't mean I "like* Windows, it's just what I need. [quote] This is a price i am not willing to pay (not to mention the $800 for vista ultimate; which ironically is about to be superseded by windows 7 in just a couple of years).[/quote] Ummmm, that's why I put

First off, Stardock is not a "big" company. They are very small actually. Second, if there would be any kind of other OS support it would be for the Mac which actually has a decent % of the market. I like Linux too but it's not even a fraction of the fraction that Mac has of the market. It's just the way it is. If any OS is going to give Windows a run for their money it will be Mac which everyone has heard of. Nobody has heard of Linux. It is what it is.

Wow, how hard is it to launch Stardock Central, click the Update button next to Sins and let it do it's thing. Couple minutes later you're done, launch the game all patched up. You can even let SDC archive your game *before* it patches so you can go back to the old version should you choose. Can't be any simpler then that.

And just to note on my system I did run it lower then native but still at 1440x900. I turned off AA as well as in game things like dust, debris, elevators and bloom. The x800 kept it up around 30 fps except in intense battles where it would drop to 10-15. But it was still very playable. But it's so much nicer now. By the way the reason I upgraded was actually Oblivion. It looked so bad at anything less then 1440x900 and at that resolution I got about 10 fps and that's with things a

Not sure what there is to fix. If you set a rally point at a distant planet it will choose the shortest path. Just because the Pirate base is in that path doesn't make it a bug. So you have a couple choices: 1) Take out the pirate base, problem solved 2) Set a rally point that's off to the "side" of the pirate base. Then once in a while take all the ships in that system and send them off to the front 3) Make a forward base that is creating all your ships. Maybe it's just

[quote]You should not get a new monitor, because it will have a native resolution that will bog down your system. [/quote] I can relate to this comment because it's what happened to me. I had a P4 2.8 ghz and an AGP ATI x800. I upgraded my monitor to a 22" widescreen. Needless to say Windows was fine but I didn't even have close to the hardware to run many games on that monitor (although Sins ran fine for the most part). Ended up just building a new computer and I

When trying to use SDC to download 1.04 it kept pausing saying "waiting 3 seconds" and counted down to 1. Seemed to do this for each different file. WTF? :) Anyway, I was able to download it manually via the in game update but I much prefer to use SDC. FYI that the Twilight beta update did not do this and downloaded just fine via SDC. Thanks for a great game!

Wow, I can honestly say I have never seen this or any slowdowns. I do have an ATI card though. My impression that the last few Nvidia driver releases have been pretty crappy. Who knows. But there must be a difference between the way ATI and Nvidia render those effects.

You're going to have to run it at low settings and you might still have problems. Some of it depends on your processor and memory as well but I'm guessing that they aren't all that great. What exact video card do you have and what is your other hardware?

Hmmm, I wonder if you have a video driver/card issue. On my computer when the Guardian does it's thing it's a light dark yellowish bubble that can certainly be seen but it definately doesn't obscure any ships. Same effect on my old computer with an ATI x800 and now my new ATI HD3870.