[.805 - June 30 Build] [Performance]

First impressions

from Elemental Forums

 

Hello. First let me say I'm beyond excited for this game and to be in the Beta. I've only been in one other Beta in my gaming "career" and love it and will likely love it twice as much since I love TBS games and haven't played a good one in a LONG time.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to report on the performance. First, my system:

 

CPU: Athlon 3800+

RAM: 2 GB

OS: Win XP Service Pack 2

GFX: BFG GeForce GTS 250 OC (factory overclock)

GFX Slot: PCI-E

Driver: Nvidia v257.21

Max Res (on monitor): 1280x1024

Game Resolution: 1024x768

Broadband Internet connection

SB Live External using basic MS drivers.

 

Performance Notes:

  1. Game takes a VERY long time to load on start. There's a lot of initial disk activity where it looks like it's going to load up fast, but then it stops and the game looks like it hangs, but it hasn't. Then it goes to this really weird yellow stripe on the screen, though that might be expected.
  2. Once I make it through that, the game is very unresponsive to my clicks - waiting 5-10 seconds for it do whatever I clicked on in some cases. The good thing is that there was no other problems, aside from the response. I was able to create a sovereign, save her, create a faction, save it, and enter a new game.
  3. UPDATE: Driver seemed to take care of blurry map graphics, but no effect on graphical performance or overall game performance.
  4. I'm having major sound issues as well. The music is like tripping over itself or something else in the game. It's skipping/choppy and the sound effect when I click a button repeats like it's stuck.
  5. Another positive, though, is that the game did not hang or crash. I was able to build a building and interact with the interface.

 

I tried to tweak my system and game settings (which is how I found out about windowed mode). I did the following and will report the effect.

 

  • Played off fresh boot - no real impact that I could tell, unless some of the progress I made was only because of that.
  • Playing in Windowed Mode caused several positive effects: The startup went faster (that's how I got it to at least do disk activity in the beginning) and the cloth map graphics at least showed their colors. Before I was just in a bright field of white.
  • Disabled my SB Live card - no impact on sound or game performance
  • Used my SB Live card - no impact on sound or game performance
  • Uninstalled my SB Live card and drivers - no impact on sound or game performance
  • Checked HD for errors (just did that this morning on start up so I don't know if there were any and they got fixed or if there weren't any at all)
  • Disks are defrag'ed

 

Hopefully I reported properly and this helps give the developers some insight.

Did I mention I'm overly excited about this game?

 

Edited to Update (7/1/10):

Driver version (updated to NVidia 257.21)

Added Game Resolution: Currently trying 1152x864, fullscreen mode off.

 

Edited:

Changed testing resolution to 1024 full screen

Also went to just basic MS USB drivers.

 

 

3,045 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Just to update, I upgraded the driver to the highest version NVidia has (257.21). That might have fixed the blurry graphics as now the map, with or without Cloth Map Only selected, shows up well - as long as I'm in Window mode.

 

Unfortunately, no impact on performance or the hatred of Full Screen Mode on my system.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

And allow that "Yellow Stripe" to finish loading, just once, and you will see what it really is. ;)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I also find performance choppy - I hope because assets are being loaded from net. Scrolling around and zooming is not smooth and it should be:

core i7 920

12gb ram

GTX 295

 

 

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

No effect from disabling Realtek (even from BIOS).

 

I'd love to let that stripe load, but at this point, it would take an hour :(

 

And the game seems pissed at me now. Constantly hanging at the splash screen, never did that before in windowed mode.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I have also been reporting this same problem since 2A and it's been getting worse for me ever since. Once I start the game up it stutters incredibly and I gotta leave it alone for a few minutes till it actually goes away and I can continue playing. After it goes away I can close and restart the game and it doesnt do it again till after I shut down my PC. Its a really annoying bug that has kept me away from testing the last few versions of the Beta as I'm afraid of burning down my processor.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Okay this is wierd.

The game runs FINE on my laptop- and it doesn't have the graphics or RAM of my Desktop

So I wonder what the game is choking on with my desktop. Must be a driver or something...

Oh and I saw what the yellow stripe was. Too awesome.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, on my desktop if I go to basic MS sound drivers, the game performance improves some. The music still does skip/chop, but only during certain actions (like re-loading the map or after clicking on a menu button)

Going to try full screen mode again *crosses fingers*