Supreme Commander ... how can I speed it up?

[krokodile]

Hey Tom's forums, I have been playing Supreme Commander with my friends lately, just doing some in-house LAN stuff. We we are having a riot with it but after about 20-30 mins it lags and chugs and if we are on any sort of large map, it becomes unplayable.

My question is, how can we speed this up. Does the host computer need more of something (cowbell perhaps?). Do all the computers involved need more power. Our systems are all running 2 gigs ram at 400 MHz at CAS latencies of 3 or 4. The weakest processor of the three machines involved is a 3 Gig P4 w/ HT. I know we are not tunning super top of the line systems so we may need a bit of new hardware. What would help us speed up our game and does only the host computer need to have the power or do all the machines involved need it?

Thank in advance for any help you can offer.

 

[Belinda]

That game is processor intensive and the game game will pretty much sync to the slowest PC. Only way you are going to speed it up is to play on smaller maps or update hardware( assuming that you have lowered ingame settings).

 

[stemnin]

My old system had a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz HT and 7800GS, first 10 min were usually good, after 20 or so it was unplayable. My c2q6600 and 8800GTS pretty much always smooth (doesnt usually go below 25 fps in the big maps with alot of AIs).

 

[spuddyt]

e2160 @ 3.0 ghz is fine for it as well - it starts to chug a little very late game, but its also a very cheap upgrade

 

[Flakes]

on my 8800GTX it becomes unplayable once i have around 350 units thats because i have a 4400 X2 939, but i found turning off AA completly has no effect on image quality but allows me to play with the full limit of 1000 units without lagging....

i kno aa is GFX intensive but i dont think the game actually utilises it properly especially when i couldnt tell the difference between 8xAA and no AA.

 

[quantumsheep]

Ideally you want a decent dual core, or even a quad core!

This game tends to sync to the lowest CPU speed, so that'd be what's causing the problems.

What graphics cards are you using?

 

[krokodile]

Thanks a ton everyone for all your help everyone, I really appreciate it. I am running a P4 3.0 Ghz H/T (ya thats right I am the slow one *weeps*) and my GPU is an ATI X800 Plat. The other two guys are running AMD 4000+ CPUs at 2.4 GHz and all three of our machines have 2 Gigs 400MHz DDR2. Their GPUs are a nVidia 7200 GT and a pair of nVidia 6600's in SLI.

I really wanna upgrade but my comp still works in most situations (except anything that needs shader model 3 or 4). I don't have the cash this year for a new machine so I may just OC a little and wait to see what next years tech brings. I just ordered a new fan (Zalman 9500A) and will be OCing my CPU but hopefully 400-600 MHz more. Also since the 4xxx architecture comes out soon for ATI, I will soon be getting a 3850 since it is the best I can find for an AGP slot under 200.

If there are better/cheaper ways to speed things up please fill me in, other than that thanks again.

 

[spuddyt]

faggotry - what i wrote made no sense...

 

[pauldh]

Problem is your buds are running single core CPU's even, which given large battles Supreme Commander can punish those CPU's too. Single core and SC is a no-no. If it truely syncs to the slowest system, theirs will drag down your new dual/quad core beast.

[H] must have run a seriously demanding battle, but look at this link. High res paired with SLI 8800GTX, and you see the Quad > Dual > Single core. The single core struggles at the lowest details even.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTMwNiw2LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

From what you describe, there isn't a single good SC system in the LAN unfortunately. (I know that feeling as until a few months back I gamed on an FX-55 single core. )