I just bought the graphics card not too long ago, and while it is at least making the game semi-playable in large conflicts between maxed out fleets, the performance is still very disappointing. I went from a Geforce 8800 GTS (320mb), so the graphics hardware upgrade was very significant. But what about these specs is still lacking? I know that Sins cannot utilize multiple cores, but would the processor even be part of the problem? I am not too sure what to do beyond this point beyond seeing how the game runs in Windows 7, which I have yet to install. I know for a fact that it isn't a spyware issue, because I am very cautious about that sort of thing and keeping my computer clean from infections. And I don't think its an overheating issue either, because it starts out slow even right after I turn on my computer.
It's the single core usage problem. With an intel core i7 975 @ 3.3GHz (+133/266 in turbo mode) it's still disappointing slow on medium-large maps in some situations, as only one core is being used. I'd expect that the CPU would have to reach 4 to 5 GHz for a satisfying game performance and maybe even more if you want to run it really fast.
At least, when I switched from Phenom (4*2.22) to the i7 975 (4*3.33) the game became somewhat playable. On the Phenom I often got one frame every few seconds. After game end, it took sometimes minutes to click through statistics in order to get back into main menu. Now, it's usually possible to keep running at 2x speed but sometimes requires to go to 1x with a still reduced framerate.
I've never seen any significant GPU load by the game, but I'm using a GTX 295.
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