I wonder why the explosions are so fancy

I thought you were going to be complaining about how the explosions engulf an entire planet after you destroy one little scout...

Yeah, I had to turn them off as well, which is a shame. I've heard Stardock refer to them as 'point sprites' or something, which apparently doesn't work well with my card. It would be nice if they provided an alternative type of explosion for those of us with puny hardware, since one of the things that attracted me to this game was the assertion that it was designed to work with low end hardware.

Sure, it works. But all the spaceships just disappear into thin air instead of blowing up.

Errrr... maybe the explosions are so cool so that those of us who have a 1/2 way decent computer can actually see some decent graphics?? You can turn the explosions off for your dinosaur running Win98.... don't expect the rest of us to be blinded and crippled to make things more "fair".

I could understand you complaining if your ancient machine running an UNSUPPORTED OS crashed whenever you tried to run it (assuming they said that Win98 was supoported) but don't really see the point of your complaining about the game supporting current OSes and Graphics Cards costing over $60.

My computer runs XP. This is not an OS issue.

It also runs Dawn of War, which has explosions about 10 times prettier than Gal Civ II.

I'm not saying that you can't have your 'cool' explosions, as long as I have an alternative that doesn't ammount to vanishing spaceships.

Well, I have Athlon XP 2500+ and Radeon 9800 Pro with 128MB Ram, 1 GB physical ram, and the explosion sprites hang the whole game for about 1/2 second before the sprites load ... and they are even not so excellent, because they are too small to see all the super features of the explosin which requires so much of computing power...

Which version of the game are you running? If you have version 1.0 out of the box, please update because the way explosions work in the later versions is different.

This happens to me as well. I play GC2 v1.11 on my two laptops:
Thinkpad T43 / PM1.83Ghz / 1024MB RAM / Mobility Radeon X300 64MB VRAM / XP Pro
Acer TM4651LMi / PM1.6Ghz / 1280MB RAM / Nvidia GF6600 Go 64MB VRAM / XP Pro

At least second one runs newer games quite smoothly, e.g. I played CivIV on it with maximum graphic details.

Errrr... maybe the explosions are so cool so that those of us who have a 1/2 way decent computer can actually see some decent graphics?? You can turn the explosions off for your dinosaur running Win98.... don't expect the rest of us to be blinded and crippled to make things more "fair".

Maybe some of us have better things to do than fuel bill gate's juggernaught computer industry with 90% of our income.

But i digress...

It would be nice if there was a toned down explosion that wasn't quite so computer intensive. I'm playing it on a fastish 2.8 GHz laptop with 64MB Intel graphics card (it does the job for most things) and the latest drivers for both card and game. i've had to turn them off due to the game freezing for about 20ish seconds mid battle to render the explosion. Oddly enough, the explosions in the demo version worked fine, were they less cpu intensive? Anyone else notice this?

Any chance that the option to use the demo explosions could be implemented in the next update?

I'm using the newest version.

If they actually are point sprites, I'm going to try turing point sprites off and explosions on, just to expiriment.

And my question wasn't really 'why have good graphics' it was 'why have explosion graphics in a TBS with higher system Reqs than action and RTS games'

Haha.

I've had explosions turned off since 1.0X. Just turned them back on and it was fine. I hadn't realised this had been fixed

So I had to turn off explosions because they were making the game hang. I'm not sore about it. I'm intentionally using older drivers as per NVidia tech support's advice to make a newer card run under Win 98. I'm just wondering; why make explosion animations so graphic heavy that they surpass C&C Generals or Renegade (or some other action/RTS games I have) in system reqs?

The OP stated....

"So I had to turn off explosions because they were making the game hang.

I'm not sore about it. I'm intentionally using older drivers as per NVidia tech support's advice to make a newer card run under Win 98.

I'm just wondering; why make explosion animations so graphic heavy that they surpass C&C Generals or Renegade (or some other action/RTS games I have) in system reqs?

I was responding to HIS post.

And answer is still the same. Why make graphic reqs for a TBS higher than action games?

Well except for the first few times i played, now i zoom up all the way until it shows 2d icons instead of the 3d graphics and spend 90% of my time on that level. That's the easiest way i find to manage the empire to see where the anolomies are , which enemy ships are approaching, whether they can hit me first with their speed , which enemy colonies have the pirate flag etc... TOnce I get eyes of the universe, it's almost like playing chess.

he other 10% of the time I use the colony manager.

I don't know why stardock borthered with all that fancy 3d graphics lol.

I don't know why stardock borthered with all that fancy 3d graphics lol.

Whats wrong with playing something thats as aesthetically pleasing as it is enjoyable? I plan to upgrade my dinosaur of a pc just so can see everything in all its glory.

Nothing just that I feel silly playing on the 2d map, and makes all the eye candy pointless.

I got exactly the same problem, with an athlon 2800+, ati radeon 9800 pro, 256 Mb RAM: 1s explosions, slow loading times, ... (with galciv2 1.11)

The computer was swapping a lot, so I decided to add some RAM. I now have 512 Mb, and the game runs very smoothly.
The additional ram also decreased loading times by a factor 10.

hope this helps

Hmmmm...
AMD Sempron 3000+ 1.99ghz processor
512mb RAM
Nvidia GeForce FX 5500

The explosions still give me problems (v1.11). Funny thing is the game ran smoother with v1.0 .

I get a noticable freeze in the game of about one to two seconds. Its annoying, however ships dispearing into thin air (or space) is annoying as well. The explosions also makes full fleet battles a pain to render.

I also use the strategic view. It gives you more clear information. Its easier to spot ships and anomolies. Heck, you can even tell the approximate PQ of planets!

<

Nvidia GeForce FX 5500

There's your problem.

Beta 1.2 has a parameter in the options menu for simple explosions.
-cc

Nvidia GeForce FX 5500

There's your problem.

That's not a problem. It's called fiscal responsibility!

I was responding to HIS post.

well responding to your post it really seems you are trying to pick a fight? or is it just a social skill issue?

If explosions were making my game hang I would probably complain too, why do you have to get personal about it?

Why make graphic reqs for a TBS higher than action games?

'Cause it looks cooler.

Any time you're ever tempted to ask a question about system requirements, that's your answer. For this or any game.

'Cause it looks cooler. Any time you're ever tempted to ask a question about system requirements, that's your answer. For this or any game.

I can understand your point, however when my framerate frequently drops to 0 FPS, I get annoyed. Also when it becomes difficult to scroll when zoomed in on multiple ships I get annoyed.

Considering this game was advertised as being low-end friendly...