Like any modern game, this one has scaleability. That is, depending on your setup, you can turn off certain graphical elements so that you can play the game even if it doesn't look quite so pretty.

There's no doubt in my mind that if someone wants the eye candy badly enough, they'll find it in their heart to upgrade that much-neglected PC which they're running. If they just want to play the game with what they have, then they'll configure away. The options also present the opportunity to speed up gameplay.... yes, much as you might like to view every fleet battle blow-by-blow, if you have a big war on it might take half-an-hour just to get through one turn with full battle viewing engaged

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

It is, since you can turn down the effects. Low-end friendly doesn't necessarily mean "for low-end machines only".

Developers have a need to appeal to the broadest possible spectrum of machine owners. If the game only runs well on high-end machines, the the low-end guys won't buy it. If the game is ONLY for low-end guys and has no EYE-CANDY, the high end guys will pass it over for games with more eye candy.

"Mmmmmmmmm, eye candy. UHUHUhuuhUHUHUH....." [/Homer Simpson]

OMG get RAM, people, it's cheap now!

And I thought I was running lean with just 1GB. The very thought of upgrading "to" 512MB on a 2.8GHz machine just boggles my mind.

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

Dude, low-end does not equate to obsolete, or antique.

k, back to the topic...who needs eye candy anyway? Eye candy is for games that don't have any substance or anything else but the eye candy, so they have at elast something that makes them worth buying...or borrowing...or at least pirating to see just how bad they really are! (kidding ) Seriously, how many people here would be playing this sequel to a space-based strategy game if it had nothing of substance, just bling, flash and a cool ship designer? (not that that's bad, but eventually you get tired of making ships and want to see them in action, and even on my machine which is far from leading edge but definitely capable of running anything current at close to "max eye candy" I prefer to tone it down a bit.

Dude, low-end does not equate to obsolete, or antique.

If you're talking about a computer it does. Saying that all games with eye candy are bad games is innacurate at best .

Their are a lot of great-looking games which are GOOD games out there now.

Sounds like low-end sour grapes to me. Fancy people want graphics and we turn the details all the way UP!!!!

Some of ous with Good machines WANT the eye candy it helps the immersion and fun in the game. Ok people spend 1500 bucks and get a computer thats less then 10 years old for your own sake! its is friendly to low end machines the graphics are therey low grade in terms of the rescources and graphics card needed. If you have a dinosaur of a machine just turn the settings that are slowing your computer down of! (note my comp would cost around 2000 - 2500 dollars and it plays excellently no lag at all!

True...but I bet you'll have to spend another $2500 in a year or two...

Sorry for bumping but I just wanted to say thank you for implementing the "simple explosions" option in the most recent update...it solved all my explosion problems! Its been said before but it bears repeating, god bless Stardock for listening to and responding to user criticism!

When someone advertises something as low-end friendly, it does kinda imply that the game will work fine with low end machines. While obviously that isn't going to include all of the best effects, you'd at least expect something a little better than magical disapearing spaceships. Explosions have been around since practically the beginning of games.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't have better explosions for people whose machines can handle it, I'm just saying that they should have a more basic explosion as an option for lesser machines. And what do you know, it appears that Stardock agrees with me, as they have included such an option in the latest update.

Forget spending 1500 or 2500, spend $200 and get 2gigs of low latency PC3200 ram. It's dirt cheap now.

The only problems I had were with the game crashing which happens for some reason when I have the option for 400MHz ram turned on. Once I turned it back to automatic the game is a breeze.

I get the few seconds lag when ships explode, and my system isnt THAT outdated. The demo worked fine for me, but now I've got the full game with 1.2 it lags like hell in battle or even in the empire map when my fleet attacks a planet garisson.

Well, I've got a pretty up-to-date gaming system, Athlon 64 4000+, nVidia 7900 GT and I get a stutter in the explosions. This system runs much more graphically demanding games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 butter smooth at high quality settings. So, I think there may be something a bit lacking in the explosion department. If you're running something as low-end and old as an FX 5500, that problem is going to be magnified 10 fold. You can shut off explosions or live with it. For me, it's not a big issue because it's not that bad and, like a previous poster said, I spend 90% of my game time in the tactical view.

Question.... Do they make CD roms that will work with my Commodore 64?

Stardock bothered with the 3D graphics because some people play in multiple dimensions, not just the "chess" view. Everyone has their preferences... even me.

My Imagination, My Rules.

I don't get why the explosions are so heavy, my computer isn't a dino but the explosions in the game are. Every time I see one of the games explosions, i'm thinking, "wow games on my N64 a decade ago had explosions that were much better than this". Why does this game struggle with these dino graphics?

My guess is that it isn't the explosions themselves, but the 'shattering' effect of the spaceships. All the pieces of jewellry break off and start flying in opposite directions. Could that be causing slowdown?

I guess it's a game engine problem. Might be that the engine asks too much for slower machines, but i mean, I have a very...average system(yet am able to play anything with reasonable effects) which consists of an AMD Sempron 3400+ processor, a ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 256Mb Vid card(which is connected in agp 8x, my mainboard doesnt support PCI Express), 1.5Ghz of ram operating at 333Mhz...

It cost me less than 500$ (CDN) to upgrade my system to that level, and honestly, I'm satisfied atm, and I haven't experienced any slowdowns.

My laptop has an X1600 as well and it runs the game pretty darn good. So yea, you don't need a really fast system for this game. A mid-range current generation video card is plenty.

Yup! My only problem with my laptop is overheating (damn the summer..).

Some of you guys must be trying to run this game on a Commodore64 or something....for a new release this game is about as basic as you can get as far as eye candy. I get what you're saying though...I'm still miffed that I can't get Dead Rising to run on my Atari 2600.