Impressive Performance

from Elemental Forums

I just wanted to mention that I'm quite surprised at the performance I'm getting on my mediocre machine.

I have a Toshiba Notebook with the following specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo @2.17GHz

2GB RAM

GeForce Go 7900 GTX with 512MB Dedicated.

Windows Vista 32-Bit.

 

I'm running the game on maximum quality settings, and while there is some lag, it is a very acceptable amount that is not at all a bother or annoyance to gameplay. Considering that neither nVidia or Toshiba are supporting my graphics card, and I can't get drivers more recent than 2006, I think this is an admirable achievement on the developer's part.

So the game looks brilliant and I'm looking forward to even better performance with the coming patches and expansions.

Thank you and keep it up.  O:)

elemental
14,935 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Horray - good news FTW!  Glad to hear we're making positive headway...thanks Istari!

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I second this. My machine is almost 4 years old now with the same install of Vista all these years! AMD 5600 Dual core, 2 G DDR2 800 Ram, Nvidia 9800 GT 512 Ram.

I have not had a glitch in 100 turns! I have been playing for 2 days now and I am both impressed with the graphics, core mechanics and also with the immense potential what with all the modding going on and what the future will hold. The present is already producing brilliance thanks to the brilliance of the "mod squads".

Keep up all the beautiful work SD  :frogboy: and modders    (\B):vulcan:(\B)   !!!

 

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, end turn performance is one solid feature Stardock has done well ever since GalCiv II.  No minute-or-longer turn processing like with Civ V!

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Chibiabos, reply 3
Yeah, end turn performance is one solid feature Stardock has done well ever since GalCiv II.  No minute-or-longer turn processing like with Civ V!
End of Chibiabos's quote

Well, Though Civ V AI is not that challenging, it is head and shoulder stronger than what Elemental has today. Let's wait and see what real AI of Elemental will do, once it is introduced with patches.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Stardock implemented a different sort of turn processing in GalCiv II that allows the AI to plan its moves, etc. during the idle CPU cycles when the human player is figuring out what to do in GalCiv II, as per a dev journal way back when they were making GC2.  This is why Stardock's TBSes have faster end turn processing without sacrificing AI capability.

 

Civ V has a lot going for it and overall I do find the game itself enjoyable, but end turn processing taking 30, 60 or even more seconds is a big source of frustration for a lot of players.  Even playing on the largest map settings, GalCiv and Elemental only take a few seconds at most to process turns, the slowest turn processing coming from moving units set to automatic moves (auto-explore, or a long-distance move).  I was curious if Firaxis would tip its hat to Stardock and adopt this, as this has been a growing annoyance with every iteration of the Civ series.  Firaxis did seem to adopt a couple things from Stardock into Civ V, but processing turns obviously isn't one of them.

 

Civ V has a very long way to go.  I really doubt they'll rewrite the engine to copy Stardock's model, but their engine definitely needs some work.  They do, apparantly, offload some work onto other cores on multi-core systems, but it is so minor that its barely noticeable; end turn processing all seems to happen on a single core.  A single-core system with Civ V with a higher clock speed (higher GHz) will have faster turn processing than a multi-core system, as was found by gamespot.  Elemental, unfortunately, does not seem to take any advantage of multi-core, but its simultaneous turn processing is definitely an impressive strength from Stardock the "David" versus Firaxis the "goliath."

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Chibiabos, reply 5
Stardock implemented a different sort of turn processing in GalCiv II that allows the AI to plan its moves, etc. during the idle CPU cycles when the human player is figuring out what to do in GalCiv II, as per a dev journal way back when they were making GC2.  This is why Stardock's TBSes have faster end turn processing without sacrificing AI capability.
End of Chibiabos's quote

I figured something along those lines - but it's a double edged sword. For instance, I've seen the AI numerous times move more than 3-4 squares (ie: use a road) and end up putting its sov or army in great danger - my guess being because the AI didn't 'see' more than a few squares, it planned its move, then got in way over its head...I watched as an observer as AI Atlar's sov jumped deep into AI Kraxis territory (using roads) and get owned and *poof* faction death.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

That would explain why some enemy units keep moving to a town even after it has been captured. They start moving when they are going to reinforce it, but by the time they get there, it has been conquered. Even if the conquering army is vastly superior, the tiny little unit will still attack.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Heavenfall, reply 7
That would explain why some enemy units keep moving to a town even after it has been captured. They start moving when they are going to reinforce it, but by the time they get there, it has been conquered. Even if the conquering army is vastly superior, the tiny little unit will still attack.
End of Heavenfall's quote

 

Another thing that needs to be "fixed" about the AI.

I also noticed last night after one of my towns that I forgot to station a guard got razed by some wandering monsters. At least three caravans were piled up there "waiting for orders." There needs to be some kind of news report when something like this happens, as the caravens are very small & typically hard to see. I want to know if one of my caravans is not moving for whatever reason, this is only reasonable.