A Completed, three-hour game and it's problems

from Sins Forums
Well, first off, I'd like to take a moment to say I love this game, even though I'll have to reinstall it, apparently.

The first thing I want to make note of is my system specs, for the record. I'm running an Intel Pentium IV 2.8 Ghz with hyper-threading. My system has expanded to 1.5 Gb of RAM (1,536 MB of it, precisely), and I'm using an NVidia GeForce 6600 with 128 onboard RAM. (I am not satisfied with this purchase, as I think I was ripped off, but c'est la vie, it's what I have to work with. I was assured by the salesperson, whom I now think was talking out of his arse, that the 6600 GT used a newer form of RAM which was, quote, "twice as fast".)

So, it's not exactly a dinosaur, though it may not by a redhot gaming rig.


My first complaint was the crippling lategame slowdown. It only happened at certain ranges, so I am inclined to believe it was primarily graphics slowdown rather than the AI and my massive empire (almost a whole system, wow) hogging up the cycles. Specifically, at a far zoom, it worked fine, at a medium zoom the slowdown was crippling - we're talking seconds per frame - and at very very close zoom, it worked fine again. Is this a known issue, is it solely related to my graphics card, or is there anything I can do to help mitigate this? (I already turned planet trails off, turned off ship trails, turned off dust clouds.)


My second curiousity is that, sometime in the late game, the sound seemed to get corrupted, presenting a lot of electronic scratching sounds and static sounds, in addition to the normal music. This was I felt a very strange thing, but restarting the game didn't correct it; indeed, the problem appeared on the menu screen! I think this is a very strange thing...
5,116 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
That PC is quite dated, and is probably closer to the "minimum specs required for the game".

As for the sound issues, are your drivers up to date, is it on-board sound or a sound card?

Also for your 6600GT , I had that card 3 years ago , have you updated the drivers? It should still be able to chug along...
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
ugh , damn double post...
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Drivers... Right. I tend to forget those. *goes to check*
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Drivers should help, but the 128MB video card is going to be trouble unless you run at reduced texture quality settings.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I think my old one was 256, actually. But I list the idjit at the store talk me into the 128... >_<


Oh well, it's 'round that time of the year that I go upgrading anyway. Any suggestions for a limited budget and a dated PC?
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
6600 was an AGP card if I recall...

A nice 7600GS for about 100 bucks , would give you a nice bump. Anything more and I feel your CPU/RAM/in general old PC, will give bottlenecks...
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Shadow , can you please post a savegame on mediafire or rapidshare , so that other people can test your problems. Imo , I think shadows PC is just fine. It is alot better then my rig..

My Specs (laptop) are

Intel Celeron 420 M 1.6ghz - 1Mb Cache
1024 Mb DDR2 Ram
Radeon X200 Xpress with shared 128mb. [ 2 pipeline ]

3dmark03 score = 1450

so I should try it and see if performance is just as bad.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
1st NEVER let a PC retailer talk you into buying a component you don't want.

I have a dated system with similar specs to yours, perhaps lower. The difference is you use a 2.4 gig p4 vs my sempron 3100+ (roughly the same cpu power). I have 2 gigs of ram. Today i wouldn't put anything less than 2 gigs of ram in a machine. I also use a GF-6000gt but mine is 256 megs vs your 128. I can run Sins at max settings, but i cant run large maps (over 20 planets) without a slide show happening mid to end game. What can i say. It's a dated machine, but it still serves its purpose. Sooner, or later i am going to have to make a new system.

Upgrading your existing system is out of the question now. Since PCI express, and multicore cpus are the standard. If you want to go cheap i would go dual core since the newer quad, and 8 core cpu's should bring the price down a bit on dual cores. If you can afford a quad core, and a new MB to go with it that would be the best way to go. I see no benefit in using anything more unless you are running the busted Windows Vista. The 8 cores are in their infancy, and i dont know much about them. No doubt they will be very expensive.

You should be able to pick up two good 1 gig strips of ram for around 150 bucks. Buy a matched set if you can.

GF-8800 is the standard now. GF-8800 is the only card i am aware of now that supports DX-10. Problem is you need Vista to use DX-10, and Vista has some big problems. Ill continue to run Windows XP until the vista problems are fixed. Plus i will not pay 300-500 bucks for a video card. So i would go the next step down. like a 79, or 7800 with 256 megs ram minimum. If you can pick up an 8800 cheaper than 300 bucks then i would get that.

The rest of your components like hard drive, dvd-rom, etc. should still be usable. Unless SATA is now the standard, and they stopped using IDE.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Oh well, it's 'round that time of the year that I go upgrading anyway. Any suggestions for a limited budget and a dated PC?


Three things:

Define limited budget (how much)
Define what you want out of it (new PC? PC that runs better?)
Define if you know how to put parts together your self (which for all intents and purposes means you have the self-confidence to follow an online walk through, its really easy!)

Given those, I can probably "build" you a computer from www.newegg.com if your in the US, or at the very least point you to another forum (and a specific thread thereof) where people drop by just to do that kind of thing for you... for free!

Ah, what the heck: WWW Link Just PM Rilbur on that forum after you've posted the info, and a nice, helpful, courteous individual (with a very handsome avatar will be glad to give you help while others watch on to make sure I don't screw up. Or, heck, just post the stuff here and I'll do it here instead of there.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
I'd have to agree with Ron. It is really easy to build a computer (if it dont fit, then it dont go there). I recently helped a friend build one with only ventrello to communicate with him. Need less to say, it was a "interesting" process when he would describe problems in such creative terms as "the little thing wont align with other thing", but after about 10hrs of walking him through the process he was ready to install windos and is currently playing TESIV:Oblivion with better then maxed graphics and loveing it (I just wish I had his budget).

Your computer is not much worse then mine. The only difference would be I'm running a AMD procresser and I have the 6600 with 256MB ram. I'm able to run Sins at 1440x900 with maxed settings, the only time it slows down is durning auto-save
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I'm able to run Sins at 1440x900 with maxed settings, the only time it slows down is durning auto-save


Wow! ... I am definitely going to complain to the management. If "max" lets you do that, I want a super-max that'll actually let me use my 8800GTX at 1280x1024!
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

I'm able to run Sins at 1440x900 with maxed settings, the only time it slows down is durning auto-save


Wow! ... I am definitely going to complain to the management. If "max" lets you do that, I want a super-max that'll actually let me use my 8800GTX at 1280x1024!


My bad, I only had AA at 2x instead of 4x but I'm betting I still wont notice a difference in frame rates.