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Bayesian
Bayesian
Join Date 03/2008
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Is this normal for an overclocked phenom 940

March 28, 2009 11:07:18 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Hi all,

I recently built a new computer with the following specs:

             - AMD Phenom 2 940 (OC'ed to 3. 61 gHz)

             - Asus M4A79 Deluxe MB

             - 4GB OCZ Reaper Ram (OC'ed to 1100 Mhz)

             - XFX 8800 GT 512 MB video card

             - Windows XP Home (32 bit)

             - 24 inch ACER monitor (set to 1920 x 1080 resolution)

I thought it would be enough to play SINS with no lag. However, when I'm having huge battles (200 + ships), I'm still getting very low frame rates (about 9-12).

Is this normal? Are you guys/gals also experiencing this?

Thanks in advance!

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Bayesian
jjandrah
Join Date 11/2008
+21
Reply #1 March 28, 2009 11:22:08 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

There's been several threads on this over the past few months - here's a few:

It's just the way things are. Unless you have something like a Core i7 at 5ghz+, it will slow down and effects will be dropped.

That said, entrenchment runs much better/faster than vanilla sins.

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Bayesian
Bobucles
Join Date 03/2008
+13
Reply #2 March 28, 2009 12:39:11 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

It's that video card. New shader effects will bog down your 8th generation card very quickly. 9th generation was pretty much a bust, but gen10 cards like the radeon 4850/4870 series and the Geforce 260 are less than $200. The upgrade isn't really worth it unless you can sell that old card first. If so, go for it.

Video companies are pushing HARD to have people upgade to multiple video card solutions. This will facerape your power bill, and will require a hefty power supply to use.

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Bayesian
jjandrah
Join Date 11/2008
+21
Reply #3 March 28, 2009 3:53:56 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting Bobucles,
reply 2
It's that video card.

Based on my measurements and those from the threads I linked, this game is generally CPU-bound rather than GPU-bound; nonetheless, it's easy for you to check if your gpu is your bottleneck.

Save a game where there is a spot that runs slowly and then bottom out the graphics settings. 

I do concede that the 8800 is rather weak compared to the rest of your specs, though, so even if it isn't bottlenecking this game, it will surely be your bottleneck for other games.

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Bayesian
Bayesian
Join Date 03/2008
0
Reply #4 March 29, 2009 11:15:55 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

SINS certainly seems CPU bound. I had tested the game with the lowest possible resolution and with all effects turned off. I still saw the same framerates (9-12).

 

Maybe, I should have sacrificed dinner to try to save up another 300 dollars to get an I7 based system

 

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Bayesian
rankothefiremage
Join Date 07/2006
+1
Reply #5 March 29, 2009 11:29:12 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

i mostly the same specs as you minus overclocking and plus a geforce GTX 260, and right now with 9 AIs in late game entrenchment i'm seeing few problems when things come to the big firefights.

 

my specs

Phenom II 940

Gigabyte motherboard AMD 780GX

Kingston Hyper-X 1066 DDR2 4gig dual channel kit

EVGA Geforce GTX 260

XP32

and a 22'' acer widesceen

 

and i have few problems with entrenchment when things come down to the good god that's a large fight scale.

-Gabe

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Bayesian
Thrawn2787
Join Date 03/2007
+30
Reply #6 March 29, 2009 12:04:56 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I've never really seem to go below 15 FPS (even in big battles)

 

4 GBs RAM

Vista 64-bit

Q8200 OC'd to 2.80 GHz

4870 1 GB

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Bayesian
Bayesian
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #7 April 19, 2009 6:36:42 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Finally decided to upgrade my video card. Just bought a Sapphire 4870 X2 video card. Going to install it later tonight and do some benchmark.

 

Never been able to play any games at 1080p with all eye candy turned on... Hopefully, this baby will be able to do that...

 

A little worried about driver issues.... especially with older titles...

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Bayesian
TurdFergus0n
Join Date 04/2008
+1
Reply #8 April 20, 2009 5:00:29 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

i just updated to CCC 9.4 for my 4870 1gig was a breeze. only time i get slowdowns is on absolutely huge maps (ie. real space, big blue, a huge galaxy) and i got my q9550 oc'd to 4.02ghz. too bad this game doesnt utilize 4 threads

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Bayesian
whepper
Join Date 10/2006
0
Reply #9 April 20, 2009 1:32:32 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

my system isnt as high spec as yours but i dont get lag and i run everything on high and play large maps and sometimes in a rush ill speed the game up

 

Amd4200+ x2 athlon 2.2ghz

2x1gb ram

8600gt card

250gb HDD sata

Vista ultimate 32bit

but saying that my computer doesnt scream for power my old comp used to scream for power my GFX wasnt getting the power it needed. maybe the PSU is going i bought a new PSU and within 4 days it died my you have a PSU fault

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Bayesian
Tamren
Join Date 03/2008
+34
Reply #10 April 20, 2009 3:10:54 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

The real bottleneck is cpu time. I have an 8800GTS512 and the only thing keeping me from running all effects on high is that I run out of ram and things start getting shunted to the page file. And that makes things sloooow. In heavy battles and on huge maps I get slowdown but I am quite certain it all has to do with my CPU and not my GPU. Turning antialiasing on and off doesn't do anything but disabling V-sync has a huge effect.

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Bayesian
Nuttygamer
Join Date 12/2008
+34
Reply #11 April 22, 2009 7:00:19 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Hell, even quad core 3.37ghz with 6gb ram, with almost everything off or lowest, I could be lagging, mind you I was playing the Star Trek mods, which at least 10 fleets going nuts with an personally modded insane AI

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Bayesian
Bayesian
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #12 April 24, 2009 9:07:26 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Tamren,
reply 10
The real bottleneck is cpu time. I have an 8800GTS512 and the only thing keeping me from running all effects on high is that I run out of ram and things start getting shunted to the page file. And that makes things sloooow. In heavy battles and on huge maps I get slowdown but I am quite certain it all has to do with my CPU and not my GPU. Turning antialiasing on and off doesn't do anything but disabling V-sync has a huge effect.

 

Thanks for the tips. I will try disabling V-sync.

 

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Bayesian
psychoak
Join Date 07/2007
+225
Reply #13 April 24, 2009 10:27:59 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Try killing bloom.  The eight series sucks monkey nuts at bloom for some screwball reason.

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whepper
Join Date 10/2006
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Reply #14 April 25, 2009 7:42:41 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

if you want to free up ram just close none essential Programs which windows runs in the background and those using vista turn your comp to basic mode Aero use's alot of ram to run

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