Cool

Did a bit more testing and there is definitely a frame rate drop on the larger map. What puzzles me however, is that even a small drop (from 75-72) is very noticeable in the ship movements, almost like something else (related to the process large map) is responsible. My machine specs are dual core 2.5 Ghz, 512meg graphics card with 4GB of ram BTW.

Graphic setting don't seem to effect this jerky movement in any way, only the map size.

Yes 32-bit. Thanks for the response. I've further reduced the map down to 110 planets which seems to have helped. (Mind you, its early  in the game).  Would enabling the 3GB switch for xp be of any help here?

A 512meg graphic card is pretty light. You've done the basics like defrag,close unneeded programs in backround?

512 ain't light, not for Sins.  It's more than adequate for max settings.  I did one step down with a 256MB 7800GS on my old computer.

That your framerate is high while the jitter goes on guarantees it's not the video card.  Your processor would need to be somewhere north of 8Ghz before it would stop chugging late game on a 255 planet map.

I play random medium and large, and I have a 3.3Ghz Sandybridge setup.  Late game chug typically only comes about when I've borked a new ability.  I can't handle a huge without it hitting though.  One of life's little joys, the engine was designed before processor growth went parallel on us.

When we were working on TSOP we pretty much threw everything we could think of at the late game lag issue. From nerfing the texture sizes by 1/2, Reducing poly counts on the NPC models, and strike craft. We even tried auto docking strike craft. NOTHING worked. That tells me that late game lag IS a CPU issue. A CPU issue similar to the problems supreme commander had in its early days. Just too many units on the map. Even with TSOP enabled and a small map running at 1.2 gigs. On an i5 cpu, 6 gig of ram 64 bit system, With a 1 gig vid card system WAY above recommended specs. I STILL get late game lag.

Sins only uses a single core of a multi core CPU. So imagine all of the units, and structures on the map. Along with mines strike craft. Then add in the calculations for unit movement, Weapons fire, Particles, Damage allocation, Mitigation, Abilities, Buff's, and De-buff's. All of this is happening on the map even when you are not observing any AI's fighting it out somewhere else on the map. I think it is pretty safe to say that its because Sins was optimized only for single core CPUs. NO amount of graphic optimization can help that. Sins is 32 bit, but done a little different than most 32 bit games, because some 32 bit game unload stuff it doesnt need. Sins loads EVERYTHING, and keeps everything loaded from game startup until the game is over. In early game thats ok because not much is happening. However when thousands of things are going on at once i think its pretty safe to say the 1 core sins is using in my 3.2 gig i5 is taxed.

Sorry i havent been around.. Nor am i gonna be around for a bit.. RL Work just got crazy again.

damn shame the game isn't multi-cored... it would take the SD team to make the change and that alone would require a game engine re-write and I don't think that's money they wanna spend. They'd be better off making a completely new game if they wanna do that and to make it have multicore requirement. Most people nowadays have multicore processors.

  Hey all long time on the forum been thinking of answering the call to get a kind of manual of sorts put together as a PDF on all the Ships, Installations and Abilities used in the SOA2 Mod. Interested in opinions on what people would find most helpful.

  Currently I thinking about format and just how much information players would want so any suggestions would be helpful.

@ Larani:

HTML would be better. I have a SOA weebly started that I can give you page templates for and make you an editor of.

http://soa2.weebly.com/

or you can just email or pm me txt docs and I will update the pages and give you credit for the work.

To unlock those technologies you need to make pacts with those races.  It needs to be a pact specifically for their race as found under the Pact area of the Diplomacy screen.  Sadly, the AI can't handle these pacts, so it breaks the pact as soon as it is made.

Cut my planets down from 110 to 77, and while not perfect, my system seems to handle this amount a lot better.

In my current game (play as fed) I am starting to win with alliances with rom and kling, all AI on unfair. I noticed that the Domion was really on the ropes and decided to see if I could turn it around for a challenge.  When I reloaded and chose them all of their ship building, and market tab are greyed out, and they are unable to build or move anything. I checked all the other races, and no problems, only the Dom. I followed back the auto saves and found that at autosave 66 they are fine, and autosave 67 they are 'frozen'. Needless to say according to the graphs this is when they really took a dive. Going back ahead to auto save 107 (the latest in my game) they have 0 ships and a huge surplus of money/resources, so it was not my switch to them that had anything to do with this. Has anyone seen this before/known issue?

Yeah, after reading through some of the 'plain' sins post on other pages (just now lol) I thought as much. I thought it was somewhat funny to read this particular player, or that particular player has work around's so that the ai does not surrender early, which suggests that the games designer made a major mistake when implementing this non moddable, non selectable surrender mechanic. Regardless, thanks for the reply.

On a separate note, can you start the game as someone, and then on a reload switch plays. While I know you can do it, it seems the other AI's don't like it as some (although not all?) of them then just sit there. Why I wonder is I was going to get the Borg of to a great start and then see if I could turn it around as the fed. Any ideas for making sure the other ai's keep playing when you switch (this is different from them surrendering)

Edit: I found (probably everyone knows this already) something to allow me to play as the Dom. By editing  their victory status in the save game, they are now playable. A workaround of sorts.

Edit 2: When switching player I found that you also have to edit the save game for AI for the player you are leaving, both player ai control and unit ai control (set to true). Then, the faction plays as intended.