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GC2: DL and DA performance has been a bit spotty. The animations have been a little jerky with slow response in general and very long load times, although the time between turns is relatively short. I’ve also had a fair number of game crashes, which are generally related to tabbing out of the game (which I NEVER do anymore), when my stupid PC has a popup or program activates (Norton system scan; causes the game to seize), and sometimes at the turn (which never comes up for air again).
So I’ve been looking for ways to improve the performance of GC2: DL and DA. First I increased my virtual memory to 2GB minimum and 4GB maximum. I have lots of HD space so this wasn’t a hardship. I turned off intensive CPU and anti aliasing is turned down to 4. None of the video performance options are disabled, though. But although performance improved there were still times the PC was obviously struggling, as evidenced by huge game load times and painfully slow animations (such as when ships fire on ships in planetary orbit). Fleet combat is pretty good overall, though.
So I was weak and upgraded my 2004-era Dell from 512MB to 1GB of DRAM (cost ~$50). I can already see a difference in the animations (which were slow and balky) and perhaps in load time. Now the question is whether I want to upgrade my NVIDIA video card (128MB ram) to one with 256mb RAM. Fry’s Electronics had a NVIDIA 7300 with 256mb for $79, so I’m tempted ($100 is my pain threshold since I don’t like sinking tons of $$ into an older computer). My system is well above the recommended level now (P4 2.8GHz, 1MB RAM, 128MB video), so I don’t know if it would be worth it.
What are the experiences of others? Are there other options for improving performance?
Hydro
So I’ve been looking for ways to improve the performance of GC2: DL and DA. First I increased my virtual memory to 2GB minimum and 4GB maximum. I have lots of HD space so this wasn’t a hardship. I turned off intensive CPU and anti aliasing is turned down to 4. None of the video performance options are disabled, though. But although performance improved there were still times the PC was obviously struggling, as evidenced by huge game load times and painfully slow animations (such as when ships fire on ships in planetary orbit). Fleet combat is pretty good overall, though.
So I was weak and upgraded my 2004-era Dell from 512MB to 1GB of DRAM (cost ~$50). I can already see a difference in the animations (which were slow and balky) and perhaps in load time. Now the question is whether I want to upgrade my NVIDIA video card (128MB ram) to one with 256mb RAM. Fry’s Electronics had a NVIDIA 7300 with 256mb for $79, so I’m tempted ($100 is my pain threshold since I don’t like sinking tons of $$ into an older computer). My system is well above the recommended level now (P4 2.8GHz, 1MB RAM, 128MB video), so I don’t know if it would be worth it.
What are the experiences of others? Are there other options for improving performance?
Hydro
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