Help me Please

Choppy Gameplay

from Sins Forums

Hi, i'm brand new to this forum so please go easy if this is posted in the wrong spot, goes on to long, or has been posted before. I looked and couldn't find anything like what i am experiencing. I have played sins since it came out. I never played homeworld or any of the like, so when i picked up sins it was like the holy grail. Since sins first came out i have played it on my laptop. Until now i have not considered this a problem. i don't know if this is a sins diplomacy problem or my comp but every time i try to run it my mouse becomes unresponsive and the game becomes choppy. This happens from the VERY start of the game. From the very beginning with almost nothing on the screen. Now my comp specs, i have a Toshiba Satellite A665D-S6091 It comes with a AMD phenom II Quad-Core Mobile Processor P940 @1.7 GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, AMD M880G Chipset W/ ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 with 1GB DDR3 Discrete graphics memory, Plus up to 1661MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory. Total available graphics memory 2685MB. it also has 4GB of RAM. I use a external 22" HP monitor through the HDMI port with a usb mouse and keyboard on window 7. Sorry if you don't need all that But id rather overkill :). So i have never had this problem with the vanilla sins or entrenchment. I am wondering if this is my computer or if my specs are not compatible with the new diplomacy since the other two run fine with bigger maps and more AI players. I should tell you that i run the game at the 1600 x ?? (sorry i forgot to get the number) with the textures on highest the bump on low and the one in the middle on high (sorry can't remember what it is called). I'm using unmaskable and asteroids, dust, bloom, and rings off. I'm sorry the information is all out of order hopefully ill get better at this :). I never Play online Mainly cause i'm not that good and don't know anyone that wants to play with a NOOB but that also means the lag is not online play or anything like that. So i hope someone can help and thank you to everyone who reads this and thinks about it. All replies are appreciated.

9,812 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Have you updated to the latest version of Diplomacy?

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I would post another post in technical section.

You also can send email with your problems to 

[email protected]

 

Did you try to reinstall the game or check task manager for game resources. It might be hard drive. Laptops HD usually have only 5600RPM and if win 7 use swap file a lot.... 

My laptop gets really choppy when my HD is nearly full

PS Perhaps dont write as a wall of text and  use paragraphs.   :P

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Thank you for the responses GoaFan77 and Greg30007. Yes paragraphs would probly help :). 

I am running ver. 1.21 and my HD is 80% empty, i just factory reset it this morning (spring cleaning i guess). The HD is 5400RPM but would that only effect diplomacy? Wouldn't I have problems with the others?

To tell you the truth i could open the task manager but i would have no idea what I'm looking at, this is my first quad-core. If you tell what info would help from the task manager i will post it. 

I will do my best to locate and repost in the technical section. Thank you.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Diplomacy uses more RAM than entrenchment.

It seem that you have enough but as explained in one post i read 1661MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory that memory comes from RAM and is used only for graphic. (if i understood it correctly) Win 7 use just under 1 GB when it loads so for you that leaves around 1.4 GB for SINS diplomacy.  

Did try to give link to post that describes that but ATM i cannot find it. It was posted by Thomusin. If I do come across it I will post it here.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Well since the 1.2 patch RAM diplomacy's RAM performance has improved a lot, so your CPU is an equally legitimate target, especially with multicores.

One easy way to check if RAM is the issue is if you have your graphics settings fairly high to turn them all the way down to low temporarily. If that doesn't at least help the problem then its probably not a RAM issue.

For your CPU a general tip is to increase Sins' priority under the processes tab. While I don't know how to do this myself  ideally you should give Sins' one whole core to run on since you can probably afford that with a quad core.

Other general performance enhancing tips include disabling trade ship icons and exhaust detail, though it is bizarre that you are having issues at the start of the game. Definitely post in the technical thread, since the official stardock people check that more often.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

SINS doesn't support multi core processors. It will run on 1 core only.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Greg30007, reply 6
SINS doesn't support multi core processors. It will run on 1 core only.

I know, which is why its best to give it all of one core if you have the software to set that up.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

It comes with a AMD phenom II Quad-Core Mobile Processor P940 @1.7 GHz,

Bad CPU speed. Big issue.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

To set 1 core for sins only (Game should be running).

1. pres control+alt+delete. This should open task manager. 

2. Go to applications and right click on SINS. New menu will open.

3. Select go to processes. Now right click on highlighted process (process name should be Sins of solar empire or something similar

4. select Set Affinity. Here you can select cores of your CPU on which process is allowed to execute on

5. make it so that only 1 or 2 cores are ticked (try 1 first if no changes allow 2 cores) Some threads suggest that sins use 1.5 cores. Press OK.

6. right click on highlighted process again and select Set Priority

7. now select Real-time. 

8. Go back in the game.

If you try this I hope it works.

WARNING: If you set priority before affinity windows might freeze and be really non responsive. Eventually windows will do what you order them to do but only after game does what it has to do. Game has higher priority than OS.   

 

 

You might experience slower OS but only when SINS is running. I'm not sure if you need to set cores and affinity every time you run program or settings stays set.

OS should be able to adapt and use 2 or 3 cores that are not used by the game.

EDIT:

Here is link to thread I was talking about in reply 4.  Reply 19 is Thomusins post.

 

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Thank you all for your suggestions. 

so i tried lowering the graphics and the results where barely noticeable. so then i tried what Greg30007 suggested and received much better results the game ran smooth through much of the game with only noticeable hiccups here and their until major battles happed. 

I opened the task manager every so often to see what the computer was doing and the results where kinda confusing to me at first. The CPU usage was only 24% - 28% and the memory ran between 1.52GB to 2.00GB. So then i opened the resource monitor in the task manager to get more detail and saw that one of the two cores i assigned to sins was almost maxed the entire time and the second was around 50%.

So since only 50% of the ram is being used at a time im guessing it's not the problem. It looks like my CPU just can't handle all the calculations fast enough.

I have read online that over clocking a laptop is not only dangerous but does not give that much clock gain. But i was wondering, I have assigned SINS to run on two cores and it looks to be using both of them. At the same time though isn't windows and other process using them also along with the other cores? Is their any way to tell my computer that when SINS is running to only let SINS and no other program use those two cores. I'm sure it won't give me much of a boost but every little bit can't hurt, right?

If their is no way to do this, what settings can i change in the game or out to relive pressure on the CPU's i am using? The game i was running was a large random multi with 8 players and it slowed down after awhile and during battles. What type of game can i run that won't give me too much problem (hopefully you won't suggest 1 vs 1 :) )? 

Also when i assigned the core to SINS, choosing real time gave me an error. It made me choose high priority instead. Not sure if that makes a difference.

Thank you all for your suggestions and any further help.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

I have i7 CPU with 4cores + 4 virual (multi threading) and game becomes screenshot with 2+ h ow game play. 

SINS was made for low end systems,

Over-clocking CPU will raise core temperature of the chip which means you can fry it. Without sufficient cooling you can severely damage it. And since you cannot replace stock cooling system with better one I would advise against it.

Regarding OS using same cores. Yes I think it does but whatever calculations come from the game should be executed first so OS is kind of forced to use rest of the cores. 

You could force OS on other cores to do same thing you did for game for all processes that have system after the name but instead choose cores that you are not assigning to the game. There is a lot of files that OS runs that you don't really need if you play only against AI. So you could manually kill those processes for game sessions.

Again Thomusin posted great post regarding those effectively making OS using less than 50% resources that it uses by default. That post was a while ago and I will spend some time searching but I don't promise anything

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Greg30007 Thank you for your help. i did a search in the forums for the thread you where referring to and could not find it. i am a afraid i will just have to get used to playing medium maps or sticking to entrenchment. As it seems diplomacy does not play nice with my cores on any bigger maps. i just hope that this does not happen to rebellion as i have heard that it is also not multi-core capable. with all the new tech, ships, and such I'm afraid my low clock speed will not allow me to fully enjoy the game. but only time will tell.

On a side note it really sucks that i bought this quad core laptop only to find out that it is still not powerful enough to handle the things i want it to. with my job schedule it makes no since for me to get a desktop. but i hate the thought that I'm going to have to constantly buy a new laptop because clock speeds cant keep up with the desktop build games. i bought the quad because i thought it would offset the low clock speed but i guess i was wrong. sorry for the rant wont happen again, but the old lady hates tech and wont let me vent to her :) .