ok i know ive asked this a couple of months ago. ok if i host the game will i be required more ram to be able to sustain it? the game is supreme commander Forged alliance. i run it online with a friend of mine and 2 computer AI's. yet after 15 mins game play it slows down. its already gotten annoying. i just built my computer for the simple fact that i hate that it slows down. it only slows when we play on lan or online with others. im the host. is there anything i need to do or add. we both have fast internet speeds. i have 10mb down 1mb up. he has 15mb down i believe its 2mb up. my computer specs: evga 780i motherboard q6600 2.4 @ 3.0 2 Gb Ram 667 750 Watt Power supply xfx 8800gt 512 Video Card 250gb Hard Drive internal 250gb External 80gb Hard Drive x2. his computer specs. evga 680i motherboard PD 3.0 @ 3.4 2gb Ram 533 7900gs 256 650 watt power supply. we both can play the game fine with no lag on single player. yet when we connect. a game that should take 30 mins on the game timer really ends up taking about 2 hours. hes about to order a core 2 duo. hoping that helps. which is why im asking for your help. should he upgrade his ram first to 4gb? he has vista ultimate 64. or should he upgrade his processor first? Thanks ahead of time.
Forged Alliance has a built in gamespeed adjustment that to my knowledge can't be disabled. If it detects a low frame rate from either of the PCs playing it, it will drop the gamespeed. The threshold seems to be about 16fps. While that's low for an FPS, in an RTS it isn't a noticeably horrendous frame rate, and is a speed that I'm happy to play strategy at - consequently until recently I couldn't figure out the cause of the slow game speed. It's only fixable by lowering the graphics specs, and that will apply to your friend with the 7900GS, I had an X1900XT, slightly faster than a 7900GS and I refused to play FA until I upgraded to my current card because the game ran so badly for me. Forged Alliance is a VERY demanding game, far moreso than the original supreme commander.
so then in the game it wont make a difference? i tend to alt tab while i play and well it takes a while to get back into the game. does that mean i have to get more ram to get it faster? i also see its using 1.5 gb of virtual ram. while its also using the 2 gb. while playing the game it uses 1gb on the process manager. i've read that while you use the computer ai. it requires more resorces. is this true? the only slow down i get is after there are more than 2 thousand units on screen. this is including all four players. 2 computer ai and a friend and i. it gets pretty annoying when it slows down. my friend has even put the video quality on low with same results.
Alt-tabbing out of games like Forged Alliance is fine as long as you've got enough RAM, and a decent CPU. The AI players do use more CPU usage yes, but not more graphics usage. Your friend's PC's CPU is a bit slow for the game but just about acceptable, his graphics card however is hopeless for forged alliance. I had a card faster than that and I stopped playing FA because it was unplayable, especially over LAN. To check frame rate use Fraps. If your friend is using all low graphics settings however and it isn't lagging until late on, it's his CPU that isn't up to the task, because the more units you add, the more processing power is required. In general, your friend needs to upgrade his graphics card and processor.
thanks ill go ahead and let him know. i have a core 2 duo thats on the old computer. ill just end up switching it out with the pentium d. ill let you know how that goes. thanks for your help.
That will certainly help, but if you still get issues it's time to sort out the graphics card. I can confirm that a Core 2 Duo is enough to play Forged Alliance over a network because I do it on a regular basis with mine. You may as well overclock it since he's got a relatively decent motherboard, that'll help you out further. Don't forget about the graphics though.
