Supreme Commander Retail Thread

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-03-06 08:21am

I clearly need to tweak my settings. In normal games my system runs fine until the map starts to fill up then it gets a bit chunky, but the test scenario really gives it some trouble.

Amusingly, my sim result is 7399, and my render result is -5000. Poor old 6600GT.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2007-03-06 09:48am

My 6600gt packed up, So I upgraded to a c2d e6300 & a 8800gts w/320mb & 2 gb of DDR2 667mhz ram. (8.9ms read seek time on the harddrive @ 36dbels isnt nice however)

Playing the game of full details with no slowdown is nice

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-03-06 11:14am

Code: Select all

SupComMark (sim)       :   0.0
SupComMark (render)    : 135.7
SupComMark (composite) : 135.7

This is with a 7600 GT, A64 3000+, 1 GB RAM system. I'm not sure what the numbers really mean, but I can tell you that it slows to a crawl on large maps with lots of units no matter what the settings are.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2007-03-06 01:56pm

Shinova wrote:Run supcom with "/map perftest" in the command line and the game will load an automated performance test (lots of units and fighting goes on) and will give you a SupComMark score, and write a more detailed log file, with info such as min, max, and average FPS and such.

Since I'm such a dummy, how do you do that?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2007-03-06 02:58pm

You can do it in start->Run if you have windows. Mines looks like this:

"C:\Games\THQ\Gas Powered Games\Supreme Commander\bin\SupremeCommander.exe" /map PerfTest

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2007-03-06 03:46pm

Well I've tried that but it says that the location isn't accessible

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2007-03-06 03:50pm

wautd wrote:Well I've tried that but it says that the location isn't accessible

Edit the game's shortcut, and add /map PerfTest after the last quotation mark in the Target field.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-03-06 05:49pm

Xon wrote:My 6600gt packed up, So I upgraded to a c2d e6300 & a 8800gts w/320mb & 2 gb of DDR2 667mhz ram. (8.9ms read seek time on the harddrive @ 36dbels isnt nice however)

Playing the game of full details with no slowdown is nice

Heh, I need to get out of AGP town and the parts I'm looking at are basically the same as yours (except I'm planning on getting the 640mb gts and a 6400). No slowdown you say?

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2007-03-06 06:05pm

Stark wrote:
Xon wrote:My 6600gt packed up, So I upgraded to a c2d e6300 & a 8800gts w/320mb & 2 gb of DDR2 667mhz ram. (8.9ms read seek time on the harddrive @ 36dbels isnt nice however)

Playing the game of full details with no slowdown is nice
Heh, I need to get out of AGP town and the parts I'm looking at are basically the same as yours (except I'm planning on getting the 640mb gts and a 6400). No slowdown you say?

Load up a skirmish map, 81x81km (or hell, even a 20x20), set the cap to 750, and fill up the AI slots. Start the game, and give half an hour... Then you'll have slow downs.

Edit:

Here's my score:
SupComMark (sim) : 8798
SupComMark (render) : 7542
SupComMark (composite) : 16339
(Note: SupComMark scores represent overall system performance. Higher is better.)

This with a C2D E6600 (3.2 GHz, 400x8), 8800GTX (SLI currently disabled), X-Fi, 4GB of DDR2-800 and a Raptor.

LaserRifleofDoom · Post by **LaserRifleofDoom** » 2007-03-06 07:40pm

Hey. There are other threads for system performance. I want to know about the full version of the game.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2007-03-07 09:14am

Stark wrote:Heh, I need to get out of AGP town and the parts I'm looking at are basically the same as yours (except I'm planning on getting the 640mb gts and a 6400). No slowdown you say?

No slow downs on sane settings.

Arrow wrote:Load up a skirmish map, 81x81km (or hell, even a 20x20), set the cap to 750, and fill up the AI slots. Start the game, and give half an hour... Then you'll have slow downs.

Thats because there is a run away memory allocation bug in SupCom(it isnt a technically a leak). It'll hit 1.5gb of allocated virtual memory and hard crash to the desktop.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2007-03-07 09:28am

Xon wrote:Thats because there is a run away memory allocation bug in SupCom(it isnt a technically a leak). It'll hit 1.5gb of allocated virtual memory and hard crash to the desktop.

It does appear to stop allocating memory eventually, if you use the 3GB .exe header, as I've played several 8-player games with it and have not had crashes. Although I could just be finishing the game before hits a new limit.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-03-07 11:34am

Any word on the benefits of going from 1 to 2GB of RAM with regard to Supreme Commander?

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2007-03-07 11:55am

Uraniun235 wrote:Any word on the benefits of going from 1 to 2GB of RAM with regard to Supreme Commander?

For large maps, yes, there's a big benefit (hell, there's a huge benefit going from 2 to 4 on Vista with the 3GB header mod I linked to in the previous thread). This game really likes to hit the page file on large maps with lots units, judging from my HD activity light and the way the game behaves when zooming in/out and scrolling around.

If you're playing smaller maps, you might not see much (or any) improvement. I'm not far into the campaign, but so far, the campaign maps haven't benefited from more RAM. How does it feel when your playing?

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2007-03-07 02:14pm

Judging by the teasers at the end of the campaigns, the Cybran QAI did something to tick some 4th group off. Or something. I look forward to the expansion.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2007-03-07 02:48pm

I think QAI was an agent to this 4th group.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-03-12 03:53pm

Anyone else think a Bolo would be an awesome 3rd-party unit? The Fatboy is kinda halfway there as-is.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-03-12 05:11pm

What they *need* is better AI. I (a pretty crap RTS player) can beat any number of supreme AIs (well, six) simply by t1 turret rushing. Add some t2 turrets, then some t3 arty vehicles to keep the area clear, and once you start spamming out fatboys/gcs/monkeylords it's all over. The suiciding AI commander really helps with this - I've had a commander kill himself on a pair of t1 and a t2 turret that I'd sneakily built in a corner of his starting island (out of range of everything of course). What, a pair of lameo turrets on my island? I'M DOOMED.

Oh and I read on the internet that SupCom doesn't have nanostalls like TA. Can you imagine how someone could play SupCom and think that? Boggles the mind.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2007-03-12 05:45pm

Stark wrote:What they *need* is better AI. I (a pretty crap RTS player) can beat any number of supreme AIs (well, six) simply by t1 turret rushing. Add some t2 turrets, then some t3 arty vehicles to keep the area clear, and once you start spamming out fatboys/gcs/monkeylords it's all over. The suiciding AI commander really helps with this - I've had a commander kill himself on a pair of t1 and a t2 turret that I'd sneakily built in a corner of his starting island (out of range of everything of course). What, a pair of lameo turrets on my island? I'M DOOMED.

Horde AI is much better than the Supreme AI. Try giving the AI some time to get going, it's early build-order is fairly crap. Also make sure all 6 AI are allied

Oh and I read on the internet that SupCom doesn't have nanostalls like TA. Can you imagine how someone could play SupCom and think that? Boggles the mind.

A lot of morons see the animation effects and think it is still building, despite the resource counter telling you how little is actually going into it.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2007-03-12 05:56pm

Stark wrote:What they *need* is better AI. I (a pretty crap RTS player) can beat any number of supreme AIs (well, six) simply by t1 turret rushing. Add some t2 turrets, then some t3 arty vehicles to keep the area clear, and once you start spamming out fatboys/gcs/monkeylords it's all over. The suiciding AI commander really helps with this - I've had a commander kill himself on a pair of t1 and a t2 turret that I'd sneakily built in a corner of his starting island (out of range of everything of course). What, a pair of lameo turrets on my island? I'M DOOMED.

Oh and I read on the internet that SupCom doesn't have nanostalls like TA. Can you imagine how someone could play SupCom and think that? Boggles the mind.

I think the AI was designed to occasionally send super units at you. Of course more often than not I see the AI sending a Sacred Assault Bot under water. He's going to get me... eventually... maybe (sometimes like like to just hang out while getting shot with torpedoes.). I mean, its 'neat' that they got the AI to try and sneak around defenses, but I'd rather see a less retarded implimentation of it.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-03-12 06:03pm

Xon wrote:Horde AI is much better than the Supreme AI. Try giving the AI some time to get going, it's early build-order is fairly crap. Also make sure all 6 AI are allied

No. My point is the AI sucks, and I'm not going to HELP it. I'm not a masochist who wants to fight against retarded odds (beating 7 allied Starcraft AI lol). Given the lack of interesting behaviour, I just don't see any point playing vs AI anymore - insane 'deliberately hamstring yourself and take on massive superiority' aside.

I thought the 'horde' AI was one of the varients of Supreme? I've never bothered choosing an AI type... but given the massive power of t1 turrets to slaughter dozens of crap units, I don't think 'send piles of guys all the time' is going to do anything but waste their money.

A lot of morons see the animation effects and think it is still building, despite the resource counter telling you how little is actually going into it.

I just blew my mind. 'Oh I liked how you could crash your economy'. Like... when you've got no money, and you're trying to spend heaps of money, do they really think you're still building?

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-03-12 06:03pm

Yeah, the AI doesn't handle the submersible super units well. I suspect that for our next game we shall have to try a land map.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-03-12 06:09pm

Hotfoot wrote:Yeah, the AI doesn't handle the submersible super units well. I suspect that for our next game we shall have to try a land map.

I notice the AI doesn't handle naval stuff very well at all. It's sad, since the BB is much cheaper than a super unit but has piles of nice guns. Poor, useless AI. And the 'build 24 frigates and get them stuck in the shipyard area' thing is pretty bad too.

D.Turtle · Post by **D.Turtle** » 2007-03-13 09:27pm

Well tried it a bit and here is my first impression:

1) The so-called "tutorial" SUCKS. It simply consists of a game where you have all three commanders on an empty map, and then gives you the possibility of choosing a few videos where they show a bit of the stuff possible. And it doesn't even cover essentials like attack-move... They should have looked at Company of Heroes - that is how you do a tutorial.

2) The SP is, well, not very engaging. I'll leave it at that.

On to things that bugged me playing a skirmish game against an easy computer (sandbox).

1) Buildings count towards unit count?! What the hell?
2) Pathfinding is atrocious. Once you have many units, the computer is almost incapable of sending them somewhere. The game was moving fine with no slow down, FPS didn't drop at all, but sending 20-30 engineers somewhere took eons, and then they wouldn't even properly help each other build something.

I can't say anything on the gameplay or balancing, as I haven't played that much yet, but I get the feeling that this game is made for fans only - new players are pretty much left out in the sun to rot, and have to help themselves.

This is not a game for people who simply want to buy the game, install it, do the tutorial (to get the basics), play the Single Player campaign to have a bit of fun while learning the game, and then maybe start a few skirmish games against the computer, after having learned how to play during the campaign.

Elaro · Post by **Elaro** » 2007-03-14 07:02pm

D.Turtle wrote:Well tried it a bit and here is my first impression:

1) The so-called "tutorial" SUCKS. It simply consists of a game where you have all three commanders on an empty map, and then gives you the possibility of choosing a few videos where they show a bit of the stuff possible. And it doesn't even cover essentials like attack-move... They should have looked at Company of Heroes - that is how you do a tutorial.

Well, I don't know about CoH tutorials, but I thought they were sufficient to learn how to play at a basic level. You are right to say they didn't cover a lot, but I don't think they failed to teach the essentials. Tutorials aren't there to teach us strategy, although it is better if they do.

On to things that bugged me playing a skirmish game against an easy computer (sandbox).

1) Buildings count towards unit count?! What the hell?

Considering the unit count is relatively large ( I always play at 750-1000), I don't think it makes much difference.

I can't say anything on the gameplay or balancing, as I haven't played that much yet, but I get the feeling that this game is made for fans only - new players are pretty much left out in the sun to rot, and have to help themselves.

Well, I certainly agree that there's a learning curve, but what do you mean by "made for fans only"? I haven't played TA at all and I still find the game very interesting.

This is not a game for people who simply want to buy the game, install it, do the tutorial (to get the basics), play the Single Player campaign to have a bit of fun while learning the game, and then maybe start a few skirmish games against the computer, after having learned how to play during the campaign.

Really? Well, who is it for, then?