Well, I've had Supcom since it first was released and have laid pretty much all RTS games in the closet and have big problems liking new ones. I play a lot with both friends and stuff but when I want to play a bit for myself against AI the game runs perfectly for about 20-30 minutes and suddenly everything starts to slow down. I've heard that the AI keeps sending information to dead units so the game gets an "overload" and goes into a frenzy after a while..

I remember I had this problem with my old computer and it annoyed me so much but I just accepted it as I thought it was too weak to play the game (Q6600 Quad Core 2.4 ghz, 4gb ddr2 ram and 8600 nvidia) and I lived with it for about 2 years.. then My computer got burnt in a thunderstorm and I had to get a new one so I thought this was my chance to go overkill and get ready for both some hardcore Supcom, BF3 and Skyrim nights.

I went to the net and bought a few parts including 24gb Vengeance corsair RAM, dual Gainward 580 cards and i7 Hexa Core Extreme..

after I built the computer, I fired it up installed FA, downloaded latest patch and fired up skirmish on Shards with me and 4 hard AI's.. 30 min later.. guess what? yes you're right.. Slowdown!? I couldn't believe my own eyes.. now I'm asking if there is any possibility to stop the AI from sending info to dead troops (I think this is the reason as it is what I've read) The slowdown doesn't happen in PVP multiplayer unless one of the guys have a shitty PC so I don't know.. Anyone have any Ideas?

(also read that supcom have bad multicore support?)

The slow down is form the engine-side AI coding, no Mod is going to fix it.

Your best bet is to head down to the AI Mod Forum, Grab the Sorian AIs and Sorian's Lobby Enhancement Mod(LEM) AND the AI Cheating Options.

Sorian's AIs are a whole nother beast compared to the Stock AIs, LEM is required for Sorian's AIs, but has plenty of neat features to make it much more than dead weight.

Lastly the AI Cheating Options allow you to set exactly the bonuses Cheating AIs(AIx) get, this means depending on the map you could face just 1 AI and feel like your fighting off 3, this should help push back when the slowdown starts kicking in(it'll still happen eventually thought)

Mike

The slow downs are also from the single core engine with the SIM putting all its load on only the one core.

Wasn't there a program that fixed this ? Core Maximator or something like that ?

That only helped a wee bit. You can put some threads on a core, and others elsewhere, but you can't split a thread in two.

That's where the fundamental performance cap comes in.

Hmm, my laptop's specs are way worse than those but I don't see slowdowns in 8-way games (myself + 7 Sorian AIs) until generally the 1:20-1:30 hour mark in skirmish maps 20x20 or smaller. The 40x40+ maps do slow down earlier - especially water maps, it tends to bring out the turtler in everyone, AIs included.

After a while I ran out of maps that large to play so I'm mostly running smaller maps nowadays. Other than the community fix pack, BlackOps and AIs (Sorian & Duncane), not running any other mods unless you count custom maps. Plus the Core Maximizer although it's already been pointed out that only helps a bit. That's about it.

Try smaller maps... wasn't Shards like 40x40? I remember adamantly wanting to play large maps only when I first got into SupCom but most custom maps are 20x20 or smaller and after a while you get used to it. I can't stand large maps anymore, they pretty much always turn into laggy my-army-is-bigger-than-yours pissing contests.

I don't know if this could be a solution:
I reworked a map by removing most of the props (wreckage, buildings, etc) and it loaded way faster.
I also had the feeling the game was running slightly smoother.

On the other hand I'll reduce the number of markers on big maps and see if this fixes that issue on my old computer.
Unless this is caused by the lack of markers on big maps that slows down the AI, due its need of "virtual" marker positions and so on ?...

<edit>
Last but not least, someone should take the time to trace the tables, especially the platoons and formations, given the AI has to find and "gather" units around points and to add/remove them in those lists.

I could be wrong but I think I heard somewhere that the official 3603 patch helps somewhat with slowdown.

Keep in mind it's not compatible with many things.

IMHO, the best solutions are :

the Core Maximizer tool - ver 1.03 (10-14-07)
a decent computer equiper with a multi-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, Dx9 compliant graphic card, Win XP SP3 ( later version suck hard ) + all updates (DirectX 9.0c, .NET Framework and so on) .
a reasonable amount of AI players to play with ( I rarely play with more than 1 AI at once ) or even better, with NO AI players.
number of players is inversely proportional to the size of the maps you want to play on. few players on huge maps, more players on medium ones, even more on smaller maps.
a good stable Internet connexion for online games, preferedly in DirectPlay. (no third party software will make it better)

Hoping this will help

Hi,

i would not say it is not compatible ....
The only downside i have seen with 3603 is no GPNet play - but this i have never.
(play games strictly only with friends - not anonymous persons)

But it helps on the other side not much in speed ......
It gives much faster load times - an big impact on stability, special on not so high end systems and an better overall RAM usage (nearly 30-40% lower ...)
But ingame speed it gives only ~4-6% (at best 10%) and so it is not the frame buster ...
(if you have not 4+ GB RAM then it gives maybe an good speed bonus from the better RAM management[depends on the system/OS you have] - but not from overall engine optimisation ...)

Regards
R-TEAM

I'd like to know HOW you measured that RAM usage...

Hi,

this is easy ->
Open TaskMng. and start an big map in FA ...
Close FA and look at the Peek count in TaskMng....
So you see the RAM that FA would reserve for his tasks ...

And more i have this seen on my old PC with only 2GB ram ...
with 3599 it has nearly always swaped to disk - very slow from time to time ..
On the same system with 3603 FA have never reached the 2GB limit ....
This was anyway an 32bit OS and so FA musst self task-swaping to not get out of ram with only 2GB available to the task ...

Regards
R-TEAM

Solution to slowdown problems currently used by me in LAN/Skirmish (not works on GPGNet) is:

Hardware with at least dual-core 2.4 Ghz CPU, 4 Gb RAM, video card with full Dx9 support.
MySpeed executable patch to disable automatic simspeed decrease.
Core Maximizer to optimize multicore CPU usage.
Sorian AI mod to decrease AI slowdown.

4x4 with 6 AIs and 500 unit cap over LAN on 40x40 maps is still slow, but at least tolerable.