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Author Topic:   Speeding up the Game

Lacish posted 05-18-99 10:48 AM ET
I'm playing the game on Librarian and I'm
absolutely whooping everyone. I want to use
the affects of the cloning vats and get my
population up so that I have a better score.
But it takes -so- long to move my units.
I have a p5-133 with 80megs of ram..are
there any settings I can turn on/off to make
it run faster? Any help is appreciated.
Tin Man posted 05-18-99 11:56 AM ET
I sympathise, my machines about the same.
Check through all of the Preferences Screens (from the Game Menu) there are loads of settings.
Having played a few times I don't need to see any of the Movies, or Interludes.
Turn on the Quick Move Options.
Don't let your automated units stop when they meet enemy units (except probably those with a Vendetta!)
You can also turn on Fog Of War - this stops you seeing any movement outside of your units visual ranges. It means you won't see those enemy movements over the hill until the get right up to you, but it will speed it up.
Minimize your use of long patrol patterns, if you don't need them just leave units on 10-turn hold at bases, or 'Sleeping (L)' on land/sea borders.
I'll check my settings later and see if there is anything else I would particularly recommend.
sandals posted 05-18-99 03:17 PM ET
Take out 16 MB of RAM.
Sound weird?
Many Pentium chipsets (i430 FX, VX, and TX) have a limit of 64 MB cachable RAM in Level 2 Cache. If you exceed the 64 MB, your L2 cache is turned off by the chipset and your system operation is slowed down. The i430HX chipset does not have this limit.
I personally experienced this when I put 72 MB in my P133 (with the FX chipset) and saw Excel macros take about 10 times longer to run. I went down to 40 MB and things were back to normal.
Try it - it might speed up your system in all apps.
LocustOfChiron posted 05-18-99 05:01 PM ET
Install the low res unit images. My system did the same thing until I did this. The instructions are in the original readme.
eNo posted 05-18-99 06:49 PM ET
1) Turn off sliding windows and scroll bars
2) Turn off map animations.
3) Turn off music/sound effects/voice
Basically turn off all the "extras"
Lacish posted 05-19-99 04:40 AM ET
Thanks for all the help
HMFIC posted 05-19-99 09:52 AM ET
Turn OFF Center on Units With Orders.
Any unit that you designate to go 'somewhere' will not be centered on while on transition and they move 10x faster this way.
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Author	Topic: Speeding up the Game
Lacish	posted 05-18-99 10:48 AM ET I'm playing the game on Librarian and I'm absolutely whooping everyone. I want to use the affects of the cloning vats and get my population up so that I have a better score. But it takes -so- long to move my units. I have a p5-133 with 80megs of ram..are there any settings I can turn on/off to make it run faster? Any help is appreciated.
Tin Man	posted 05-18-99 11:56 AM ET I sympathise, my machines about the same. Check through all of the Preferences Screens (from the Game Menu) there are loads of settings. Having played a few times I don't need to see any of the Movies, or Interludes. Turn on the Quick Move Options. Don't let your automated units stop when they meet enemy units (except probably those with a Vendetta!) You can also turn on Fog Of War - this stops you seeing any movement outside of your units visual ranges. It means you won't see those enemy movements over the hill until the get right up to you, but it will speed it up. Minimize your use of long patrol patterns, if you don't need them just leave units on 10-turn hold at bases, or 'Sleeping (L)' on land/sea borders. I'll check my settings later and see if there is anything else I would particularly recommend.
sandals	posted 05-18-99 03:17 PM ET Take out 16 MB of RAM. Sound weird? Many Pentium chipsets (i430 FX, VX, and TX) have a limit of 64 MB cachable RAM in Level 2 Cache. If you exceed the 64 MB, your L2 cache is turned off by the chipset and your system operation is slowed down. The i430HX chipset does not have this limit. I personally experienced this when I put 72 MB in my P133 (with the FX chipset) and saw Excel macros take about 10 times longer to run. I went down to 40 MB and things were back to normal. Try it - it might speed up your system in all apps.
LocustOfChiron	posted 05-18-99 05:01 PM ET Install the low res unit images. My system did the same thing until I did this. The instructions are in the original readme.
eNo	posted 05-18-99 06:49 PM ET 1) Turn off sliding windows and scroll bars 2) Turn off map animations. 3) Turn off music/sound effects/voice Basically turn off all the "extras"
Lacish	posted 05-19-99 04:40 AM ET Thanks for all the help
HMFIC	posted 05-19-99 09:52 AM ET Turn OFF Center on Units With Orders. Any unit that you designate to go 'somewhere' will not be centered on while on transition and they move 10x faster this way.