Choppy Play

[surfcandy]

I really enjoy this game but the framerate in the large senerios is really to slow. I have met all the requirements in the specs for the game and have updated the video and sound cards. The medium senerios play OK but the larger ones are choppy. If I don't get a solution to this problem I may give up on this game.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Vin53,

One of the things about Panzer Command is that it has very few limits. Some scenarios are definitely designed for high end computers and the complexity and map size meters on the scenario selection screen can help determine which may require a more powerful system. Every scenario should load and play on the minimum requirements though, but choppiness can be a pure scenario performance issue or it can be because of system hardware or software configuration.

We also allow you to build random battles with lots of units and these are where performance can become a major issue in my experience. The number of units on the map is the best indicator of the workload a scenario will put your computer through. Even on very large maps, if you don't have many units, performance will be fine even on systems on the lower end, but large maps with many units will ask more from your system. Performance is also subjective. One player may be fine playing at 10-20 FPS, whereas its intolerable to another player.

It can help us figure out where the bottleneck is on your system if you post your system specs, ideally through running a DxDiag. The main performance limitation in Panzer Command in large scenarios is usually the CPU. Fast multi-core CPUs can play Panzer Command much better than older single-core CPUs. Graphics card memory and speed and system memory are the rest of the equation.

I hope that helps. If you have more questions, please post a DxDiag for us and tell us which scenarios perform well for you and which don't, so that we can compare. You can use the F1 key when you first load a scenario to see what your performance in FPS in that scenario is like.

Regards,

- Erik

[MarkShot]

Would it be easy to set up a few standardized FPS benchmarks to evaluate performance?

I had done something like that for BFTB when it was released, but rather than measuring FPS, I was measuring the simulated time versus actual time relative to unit counts for HTTR/COTA/BFTB on different hardware platforms. It turned out to be a pretty revealing exercise.

In any case, what would be a heavy duty stress test scenario for me to test and tune my machine with?

Thanks.