New Computer: Game plays very slow

[Rusty1961]

Okay, I had been playing this game on a Dell system from 2008 which was like 2 Megs of RAM and a 256 mb NVIDIA graphics card. I had no complaints on how fast that game ran on that 9 year-old system.

Now my new system, built in 2016, September has the following stats:





Inspiron 17 7000 Series
6th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-6200U Processor (3M Cache, up to 2.80 GHz)
Windows 10 Home 64-bit English
12GB Single Channel DDR4 2133MHz
1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
NVIDIA® GeForce 940MX 2GB GDDR5
17.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080)"
Truelife LED-Backlit Touch Display with Wide Viewing Angles
Silver
802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.2, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 1x1




Shouldn't this game be playing as quick if not quicker as my older machine? It takes seconds to go from task force to task force or base to base. Very slow.

Any ideas?

Thanks again!

[witpqs]

Any ideas?

Yes. Do what you were asked already and copy-paste the complete "Target" line from your shortcut.

[Bullwinkle58]

Slowness is almost always some combo of lack of the -dd_sw switch and having the CPU switch set incorrectly for the local hardware. AE's core engine was designed before multi-core CPUs became common; the switches were patched in to address this and in every case I know of work in some combo for every type of hardware encountered.

So please post your Target line from the shortcut Properties. In combo with the specs you list it should be possible to determine a mix that frees you up.

[Chris21wen]

This is mine and in works fine, but in a window of 1600 x 900. Nothing I did would ever make it work on the native screen size of 1920 x 1090. Using it windowed does have benefits when it comes to switching between apps.

"C:\Matrix Games\WitP AE\Beta2\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -px1600 -py900 -cpu4 -SingleCpuOrders -dd_sw -altFont -multiaudio -deepColor -skipVideo -archive -w

[Rusty1961]

"C:\Matrix Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\Beta2\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -w

Is the problem there?

[Rusty1961]

Chris...what is the "SingleCPUorders"?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

"C:\Matrix Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\Beta2\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -w

Is the problem there?

Probably. Look again at Chris's:

"C:\Matrix Games\WitP AE\Beta2\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -px1600 -py900 -cpu4 -SingleCpuOrders -dd_sw -altFont -multiaudio -deepColor -skipVideo -archive -w

You can look up what the various switches mean in the PDF that comes with the Beta (maybe even in a PDF with the main game now, don't know), but the ones he has settled on that can affect performance are

-cpu4
-SingleCpuOrders
-dd_sw
-deepColor

Try them. I would start with -dd_sw and -deepColor as they seem to be the most needed to help performance on Windows 10. In fact, -deepColor seems the most likely.

[Rusty1961]

I tried putting Chris' shortcut into the "Target" and Windows rejected it:

"The name'C:Matrix' specified in the Target Box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct"

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

I tried putting Chris' shortcut into the "Target" and Windows rejected it:

"The name'C:Matrix' specified in the Target Box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct"

OK, you are making a very basic mistake because you don't (yet!) know enough about the technology. Here is some of what a Windows shortcut does. First, it gives you an icon (on the desktop or in a folder somewhere) that you can click on to start a program. But many times we want to run a program with some options which that program allows, so the shortcut accommodates that too. Both things are done in the Target line. Consider Chris's again:

"C:\Matrix Games\WitP AE\Beta2\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -px1600 -py900 -cpu4 -SingleCpuOrders -dd_sw -altFont -multiaudio -deepColor -skipVideo -archive -w

There are actually two parts to this Target line, the target (including where to find it) and any extra parameters for Windows to pass to the program when it starts.

The actual target in bold:
"C:\Matrix Games\WitP AE\Beta2\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -px1600 -py900 -cpu4 -SingleCpuOrders -dd_sw -altFont -multiaudio -deepColor -skipVideo -archive -w

The parameters in bold:
"C:\Matrix Games\WitP AE\Beta2\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -px1600 -py900 -cpu4 -SingleCpuOrders -dd_sw -altFont -multiaudio -deepColor -skipVideo -archive -w

Now that you know that you can compare your original shortcut with Chris's and you see that the target is different. That is because Chris installed the game in a different location than you did. That's totally fine, it's just that when you make a shortcut you must refer to the target where it is on your system (of course!).

So, you can change the switches (aka "parameters") in your Target line to be like Chris's, but you must keep the actual target the way you originally had it so it points to the right place on YOUR system. Make sense?

One more thing: the "Start in" line must be correct. Windows uses it to tell the program where is the default place to look for things. For AE the "Start in" line must be the main folder for that AE installation. Moose helped you with that in another thread. For example your "Start in" line should be:

"C:\Matrix Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition"

Notice that there is no "\Beta2\" at the end - this is critical! If that line is wrong you will get various errors like "can't find PW data".

Hope all this helps.

EDIT: Fix yours versus Chris's.

[Rusty1961]

Thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. That appears to have worked, except now the screen is horizontally only taking up half the screen while the vertical portion of the screen appears fine.

Chris is at 1600 x 900.

That, appears by his setting, to make his horizontal (1600) bigger than his vertical (900) and I have taken his portion of setting yet find the exact opposite.

Ideas?

Thanks again.

[&o]

[Rusty1961]

90%! My opponent, who has been following this dicussion, sent me his settings and I used them. Now the screen fits perfectly. Thanks to all.

One little question, my computer, upon exiting the game, says the screen should be at a different setting. Can I use the recomended setting and not affect the game's perfect settings my opponent gave me?

Thanks to all.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

90%! My opponent, who has been following this dicussion, sent me his settings and I used them. Now the screen fits perfectly. Thanks to all.

One little question, my computer, upon exiting the game, says the screen should be at a different setting. Can I use the recomended setting and not affect the game's perfect settings my opponent gave me?

Thanks to all.

From what you said I assume your using full screen. Video cards tend to have a series of resolutions that they will operate in, I refer to them as native resolutions. Using a setting that is not one of them can results in very strange effects if they work at all. If it is a program calling for a non-native setting (and it works), leaving the program can result in the message you have just seen.

Just because jour opponent's resolution works for him/her does not mean it will work for you as it might not be a native resolution for your display. You need to find your computers native resolutions are try them until one works without error. Not you do not have to have the same settings as opponent to play the game.