will the new game have very slow turns after a 100

No, it won't!

BOTF basically slows down because of bad programming. One of the (BOTF2) devs said somewhere that the reason for this is because the memory doesn't get properly flushed out or something after every turn - whenever you open a new screen (Eg. Intel, Science, or even when you return to the Galactic map) the screen doesn't get fully closed in the memory of the game!

As you can imagine, if a computer has to maintain all those open windows (Even though they are shown as closed) it starts to take its toll on a computers' memory, no matter how powerful it is.

Gavin is building BOTF2 from scratch.

This means he can avoid all the problems and mistakes that the programmers of BOTF never rectified. (And they should never have made them anyway) This is also why some people think the game is taking too long to release.

When BOTF was being developed, Microprose, (The developers) were going through a really rough patch.

They ended up having to rush the game through production, and it wasn't properly play-tested.

Long story short, Microprose collapsed, so the developers never got around to addressing the problems that BOTF had, so after six years, the fans are making their own game instead!

a no would of been nice lol. thanks for answering anyway

Oh, well the answer is no...

lol....

Matress Of Evil: The Genius Of Detailed Answers

Doesn't mean they are accurate though!

Misdirection, remember.

Sorry about my long posts, I just like helping. I guess I ought to work for one of those 118 help lines!

they really P%$$ me off

detailed post are great. there is something to say about them, because it means you gave thought in to the post and even though your description of the problem may or may not be 100% accurate it gives a possibility of the problem.

what I normally do for slow turns in the game I safe the game "normally" after every turn and restart the game to refresh the memory after about every 25 - 30 turns. I know it is a pain but it works and lessens the databreak errors.

I've never really noticed a problem with slow turns or not turns that i would regard as slow

How long is an average game that you play though?

If you play a game is 'chunks' (Eg. play for 20 turns, then quit, come back a few hours/days later, play a few more turns, and so on) you won't notice the slowdown in speed. If you play the first 100 turns in one go though, that is when you really start to notice it.

There is definitely a slow down in the processing speed of a turn by around turn 100. You could try timing it if you want, that would prove what a difference it makes.

I've never thought of doing your method, Valcoren. I usually play a game for a long time, and rarely ever save. (:x)

I guess slowdowns are a sort of punishment for my lack of memory, really!

If I save, it's because I know there is gonna be a battle in the next turn, or if I realise there is gonna be a 'bad' random event in the next turn. (So I can turn off the random events. )

I guess i'll be saving my game more often now though...

I regularly hit 1000 - 1500 turns though by that stage i'm normally fairly bored with it.

ive got enough RAM and vRAM that i never noticed anything, other than my opponents turns take forever.

My system is pretty beefy I have AMD 64 3000+ CPU, 2.5gb of ram, and 256mb video card. I start getting the lag turns around 150ish
@TBC wow 1000-1500 I normally have to game finished by turn 450 to 500. I commend you for being ubar hardcore.

Ya TrekBoy...my longest game was 750 or so turns and it was getting really boring by the end. To go as long as you claim to have done must've taken a load of commitment. Props to you man!

My computer has only 512MB RAM and I've played 150 turns straight with no noticeable slowdown. Kind of odd....

very weird I would have to say. I dont know why it would happend to some people and not others.

I thought there was a ship building bug by turn 375 the computer AI stopped building ships for the NPC races.

@The White Raven, its not that good lol. I usually only concentrate for the first 500 or so and then just keep hitting enter (return)

(Only once have i gone past 1500, usually stop around 750 - so itisn't really "regularly" )

Then it seems I still hold the record at turn 3,496!

Na, that's just my longest ever game, it isn't an average game.

An average game that I play is longer than the games you guys play though. I tend to start off very slowly, concentrating on exploring and building up my Starsystems, and leaving only a small number of highly-trained ships defending them.

I then do a sort of blitzkrieg and expand as much as I possibly can all in one go. I build Starbases whilst I terraform a system, so by the time I colonise it, there isn't any need for a fleet to defend it. I can then focus on bolstering the defense of my main systems, and further build them up.

I usually start building a proper fleet by around turn 500, and by turn 1,000, i've usually taken out one of the Empires. (Usually Cardies, although not always)

I then wage a guerilla war against the remaining Empires and make it drag out as long as possible, sometimes withdrawing completely so they have a chance to rebuild - I then wipe them out in another blitzkrieg!

...

I still notice the slowdown in turns, even on my new computer, which is slightly faster than yours, Valcoren, (3.21Ghz) but it doesn't have as much RAM. (1Gb)

It also has roughly the same graphics power, although I have two Sapphire Radeon 9250 128mb cards instead of one 256mb card.

Does RAM really make that much difference, coz I had it upgraded to 1Gb...

I'll take that as a question Matress

For most everyday tasks 512mb RAM is fine, but if you want to play online games or newer games with the settings maxed out then yes you will notice a difference even now in games like Battlefield 2 online 2GB RAM would help a lot.

Btw, if you want to play Battlefield 2 with 63 other people get a better graphics Card. Supposing your Motherboard has an AGPx4 slot (or AGPx8) then something around the nVIDIA 6600 GT or 6800 GT (if you can stretch) would be good.

An ATI Radeon X800 XL or XT are also very good cards (both as good as the 6800 GT)

up grading the ram is only going prolong it a little bit. the game has a horrible memory leak in it. this was something that they knew about when they released the game. I bought the game about a month after is first came out. The 1.2.0 patch was supposed to correct it along with multi player problems and data sink issues. I think all they did was to put the 3D combat in the game which is was supposed to have in the first place and they left the rest of the bugs in the game because they did not know how to address them at the time, or just did not care anymore. Here is a question for the masses. Has anyone gotten Dominion Wars to work in Windows XP Pro? I know the game was not all that great but I can only play botf and SFC3 for so long before I go apes. lol

@TBC: MoE is running "SLI" he is fine on video.

Ya, Trekboy, it was intended as a question...

I haven't got a clue what SLI is, Valcoren, and as far as I know, i'm maxed out on the slots for my RAM. I haven't noticed any problems with video, other than the occaisional sound issue every now and then, but I think that is just a case of old speakers.

Incidentally, there is adrvier update for my speakers out there, but when I instal t, the update STOPS my speakers from working! Anyone know why that happens? I'm pretty sure it isn't a software incompatibility, since the same thing happened on my old computer.

Anyways, I don't think I can upgrade my computer RAM-wise any further either. That's what they said when I had it upgraded, anyway.

Graphics-wise, the most power-hungry game I have is Dungeon Seige 2. (I have the graphics settings permanently on max for that game, and haven't had any problems)

Games like Battlefield, Doom, and whatever, don't interest me.

The games I do have run pretty well anyway, (Except for one, no prizes for guessing which one... ) so i'm not bothered if some of the hardware is a bit outdated compared with uber-modern stuff. It was a bargain!

Valcoren, I have Dom Wars running on XP Pro, I wasn't aware there was any problem getting it to run...what problems are you having?

@Matress, your general strategy is pretty similar to mine. I always hate playing with people who just build up about 50 Heavies right off the bat (at least on T5) and don't really focus on the other aspects of the game. Maybe you'd be up for a game sometime?

Valcoren, SLI only works for nVIDIA Graphics Cards. And i'll be damned if ATI's Crossfire works on something as old as an Radeon 9250 considering (at this time) its only supporting PCI-E (no offence but it's getting on a bit Matress for today's games). There's only a couple of motherboards out there supporting it even now.

He might have two Graphics cards set up in dual VGA if Matress has a dual monitor set up. Apart from that i can't see any added bonus of having the two.

Never played a game against anyone before, so yeah, i'll play against you, if you want, WhiteRaven.

We'll have to have the same files though, my game is quite heavily modded.

I'll likely be busy over the weekend (Unless it rains ) coz i'm going to Drayton Manor theme park for my sisters birthday tommorrow, and I might be going to see Corpse Bride with my friends on sunday.

Of course, we all know it's gonna rain and the cinema will be closed oe something...

*Edit - you posted before me, TrekBoy!

I never installed the dual graphics cards, it was built that way. I guessed they were a bit on the old side when you mentioned those numbers, but they still work, so unless I get a game that fries them out, why bother changing?*

MoE are you sure you have 2vids on the system or is it showing up in your device manager are two cards? ATI will show up as two cards sometimes. there would be no real reason to have 2vid cards on the system unless you were doing as TBC noted for dual monitor support or using SLI or ATI knock off of SLI aka Crossfire. but neverless 128mb is more then enough to run botf if I remember right in only needed 8 or 16mb.

@white: I get a video overlay problem with Dom Wars I have a Nvidia 6800 the background for the game just shakes I can see the ship but the shaking is enough to drive one crazy..

It says I have two cards in my device manager, BUT my computer specs also state that I have 256meg graphics.

The device manager also says I have two processors though.

My brain hurts!

you will see two CPUs also. if you Hyperthreading or dual core.