Do your games not get super slow from mid-game on?

[DredMorte]

One thing that is massively curtailing the enjoyment I get from this game is slowdown that starts in the midgame.
I do not yet know exactly what triggers it. I have played in 400 and 600 galaxies, many and few empires, somewhere between 2280 and 2350 the game gets slow.
Recently I tried a game in a 400 galaxy, 250% hab, against hard agro AIs. Some mods in, like Stellar energy, More Ship Classes and less warscore cost. The agro AI forced me expand like crazy. So its 2280, i control half the map and game is already super slow. Months take 4 or 5 times longer to pass. I have even stopped using the pause to waste less time.

My CPU is an i5-4670K.

Is this normal?

 

[Kedryn]

Have you tried any games without increased number of habitable planets? It's either planets or ships (or both) that cause the slowdown; based on my own observations of when the game starts to slow.

 

[DredMorte]

I have not. Always figured that with less planets to support my empire i'd never have a chance against the FE and crisis monsters.

 

[scaper12123]

It depends on the number of AIs present in the game. The reason it slows down is because of the number of sector AIs used by the player and other planets. I personally see brief moments of no time passing because the game is stuck trying to decide something. It's probably because i'm running it off a laptop though, so there you go.

 

[Derp]

Painfully slow.
I have an older computer but even games like Dwarf Fortress don't choke half as bad as this.

 

[DredMorte]

I don't think that is the case sir. While in control of half (or more) the galaxy I went to the trouble of removing every single one of my sectors and it had zero observable effect on the game speed. If your theory is correct, conquering every single AI would speed up the game. I have not tried but I have gotten close. It seems to have no effect. However, the other user mentioned Planets... now that I think of it, the rate at which the game slows down seems somewhat related the progress of colonization.

But why would planets have such an effect on CPU use? Could it be that most of the CPU is used to check on every single POP?

 

[Slarkon]

ive a good rig and it slows once it gets past 2400 for me. One of my games i left it running over night on observe and it only went from 2560 to 2590 in 7 or 8 hours.
its something that really annoyed me in both sins and suprme commander. i love these games but the engines just cant seem to handle them

and it is the engine, not the PC's - when i went back to supre commander at crimbo it still slows - and sins even with the 2gig+unlock still slows
i imagine if i play stellaris is 10 years it will still slow even if i have a state of the art 2025 PC with 512GB of ram (ive 32GB now btw)

 

[DanaDark]

Speed will depend on the CPU. Period. Almost every computer these days has more than enough RAM to handle any game.

More AI's in the game, slower it will go, exponentially. If the AI empire is REMOVED from the game after defeat, it'd technically speed up. But this is rarely done. So, even conquest wouldn't speed anything up.

Additionally, more pops mean more processing time to determine what the population is doing and if it is diverging. Add in ships, stations, leaders, etc. as time goes by it will naturally get slower.

Galaxy size typically won't matter. It will take longer to generate but that is it. What matters is what is IN that galaxy.

10,000 planets with 0 mining outposts would be faster than 100 planets with 10 mining outposts technically. As an example.

 

[ashbery76]

The issue is the whole planet building system is just not very interesting and not worth the performance issues..A Vicky2 style system would cut out sectors and most of this issues.Too brave a call to cull it so.

 

[DAKOTA567]

It depends on the number of AIs present in the game. The reason it slows down is because of the number of sector AIs used by the player and other planets. I personally see brief moments of no time passing because the game is stuck trying to decide something. It's probably because i'm running it off a laptop though, so there you go.

I get the stoppages as well, even with a decent desktop*, but usually only very late game. It's currently 2785 or so in my one game, I've finally given up on trying to get the Federation victory, hilariously I'm closer to the Domination victory as fanatical pacifist... but anyways yeah, it's a medium sized galaxy but it's nigh unplayable at this point. I get (and this is just from observation, not using a counter) like 20fps average, and it drops down to maybe 10, probably less, if I click on my main battle fleet.

Granted, it's a 175 battleship, 200 cruiser, 100 destroyer, 210 corvette powerhouse of spam, but in the earlier years it didn't kill my fps as much.

I mean, the game could really work on the optimising so that the slow down happens later, since I imagine for people with modest PCs this will begin to happen painfully early.

It would also probably help if I didn't have the Ethics and Government mod, because terraform spam, terraform spam everywhere. Seeing systems with 6 colonies is the norm for my time period, hell I had 29 core worlds with only 12 systems, I think 8 of them were in my home system alone.






*My rig specifically is:
CPU: i7 6700k (I haven't overclocked it yet, was going to see about that this weekend)
GPU: R9 390 (Very slightly overclocked, again something I have been too lazy to tinker with)
RAM: 16GB of DDR4

So yeah, sure a slow down is expected eventually, but for a modest PC I would guess it happens way too early if for me it happens late 2500s. (Granted, the planet spam from the mod is probably lowering that date quite a bit from vanilla, still.)

 

[Zoinker]

I get these stoppages as well and it infuriates the heck out of me. Time passing slower I can tolerate, but the whole game grinding to a halt for minutes at a time is supremely annoying!

Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing here, these aren't actual freezes. I can still make decisions, switch between menus and zoom in and out of systems. The game just acts like it's paused when it's not.

 

[nfmarque]

i play vanilla with 600 stars, 75% habitable worlds and default number of ai.
it only starts to slow down after 2500.

 

[elitesix]

I get the stoppages as well, even with a decent desktop*, but usually only very late game. It's currently 2785 or so in my one game, I've finally given up on trying to get the Federation victory, hilariously I'm closer to the Domination victory as fanatical pacifist... but anyways yeah, it's a medium sized galaxy but it's nigh unplayable at this point. I get (and this is just from observation, not using a counter) like 20fps average, and it drops down to maybe 10, probably less, if I click on my main battle fleet.

Granted, it's a 175 battleship, 200 cruiser, 100 destroyer, 210 corvette powerhouse of spam, but in the earlier years it didn't kill my fps as much.

I mean, the game could really work on the optimising so that the slow down happens later, since I imagine for people with modest PCs this will begin to happen painfully early.

It would also probably help if I didn't have the Ethics and Government mod, because terraform spam, terraform spam everywhere. Seeing systems with 6 colonies is the norm for my time period, hell I had 29 core worlds with only 12 systems, I think 8 of them were in my home system alone.

*My rig specifically is:
CPU: i7 6700k (I haven't overclocked it yet, was going to see about that this weekend)
GPU: R9 390 (Very slightly overclocked, again something I have been too lazy to tinker with)
RAM: 16GB of DDR4

So yeah, sure a slow down is expected eventually, but for a modest PC I would guess it happens way too early if for me it happens late 2500s. (Granted, the planet spam from the mod is probably lowering that date quite a bit from vanilla, still.)

I have a similar rig and I don't get slowdowns.

I've played multiple games at the default settings (600 stars I think?) through the 2500s without any noticeable slowdown. The only thing I notice is that saves/autosaves take significantly longer to complete, even with my ssd, as each century passes. No real mods (save for a few UI ones).

My rig specifically:
CPU: i7-6700k @ 4.4 Ghz (stock is 4 Ghz)
GPU: EVGA SC 980 GTX 4GB
RAM: 16GB DDR4

 

[DAKOTA567]

I get these stoppages as well and it infuriates the heck out of me. Time passing slower I can tolerate, but the whole game grinding to a halt for minutes at a time is supremely annoying!

Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing here, these aren't actual freezes. I can still make decisions, switch between menus and zoom in and out of systems. The game just acts like it's paused when it's not.

Yep, same thing, though not as long of a duration usually it's only stopped for a few seconds, or maybe a dozen on the longer ones.

I have a similar rig and I don't get slowdowns.

I've played multiple games at the default settings (600 stars I think?) through the 2500s without any noticeable slowdown. The only thing I notice is that saves/autosaves take significantly longer to complete, even with my ssd, as each century passes. No real mods (save for a few UI ones).

My rig specifically:
CPU: i7-6700k @ 4.4 Ghz (stock is 4 Ghz)
GPU: EVGA SC 980 GTX 4GB
RAM: 16GB DDR4

Well like I said, the one mod that allows for super terraform spam is likely lowering the date by quite a bit. (I have quite a few others as well, most likely not helping.) If I recall correctly, it's been a while since I played vanilla, I used to be able to play a 1,000 star galaxy fine with only slightly noticeable slow down by the 2500s.

To put the terraform spam into perspective, when I started my campaign the Domination victory goal was around 80 planets, now I have 184 planets within my borders alone but am still around 50% of the way to Dom victory. The Federation victory requires 712 worlds, in a 600 star map.

And the mod adds too much for me to get rid of it just for the terraform spam, I need it for my British Empire to actually have a parliamentary government!

But yeah, the slow down is pretty bad, hell I opened my Steam chat whilst in a war with an Awoken Empire and the buffering was so long I typed out complete sentences before the chat box finished the first couple words. It was kinda neat watching it type without me, but obviously that means that my CPU was really being taxed.

However, most people don't play to the 2780s anyways, and whilst the slow down does become noticeable by the 2500s it's still minor enough to not really be a bother till towards the middle of the next Century.

 

[DredMorte]

I'm curious that some people claim no slowdowns. If I ever have time, I should like to make some tests and figure what causes slowdown and by what factor. Perhaps leaving the game/computer on during the night on observe mode, with different settings, and compare gamespeed at this and that date.

 

[Sbr2]

I'm curious that some people claim no slowdowns. If I ever have time, I should like to make some tests and figure what causes slowdown and by what factor. Perhaps leaving the game/computer on during the night on observe mode, with different settings, and compare gamespeed at this and that date.

Please do this. The mid to late game slowdown takes the enjoyment out of playing the game.

 

[TempusxX]

I do not have a slowdown in the game from what I've seen - then again only speaking for myself

 

[Thracian]

does ssd help?

 

[elitesix]

does ssd help?

Ssds/Harddrives don't affect gameplay for any game - aside from load/save times - assuming you meet the recommended ram requirements.

 

[Pchang]

Only when watching a star system with a big battle going on. I can speed it up again by zooming out to the Galaxy view. Just got to keep and eye on the damage levels. Sucks not being able to watch huge battles though.