HoI3: A Serious Resource Hog?

[truth is life]

Although the graphics aren't actually the biggest-hitting part of the game in terms of performance--sure, if you have a bad graphics card (like you seem to), it hurts, but most of the performance hit comes from all the AIs and what not trying to run at the same time.

 

[timsfker]

You should always look at the system requirements before pre-ordering or buying a game. You also should have thought about what Paradox's recent games (EU3 and Rome) were like, and how the graphical presentation has been improved considerably.

If the patch's fix the lag for middle to high-end computer, you could consider buying a cheap desktop (not from a company like gateway, but the parts) that could run it. An Athlon X3 720 CPU would be a good place to start, it's cheap and should be able to play this game fine.

 

[unmerged(63310)]

It does load slow for me as well but only about 1/3rd slow than many other games I have so that isn't terrible. The scrolling effect was truly horrible though. I had to spend 30 minutes adjusting my mouse and the game settings and now it is tolerable at least though a bit abrupt.

I don't notice much of this lag after button click though I did turn off all graphics possible and disabled all messages except fleet battles and losing a battle. I have dual 2.8 OC to 3.2 and 4 gb ram with sli 9800 GTX... not top of the line but better than average.

Much of the lag would be due to optimization but I am a bit surprised a demo would be released with so much optimization left to do... CPU heavy I can understand but many of these little issues are not so much CPU related.

Some little interface shortcuts could be implemented as well, already noticing some instances when can't access the info I'd like without moving 2 or 3 screens away being needed. HoI2 was worse on release though except it did run smooth when it wasn't CTDing.

 

[unmerged(50426)]

I have owned and played:

Hearts of Iron 1
Hearts of Iron 2
HoI2 - Doomsday
HoI2 - Armageddon

All ran very well on all PCs and owned laptops

- Video controller Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100

come on, hoi2 was released in january 2005, with a completly different game engine.
i made the same mistake to buy a laptop with intel graphics, the new one im expecting in some days has a "real" graphic card.

i even cant play the demo, lol.
the sys requirments were quite specific so whining that the intel x3100 cant handle it shouldnt be a surprise, and vista itself needs more ram.
a laptop of 2007 is in gaming issues a very old machine (as mine
in these days pc and laptops get outdatet very quickly. and thats not paradox fault, so relax and consider buying a pc just for gaming purposes.

just for you to have an impression where your card stands
http://www.notebookcheck.com/Mobile-Grafikkarten-Benchmarkliste.735.0.html

 

[xtfoster]

I think they went the 3D path because that's where the industry is and if they released something that didn't appeal visually (SPRITES and splashy waves) then many non-HOI fans would take one look and buy something else. It is about expanding the market IMO. That said, yes I think you have a legitimate beef.

It isn't even that most "non-HOI fans would take one look and buy something else", it is that most stores that sell games WON'T EVEN STOCK A NON-3D GAME. If they can't get it on the shelves, they would only be able to sell by digital download, and the industry isn't quite ready for mainstream developers (which Paradox is) to go digital download only.

 

[Deo89]

Why are people moaning about graphics cards? Graphics are not the issue here since the game doesn't have high end graphics to render, but, the issue here is the CPU, 1.6Ghz... Cmon, are you kidding me? This will never run a game that need so much calculation as HoI3, I mean, 14,000 thousand provinces, thousands of divisions including brigades all over the map, logistics, produciton, math math math, and all that, calculated hourly in a game that spans 8 years.

People wanted depth? There you have it.

The game surely has a lot of issues, I have a PC with a Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8Ghz processor, 1Gig of Ram and a xHD 4500 graphics card, XP 32-bit SP2, and the game lags as hell, and didn't have the time to see if I could optimize it somehow or find the problem (guess it's ether the RAM or XP has trouble running the game like so many other people reported here), but you really can't expect to run this with a 1.6Ghz processor (even if it's a dual core).

 

[coreymas]

come on, hoi2 was released in january 2005, with a completly different game engine.
i made the same mistake to buy a laptop with intel graphics, the new one im expecting in some days has a "real" graphic card.

i even cant play the demo, lol.
the sys requirments were quite specific so whining that the intel x3100 cant handle it shouldnt be a surprise, and vista itself needs more ram.
a laptop of 2007 is in gaming issues a very old machine (as mine
in these days pc and laptops get outdatet very quickly. and thats not paradox fault, so relax and consider buying a pc just for gaming purposes.

just for you to have an impression where your card stands
http://www.notebookcheck.com/Mobile-Grafikkarten-Benchmarkliste.735.0.html

That site is no where near complete and accurate... it is listing my card X600 ATI Mobility Raedon as 128 MB only... I have 256MB on mine...

 

[unmerged(50426)]

That site is no where near complete and accurate... it is listing my card X600 ATI Mobility Raedon as 128 MB only... I have 256MB on mine...

dont know what you read, but it clearly says max 256 mb

edit: i guess you misread 128 bit

http://www.notebookcheck.com/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-X600.961.0.html

 

[coreymas]

dont know what you read, but it clearly says max 256 mb

edit: i guess you misread 128 bit

http://www.notebookcheck.com/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-X600.961.0.html

Speicherbus -- Memory -- 128

If my German is wrong... correct me please.

And there is nothing on that line that remotely says 256....

I am referring to this link.. which was posted

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Mobile-...ste.735.0.html

 

[unmerged(50426)]

Speicherbus -- Memory -- 128

If my German is wrong... correct me please.

yeah, your german is wrong.
the hint is MB and Bit


cant even see speicherbus in the description

 

[unmerged(148535)]

Why are people moaning about graphics cards? Graphics are not the issue here since the game doesn't have high end graphics to render, but, the issue here is the CPU, 1.6Ghz... Cmon, are you kidding me? This will never run a game that need so much calculation as HoI3, I mean, 14,000 thousand provinces, thousands of divisions including brigades all over the map, logistics, produciton, math math math, and all that, calculated hourly in a game that spans 8 years.

People wanted depth? There you have it.

The game surely has a lot of issues, I have a PC with a Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8Ghz processor, 1Gig of Ram and a xHD 4500 graphics card, XP 32-bit SP2, and the game lags as hell, and didn't have the time to see if I could optimize it somehow or find the problem (guess it's ether the RAM or XP has trouble running the game like so many other people reported here), but you really can't expect to run this with a 1.6Ghz processor (even if it's a dual core).

DUAL CORE 1.6

TWO OF THEM.

Not a SINGLE.

That's like 1 3.2 (I know not exactly) but still...

Perhaps a 2D Option (so it runs faster on 2007 laptops?)

Run 3D if you'd like (get it in stores) and then 2D for people who can't or won't subsidize the PC Industry every 6 months.

 

[coreymas]

yeah, your german is wrong.
the hint is MB and Bit


cant even see speicherbus in the description

This is the link you posted....

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Mobile-Grafikkarten-Benchmarkliste.735.0.html

Not the other one that you are showing.

 

[unmerged(50426)]

This is the link you posted....

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Mobile-Grafikkarten-Benchmarkliste.735.0.html

Not the other one that you are showing.

well you just have could chekced the full description that i also posted
and the best card GeForce GTX 280M SLI with 256 mb?
should also give you a hint that its the bandwith


edit: there is even an english language flag

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-X600.2170.0.html

 

[Alerias]

DUAL CORE 1.6

TWO OF THEM.

Not a SINGLE.

That's like 1 3.2 (I know not exactly) but still...

Hehe the second core is essentially useless unless the game is built to take advantage of it. I have two 3.6ghz cores, and Hoi3 uses 100% of the first core, and for now, none of the second; which is relegated to running the OS. This means that essentially, for now, Hoi3 has little to no multicore ability.

Even games with incredible dual core ability will never be able to perfectly balance the load. You can never assume a dual core is twice as good as a single core. There is huge diminishing returns, and because of certain limitations, quadra-cores are often outperformed by dual cores. Its a complex industry.

 

[SilentAlfa]

Running HoI3 on a Phenom II X3 720 with no overclocking and 2 GB RAM on Vista, and I would say that the game runs HOI well. The max speed seems slow, but I haven't experienced any real slowdown as the game progresses so it's running fairly steadily. I have a 9600GT from last year, but that's not the issue. The game is not graphics intensive at all, the performance really depends on your CPU and processor

IMHO, if you want to run the game very smoothly, you need at least a dual-core and 2 GB RAM on XP, 3 GB on Vista. The game used around 800 MB memory for me, which is a huge amount considering that on my computer, Vista alone uses around 700 MB of memory. So when the game progress to later stages, I might very well run out of memory.

But really, the workload for the CPU is amazing: This game has 14,000 provinces to keep track of. The game re-calculates the temperature and pressure and computes the resulting weather for every single one of those provinces, every single game hour.That's a lot of calculations.

Not to mention that later in the game, there will be literally thousands of brigades running around. If you command at the corps level, you're forcing your computer to run a lot more AI in addition to the 70+ AI the game already runs to manage other nations. Obviously, that's a lot of calculations to run the rather complex decision trees etc for dozens and dozens of individual AI.

The spreadsheet game essentially has become as resource demanding as a shooter because the graphics are processed in the same way under the hood.

No, by offloading the graphics processing to the graphics card they've improved performance--at worst, they haven't decreased it. The graphics in HOI3 are basic and dated. Considering that in HOI2 there was no demand placed on the GPU, the GPU represented unused potential. So, since everyone has a GPU that can run the basic graphics of HOI3, they just offloaded the graphics to the graphics card, so that the GPU can take a bit of strain off the rather overworked CPU.

But good try, attempting to compare the resource demands of Call of Duty's graphics to HOI3's graphics.

If Paradox were to simplify the weather system back to the perfectly acceptable one that HoI2 had (which they won't because then they'd be admitting they wasted thousands of dollars of development time) and further optimized the game for multicore support (which they probably will do in patches), we would have much better performance I bet.

 

[Gorgo Primus]

EU2 decent graphics. I could see what was going on and with what. EU3 won't run without PixelShader 2.0. Why? Because somebody decided that games should push for as close to RL as possible. If you can't see the sweat on the forehead of your troops then you haven't upped the gameplay since the last one.

Why can't games have the option of 2D for those of us who don't have the ability or desire to eye candy? It certainly wouldn't be harder to use spites instead of perfectly realistic models. No?

I think game makers should ask themselves "What is the minimum a computer should have to do to get the experience we want across?" instead of "How hard can we push this thing?".

 

[Deo89]

DUAL CORE 1.6

TWO OF THEM.

Not a SINGLE.

That's like 1 3.2 (I know not exactly) but still...

Perhaps a 2D Option (so it runs faster on 2007 laptops?)

Run 3D if you'd like (get it in stores) and then 2D for people who can't or won't subsidize the PC Industry every 6 months.

No it's not like 3.2, they don't cumulate, it's just that you have two processors, so that you can run two things at a time like lets say Hoi3 and Win XP, it doesn't have to alternate between the two. BUT, AFAIK, HoI3 doesn't make good use of multi-core systems, so basically, only one of your cores is running HoI3, which is not enough.

 

[unmerged(54975)]

- Video controller Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Up to 384 MB of Dynamic Video Memory

Intergrated graphics card 'nuff said.

 

[Augustus244]

I'm running a Quad Core Pentium 2.66
4 gigs of dual channel ram at 1066
at 9800GTX 512mb Graphics card
on XP 32 bit. all built 8 months ago

and I have the same issues as you

 

[Deo89]

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But good try, attempting to compare the resource demands of Call of Duty's graphics to HOI3's graphics.

\

Exactly, now try comparing CPU demands of Call of Duty, to HoI3, CoD will not come even near to HoI.