HOLY CANOLE!!!

The main problem ive found so far that slows things down, is all cargo scrapping being done 1 unit at a time, tho im thankfull its not 1 population at a time aswell
_____________________

Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service

yup. its normal for processing to take a long time. 6 min is pretty bad though. It is being worked on. its half the time it used to be
play online and you won't have to worrry about processing times...
i'm running athlon xp 1.2 with 512 and it takes about 15min for the whole turn processing to take place. so i read

ps.
the game runs in the background so you can tab out and it will still process turns.
sometimes it glitches when you try and go back into it though...

Same here... I have a Core2Duo E6400 with a 256MB GeForce 7600GT and 1 Gig ddr2 and it processes turns hardly any faster from my Celeron 1Ghz laptop with 128 mb RAM .

Unfortunately this is the norm. A lot has been done already though, it was much worse before. Fortunately, MM is working on it so eventually... eventually, this'll be fixed I hope. We'll get there.

I am running a game on a large map with 29 AI players. I am on turn 61. It has been running great maybe taking 2 or less mins. There not many wars yet, so that will slow me down later. I have AMD 5200 X2 with 2 gigs. More RAM might help. but 6 is real slow reminds me of v1.12

Remember! If someone is trying to kill you, you kill them first!

I good way to speed up processing is to have a more peacefull galaxy.In BM there are loads of war going on which means loads of red bars.

How did you get 29 AI empires??
I thought the maximum limit was 20 empires.

P4 sucks at all games. I'm runing a sempron 2800 w/ nvidia 7300 GS 1 gm of ddr II and NEVER HAD A PROBLEM whit lag or performance . Althou i had some error whit saved games . I just finished a large qudrant exterminating 13 normal empries and never had a problem .

whats your average time for processing a whole turn General Apocalypse?

I know, this is ridiculous... It´s the first time I try the game in more than 6 months and it took just a couple of turns to see that it´s still unplayable. The game is been out now for more than a year and this thing hasnt been adressed yet? Turn processing on SEV cant be so different from SEIV (where it took about 5 seconds)so this is really a coding issue. I guess I will check again in 6 months...
sorry for the venting but hey, a man´s gotta do what a man´s gotta do. Good luck fellas.

I must agree I am just getting pissed off with all the waiting for turns,even with only 8 empires.I have a good PC system.I like large epic games with all the races and this is just impossible as it stands.

Maybe you have too many other programs running in the background? I'm playing on a 1GHz p3m laptop and it works fine. After a couple of hundred turns the processing takes a few minutes, but not long enough to do anything else.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

Sword in the stars has the same and turns are over in 10 secs.Civ4 is another good example and is the Totalwar games.I just hope MM continues speeding the turns.

Question: what is your attitude when you play SE V solo? Do you expect to sit down for 2~4 hours just playing SE V and then go do something else afterwards (e.g. sleep, work)? Is it simply unacceptable to treat SE V as something to multitask with?

10~20 minutes for turn processing really doesn't sound bad (especially now that the game can run in the background) - that's an ideal amount of time to go cook, do the shopping, do the laundry, take a shower, catch up on forums/websites/imageboards, do a fraction of your homework, watch an ep (or half) of something on DVD (preferably on a separate piece of hardware), read a book, etc etc. 6 hours of multi-tasking like that means you can fit in 2~4 hours of actual playtime (depending on how long you spend on your own turns).

10~20 minutes is also ideal time to sit and plan ahead: how will you shift research efforts over the next few turns? What will you do when you get that new ship class? Do you need to get a fleet built for a war in 10 turns' time?

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Is this ment to be a joke?

If it is meant as a joke its sick. Honestly on what planet would that be acceptable?

Groovy Baby Yeah!

I've found the game can slow to a crawl if it has been running for a while (i.e. memory leak).

Closing out and going back in speeds it up. This is typically if I left it on overnight, or on a particularly long bender.

Otherwise, I don't find it terribly bad, speedwise. I hit endturn, go get a drink or watch some TV real quick, and come back to it being done.

Is multitasking a game with everything else in life (including other games) that alien in logic?

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

No I get your point you can do all kinds of things while waiting for the next turn to process...
The point is you shouldn't have to wait in your words between 1 hour and 1 day between turns.....
Groovy Baby Yeah!

I cannot do anything to change your expectations. You've already grasped my point that if you change your expectations, you can enjoy SE V despite the much-involved AI turns.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Actually what I meant was I understand that you can enjoy the long turn times some of us just dont. That being said I still have high hopes.

Groovy Baby Yeah!

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Gotcha so maybe *grins* if you change your expectations than it would get a higher priority
All in good fun

Groovy Baby Yeah!

Kahaha, aye just maybe ^^

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

It seems that some of the folks here may be a bit young to understand some of the heritage and background of games of this type. In many ways, the Space Empires series is a development from games such as VGA Planets and Stars!. These were multi-player, play-by-email space strategy games from the mid-90s, with either no AI at all, or a fairly weak one... the whole point was that you were strategizing against other human beings. Turns were typically once per *day*, and in a complex game it might well take an hour or several to plot out your turn in careful detail. (These games, themselves, came out of the play-by-mail heritage of multiplayer space conquest games, where turns were typically weekly or even less often.)

Space Empires has drawn in other influences, most obviously from single-player 4X space games such as the Master of Orion series, but in many ways the core focus of a game is still turn-based, play-by-email or play-by-web, against other humans, with complexity and detail given priority over fast turn processing times on the server. Unlike some of its predecessors, it *can* be played as an enjoyable single-player game against an AI, which adds considerably to the programming and graphics complexity; and if you pick certain options it can end up being a lot more tactical than thoughtfully strategic - but that's not really the *point* of it all.

If you want twitch-reflex, instant-gratification games, there's plenty of other choices out there, full of flashy graphics and simplistic choices (and usually costing rather more). SE:V is one of the few remaining truly strategic multiplayer games, and quite probably the most moddable and extensible of the lot. No one's going to object to faster turn times, but if taking a few minutes between turns is the price for the detail, it's worth it.

OK, y'all have, without trying, convinced me to start a single player, epic-scale game, just to experience the long turns and form my own opinion. I'm on a pretty low-power PC, so from the start I expect to have to wait quite some time between turns. Other than possibly the first 20 or so turns, I don't expect it to bother me too much, but I freely admit that I could be wrong.

My expectations regarding turn time are not so high because 1) this is a complicated game with many aspects, so no AI that presents any challenge is going to be "fast enough", and 2) the game itself is deep, varied, and fun enough that I'm willing to overlook and deal with a few flaws in order to enjoy this otherwise excellent game. I guess I'm kinda in the same camp as Psieye on that.

Normally I only play SEV against other humans, so length of turn processing is not an issue due to there being no AI and due to the fact that at least one of us is always waiting on other player(s) to submit their turns. When I want a faster paced game experience, I play MOO2 (online MOO2 continues to churn my butter after all these years).

The vast majority of people playing SEV will be single player,and MM's programming should favour the ones paying the bills.

Ok.. why are most of them single players?? get a social life. network
make some friends and conquer their planets.
MM is not going to change the game because a bunch of loners don't want to play with other people.
he's designed it to be multi-player game. SO GO AND PLAY IT MULTI-PLAYER
why would he waste time on AI? modders can do that, and they are. Turn processing becomes almost irrelevent when you play Multi.
quit bitching and get some friends.

Do you think the spaceempire brand would exist with the 20 at most people who play multi? And people with a social life are ones who can't afford to sit around for 20 mins waiting for their next bloody turn.

yes i do think it would exist.
it started out as a hobby project, then it got popular. so why not sell it?
he doesn't care about you OR your money. and i wouldn't either.

Wow thanks for that... I love it when people try to tell others that if they simply would think and feel exactly like them then all of their 'perceived' propblems would magically go away. You want to play this as a multiplayer game. Super Duper go for it. Heck I even would support fixes to help you do that. I don't want to play this as a multi player game nor do many of the others who paid their $$$$ for the game. Yet not only do you care about our point of view but you feel the need to be condescending about it nice. If you are as old as you purport to be then have some maners and realize that not everyone feels the way you do. Explain to me how those of us desiring shorter turn times somehow have a less valid opinion than yours. The fact of the mater is you can play how you want but we cant. Plus just FYI even if this game had 1 second turn times it would not be a twitch-reflex instant gratification game....
Have a great day

Groovy Baby Yeah!

Cerberus wrote:

Ok.. why are most of them single players?? get a social life. network make some friends and conquer their planets. MM is not going to change the game because a bunch of loners don't want to play with other people. he's designed it to be multi-player game. SO GO AND PLAY IT MULTI-PLAYER why would he waste time on AI? modders can do that, and they are. Turn processing becomes almost irrelevent when you play Multi. quit bitching and get some friends.

Cerberus just show you know player games on the internet is not a social life..... Some of us don't have the time to play multiplayer or a regular schedule. If it works for you great. But dont try to squeeze the rest of us into your "cyberspace social life"

Groovy Baby Yeah!

Groovyfishguy, just a question of curiosity: how long do you believe processing a turn should take?

Let's say it's you and 16 AI players in the largest possible galaxy at turn 80 or so, most empires are fairly sizeable (average 20-30 planets), large fleets abound, tensions are high between some empires, etc. Let's say that the AI is "competent" and pays enough attention to the details of managing its empire (resources, research, semi-intelligent upgrades to colonies and ships, fleet coordination, etc.) such that it puts up a moderate challenge.

For purposes of my question, assume that the program does nothing for the AI until you click the "turn" button. At what point would you find turn processing times in a game setup such as this to be acceptably short?

Well lets cpmpare it to everyones least favorite game moo3. When I play moo3 I play in a massive universe with 20+ empires with 250 systems. Turn times nver have been over a few minutes.....
So I would say a few minutes. Certianly not an hour as some have suggested as acceptable.
Just my .02

Groovy Baby Yeah!

The major problem is the movement phase for AI players. It represents the bulk of every AI turn, particularly when there are many vehicles and objects in play.

Here's a couple of ways I think it can be improved:

Reduce system hex size and movement amounts proportionally - less spaces to travel each turn means less path calculating. In fact, I had considered doing this for the Balance Mod several times, but requires a lot of data file changes. Still might do it for the next save game breaker.

Since the AI provides it's orders prior to the movement phase (and so it doesn't matter what happens during movement), you might be able to calculate the path just once accounting for hidden obstacles that would be revealed anyways if you were re-checking the patch each hex moved anyway.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Thank you Kwok for calling it a major problem. While I wont speak for anyone else just having it addressed as a problem means that it probably will be addressed at some point

Groovy Baby Yeah!

Mmm? Kwok does that mean it would be faster if a game was "no fog of war - everyone is omniscient"? Though that isn't fun most of the time...

Hmm... reducing all movement points... that would definitely be interesting yes, though I ponder how sensor range would adapt in response. It's definitely an interesting experiment to try, though you may want a backup for people who prefer the old movement ranges.

How would "+1 move" racial trait and components be affected I wonder...?

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

FWIW,

AMD Athalon 64x2 6000 Dual Core, SLI Nvidia 8500x2,

Single player game
Core v1.58 game with balance mod 1
around turn 80
small or medium cluster galaxy (dont' remember exact size)
14 computer players/npc
processing 2-3 minutes

I seemed to have gotten into two wars with computer players that love fighters, lots of fighters

What a great opportunity for spin:

"SE5, now with enhanced turn generation it takes even LONGER to process a turn - over 20 minutes! Now you can enjoy SE5 and get a nice session of laundry in at the same time without being interrupted by having to do a new turn! Buy now!"

I can just imagine the success the game that uses that as an advertisement will have.

Really, there is NO bonus to long turn generation. If you WANT to take 20 minutes to cook or whatever you CAN. It would not matter if turn generation took 20 minutes or 20 seconds. That is the nice thing about turn based strategy games. That is what sets them apart from twitch games. You don't need 20 minute turn generation to get that.

Chad

Things I've done while waiting for turns to process:

1. Start another game on different PC.
2. Jog on treadmill for 1 mile.
3. Read a Space Empires based book (Galaxy at war)
4. Watch TV.
5. Draw a picture.
6. Balance the checkbook.

It HAS gotten much better, but I'd say only medium galaxys are playable. Large is too slow in the middle game for my tastes and (LOL) I actually wanted to play in large 200 + galaxy games and thats just NOT going to happen without Major turn processing improvements...

I had one game with 200 galaxys a couple months ago, each turn took 20 - 30 minutes to process well before half the galaxy was populated..

Cerberus wrote:

Ok.. why are most of them single players?? get a social life. network make some friends and conquer their planets. MM is not going to change the game because a bunch of loners don't want to play with other people. he's designed it to be multi-player game. SO GO AND PLAY IT MULTI-PLAYER why would he waste time on AI? modders can do that, and they are. Turn processing becomes almost irrelevent when you play Multi. quit bitching and get some friends.

Oh dear. This is wrong on so many levels. When I have time to get together with my friends, the last thing we want to do is sit in the house and play a video game.

I don't think sitting in your house playing a video game with a friend across the Interweb qualifys as "Getting a social life". When I have a few hours in an evening to play a game, I want to pick up SEV against the Ai, who wait patiently for me to come back. When I have time to get together with my friends, its not to play video games.

Ding ding ding we have a winner

Groovy Baby Yeah!

Imo another problem is:
With tactical combat enabled, everytime AI sends frigate to your defended warppoint you are given choice betweem tactical/strategic (and in strategic it waits until you press start and end). So in the end, you can go out and return after hal an hour and find out that after 10s of processing it is waiting for your three clicks and will compute another half an hour (with probuble aditional waits for you).

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

captain Kwok. You hit the nail on the head!
The turn movement phase has to be speed up. Since the AI cannot change his orders during movement phase; why not let the movement phase process as in omnipresent sense. Let me elaborate further, The AI will not see the map in omni sense but the game engine will process the game in that sense. So the movement will have 2 phases: routine & complicated.

In the routine phase: if a ship needs to move 10 hexes and & omni view says there are no problems with that; the that ship should do this movement in a single click (1 process). If there are problems; then the ship should stop at this location of the problem and be dealt with in the following phase.

The second phase is for any units with problems at the end of phase 1. Those get moved the good old fashion way. I also think this will improve the AI intelligence as well. since it allows the AI to give orders to ships with obstacles and other issues in their original order.

What do you think Captain??

That is more or less what I suggested to MM a few days ago.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Woot! Thank you KWOK!

Groovy Baby Yeah!

for my part, when it takes longer, I take fewer turns per day, you know what they say: (sicilian accent) "a puter gottado what a puter gottado..."

Turn times GOTTA go down, been saying this since 1.00

Just back to try out the new patch...with a mod.

Uhm I asked for medium galaxy with medium computer players and got 12..sigh

FFS MAKE THIS GAME MORE SP FRIENDLY!! ITS REALLY ITS ONLY STRENGHT ATM.

My powerful computer crawls after say 50 rounds with 12..its just crazy..and then we have morons who posts crap like ..10-20 mins turntime = ok.

Cheesus thats your LIFE ticking away there dude.

Devs of this game is seriously listening to the wrong crowd.

Janster

Imo realy BIG problem for SP (when I want turn based, so don't say simultaneous) is that no tactical combat option does not work.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

I don't understand why some talk about 10-20 min. times, that reminds me of the times I was playing chess allnight in my old 8086 waiting about an hour for the computer to make a decent move.

after 90 turns with 12 races in large galaxy and with an old AMD athlon 2600+ (actual frequency 2000Mhz) turn times are not a problem anymore - 3 to 4 minutes tops - in the same machine it was a severe problem before the latest patches with times more than 7 to 9 minutes with fewer races and after only 30-40 turns.

of course any improvement is always welcome as long as it wouldn't left the AI braindead.

At 10 min a turn you get 6 turn an hour, that means you get 144 turns in 24 hours
play 3 hour it takes you 48 days to play those 144 rounds..

At 4 min a turn you get 360 turns / 24 hours

Which is a paltry 8 days for those 144 turns..

shrug, I'd wagor 99,99999% of world population would be bored silly by then.

Janster

Crunching numbers doesn't mean much unless you give valid evidence it's relevant. World Population? First, most of them won't ever hear of SE V - some won't even have access to a computer or electricity.

Select a better range of people, say "people who are aware of SE V and who have some free time to consider playing it or something else". Well they need to consider what they want to do with the game. Why are they interested? What do they want to achieve?

Then think about what game conditions are required to meet those achievement objectives. Do they just want to blow stuff up? Do they just want to build something over a long period of time? Do they want to weave a story? To kill some time while exercising their brain? Namely, do they require multiplayer or can AI do the job? Do they need more than 4 AI opponents? Do they need a large number of systems?

Before you can say "they will be bored", you must first assess what their original objectives were and whether they're trying to achieve those objectives efficiently.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

All the assessment in the world wont help anything or make it more clear that its too long.

Groovy Baby Yeah!

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

this is not a shoot'm up, this is a space-empire-building-sim, you take your time with this particular kind of games, what if it takes more than 3 months to copmlete a game as long as you're enjoying it?

does anyone know if multi-core support is planned? It will be worth an upgrade then.

Maybe the strategic combat between AI empires could be simplified by making the combat more discrete, a little bit like in SE4? You still would have normal combat (tactical or strategic) when players are involved.

And give the option to have an omniscient AI.

That should reduce the turn processing under the 30 seconds mark, and make the AI better. (Of course then the AI would cheat, but it already does in another way when you give it a bonus, so it should be worth it.)

I think the point that some are trying to make is that they don't enjoy the long turn times...
I personally haven't had any problems with it since the last patch but thats just me...

Groovy Baby Yeah!

Anything that improved turn times and AI in one swoop would be wholeheartedly endorsed by me

Groovy Baby Yeah!

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Yes, the point isn't that I don't like the game...I love the game..but the turntimes is driving me batty

This game has all the makings, but I have to be able to finish it within reasonable time

Janster

Incidentally, its

cannolli

not

Canole.

And, they are stupendously yummolicios:

http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/11/22/23032211.jpg

Curse you Iron Giant! Why did you have to do that?!?

Must... find... Italian... bakery... NOW!!!

Oh, and there's only one letter "l" in cannoli.

turn time is unacceptable

ai is unacceptable

i had really high hopes for se5 and still do but at the moment this game still needs a lot of work.

it's getting better all the time....

Groovy Baby Yeah!

getting better and a quality, playable product are two different things.

Hi Grommit5. What is your expectation in order for SEV to be a game you'd play? I'm going to assume that my particular approach is not palatable to you (ie play multiplayer for the most part...AI and turn processing don't matter there).

How long should turn processing take for a game with 10 AI empires on a large map? What 4X games do you play that have led you to this expectation?

Thanks.

Well Since the latest patch I find it to be quite playable.

Groovy Baby Yeah!

i think anything more than a couple min is poor performance but that's not my issue although i can understand why for some it is. aaron has done a lot of work on the memory leaks and game speed has inproved considerably. i commend him on that effort.

i play single player. my schedule is such that it doesn't lend itself to multyiplayer game. thus the ai is extremely important. if it wasn't for balance mod, thanks kwok, i would have written this off as a total loss. i haven't tried unnamed mod (is that right? unnamed) anyway, i haven't tried it yet.

my point is, any game that i pay good money for should work out of the box ( unfortunately patching seems to be a norm in this industry) without me have to load mods and/or be an ai script editor. i didn't buy this to learn how to be a programmer.

Limiting oneself to what comes in the box is a sad, sad approach to life.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

and you sound as if not getting what you paid for is acceptable for you. its not for me. i also expect that type of answer from someone that likes modding, or at least you seem to, i see your name flashed around here enough connected to various mods. more power to you, it helps the rest of us. that still doesn't mean it should be a prerequisite for making the game playable.

With internet becoming ubiquitous, most of the games are now expected to be patched, content being added, etc...

Of course this is NOT an excuse to release a product completely plagued by bugs.

As of 1.63, SEV (US & UK) has IMHO already reached a point where it can be sold to people (well, if the AI in stock builds ships, and TCP-IP at least works).

that is a very sad statement but unfortunately true. it's just that too many on this board seem to think that everything is ok as long as multi-player works or it's ok because you can download a mod or patch to fix it. the point is you shouldn't have to and no one seems to be able to even admit there is a problem with the way software is released in general. including SE5.

It's a valid concern to not get what one expects when they buy a product. Though in my case, perhaps because I was used to Warcraft III custom games and Japanese Doujin games, I never had such expectations. I paid for a 'programming language' through which I could play several different types/styles of games. As the years roll by, all kinds of interesting ideas can be made reality for comparatively little effort compared to coding everything from scratch.

But that's just my personal view of course. I'm also someone who doesn't measure prices in terms of Money, but in Time. SE V has already more than 'paid back' what money I've had to pay to import it from across the Atlantic.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

"The point is you shouldn't have to" (re: using a mod and/or needing a patch). I guess I have to say that, as I see it, this statement is not always applicable. Sometimes it is, but not always.

I don't like being a paying beta tester any more than the next guy. But the sad truth, in my eyes, is that this is a case in which I have to take what I can get...to demand "high" quality and polish is to end up with nothing at all.

Speaking for myself, I can't in good conscience demand "Blizzard" performance out of the one-man operation that MM is. SEV is a phenomenally complex game, and coding it to work well and be complete is a huge task that one guy shouldn't be attempting, but that's the way it is. I can either say to myself, "Not worth my time, too slow, not smart enough, too buggy...", or I can work with it, have lower but realistic expectations, and enjoy it for what it is.

It would be great if the software had been further along at release. However I have to ask myself if I can realistically demand that MM do it better. Given that it's a small time operation, that he's operating without benefit of a large financial backing and support team, and that he still has to put food on the table, I'm not able to say how Aaron "should" have done it better. I have a hard time criticizing how someone does something if I can't offer a better solution.

Jeepers, I think that one of Aaron's smartest design choices for this series is that he coded it to allow for mods, in order to let other folks provide some of the features and refinement and to let him put effort elsewhere in the product. I like it for the simple reason that I don't think the guy pumping out the code can generate a good set of game variables as well as the folks who spend countless hours actually playing it.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I'm not saying that you should. People SHOULD have expectations where value for their $$$ is concerned. I just know that while some folks refuse to play it until it passes a certain threshold, others are somehow managing to have a blast with it, both in single and multiplayer.

I used to have the biggest problems with this game.
Slow GUI, even slower with every additional opened window, slow turns.
My average FPS value was usually somewhere between 5 and 10.
Didn't matter much which version of SE5.
Even with the latest patch 1.63 i improved only slightly.

I said "used to".

Well, at first i blamed my outdated system (WindowsXP SP2, AthlonXP 1600, 768 MB Ram, ATI 9600pro) for this poor performance then MM.

Hell, was i wrong.

Now i can play SE5 with an average FPS rate of 60.
And that is with the multimediapack and balance mod installed.

Here is what i did:
Disable "font smoothing" in WindowsXP.
Enabling it costs me about 20 fps. Opened windows don't reduce the fps value further.
Get the "Clear Type tuning" power toy from microsoft, so you don't have to mess with the registry.

On graphics driver level:
Disable all the anti aliasing or leave it to the application.
With full anti aliasing (6x + temporal) enabled, the frame rate drops 25-30 and every opened window about halves the remaining fps value further.

Other graphics driver options (mipmap level, anisotropic filter) have no noticable effect.

On an older system like mine you could also reduce the game resolution to 1024x768 fullscreen from 1280x1024 for an extra 5-10 fps.
But that is just a minor improvement compared to the other two.

As i said, this is what helped me.
You have to try it for yourself.

As far as the duration of the turn change is concerned, only a drastic change in handling units and cargo can help with that.

Oddly enough, all this tweaking seems to have some minor effect on the turn duration as well ...

Many people, even rabid SE series fans like myself have said there is something wrong with the AI and turn processing.

I have never, and will never play a multiplayer game of SEV, so you're not alone in wanting a faster, better single player game.

Practical Turn processing resolutions (what you CAN do while we hope turn processing gets faster with future patches):

Play only medium maps or smaller.
Play only with a few AI.
Concider a processor upgrade (that's where my bottleneck seems to be).
Read a book between turns ("The Stars At War" is based on Starfire, the same old style game that SE came from)
Play on 2 PC's at once.

Practical AI improvements:

Download the "Unnamed mod" and the "Balance Mod".
Don't play the stock game, except as a tutorial.
Create your own AI.

I'm going to try my hand at creating my own AI this weekend. It may actually be fun to create a race that is capable of taking over the universe all by itself :0

In the meantime, have a Canoli:

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/3526763/2/istockphoto_3526763_cannoli.jpg

On Iron Giants point I also note that turns are speeded up if you minimise during turn processing. http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopict-3395.html . Save beforehand though, or autosave every turn, as very rarely the game can freeze on maximizing back up.

You can then browse the internet and do other things too whilst minimised.

Personally I'd like to play Multiplayer, but I really havent got the time to commit. Shame. Maybe when i'm rich...

Regarding creating an AI, what sort of AI you looking at creating Iron Giant?

What'd be ideal is if someone could create different minister styles that are selectable in the New Game screen (for custom empires). Aggressive, Defensive and Moderate are good in theory, but Kwok informs me in reality there’s not much difference and its better to play against the standard SE races for variety.

What’d be nice is if someone could make those ministers noticeably different for custom races, plus add new ones (Xenophobic, Peaceful, etc), and selectable traits (e.g. race focuses on Mesons, Torpedoes, and Biological weapons, but doesn’t build Fighters etc.), just like in SE3 but more advanced.

What my goal is, to create an AI that gives the same feeling I used to get when I ran across the Space Vikings in SE4:

"Oh Crap"

I remember flooding my warp points with mines, praying for an ally to help me stem the tide of their invading ships, most of the time, to no avail. They would send ship after suicidal ship into my space, conquering everything if you didn't hold them back.

I learned to go to war with them early if I wanted any chance to win the game. I want to make an AI that gives the same feeling...

I don't think many people realize that multiplayer only really requires a commitment of a turn every 2-3 days, depending on PBW game setup...

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

Fyron you might be right about that I didn't know.... Still dont want to play multiplayer though :shrugs:

Groovy Baby Yeah!

Wouldn't it be funny if this thread based on a mispelling became one of the longest

Groovy Baby Yeah!

Nah that would the bugs/ inconvinces thread for SEV