Forgive me if this has already been covered somewhere else.
The game uses way too much memory and processor for whatever it's doing. The start screen, the menu with the planet in the background uses 1.75GB memory and runs all four of my cores to 60%. A multi-threaded main menu!
It goes without saying that when I'm actually playing the game proper it's basically eating up every computer resource it can from the jump. Note that it doesn't seem to need the memory or proc time it's gobbling up. (It runs fine whether it's the only app running or one of many.)
Is this (consume all available resources) the expected memory and processor profile of the final version of the game?
Doubtful as they will be doing a lot of trimming the fat as they release/build more of the game. It was actually higher in the Alpha for me.
Don't forget that they have lots of debugging code in there that will be removed when the game is released. Also, I have seen the same thing with Civ 5, which, at the moment, uses more system resources than GC3 does,
Some of the CPU, GPU, and memory usage you are seeing on the main menu screen is all of the motion in the graphics. It isn't just a picture, It is animated (just watch the clouds for a few seconds).
I would also point out the title screen may be doing a lot of background loading and decompression of things into memory.
Although I match your memory usage when I run the game, my processor usage is only around 30-33%... So this greatly depends on your processor...
Doubtless as it is still not feature complete the game will undergo a lot more optimisation yet. However as it enables immense maps, customisable ships, and a multi-threaded AI with possibly up to 100 races, I would suggest that on larger maps and with max races in a game it with thrash any hardware out there.
It’s that old thing where people think a strategy game should be less demanding than an FPS, but actually particularly on memory and CPU as opposed to GPU the reverse is probably true. Not that I’m saying this game won’t also be GPU heavy after all it will be displaying a lot of distinct objects when zoomed out.
Thanks for posting! The game is still early in development and performance tweaks are on track for later on in development. I am curious what type of system you are running, just so that I can keep an eye out. If you don't mind sending your system information to support I would greatly appreciate that.
Link to Support
https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit
Link to support tool:
http://sd.stardock.com/Support/supportToolTest/SDSupportTool.exe
I'm curious what processor you're running as mine hovers around 30% usage constant.
My Alienware M17X R2, with 2 x ATI Radeon 5780, has its own opinion of GC3 thru 0.42B-09.15.383077.
The galactic map must make my 5780s run hot.
At idle I'm using 22% of 12gb ram 0% i7 qc 4ghz. With game loaded, fully colonized large map & other 3 civs making their move, my processor's at 41% and using 52% ram. This is just a fast & dirty 24hr game, no star bases and maybe just over 125 or so ships (includes those in fleets) between all 4 civs. Out of all saved games, this was the highest usage of ram/proc. percentage of all of them. Main title page was about 28~30% proc. & 38% ram. Subtract 22% base (@ idle) and it's only using 16% mem (just under 2gb) main page and 30% (about 3.6gb) in game. Looks like it's time to upgrade.
I was looking for an excuse, guess I found one! I personally like playing on very huge maps. Can't wait to play on the immense one. Should only take a couple of months to play through. 4hr x 7 days x 9 weeks = 252hrs. That's of course just a rough guesstimate. I wont care whether it says I win or lose, in the end I WILL dominate the galaxy! Now this is my kind of game. Good job guys.
I enjoy the occasional Windows "low-memory" warning as much as the next guy, though this might be the first time I've gotten one on the start menu screen. I use my computer for more than playing games. I have multiple monitors and like to be able to tab between my open applications. One of the nice things about TBS is that the game moves at my pace, so I don't have to worry about missing something while I'm in another application.
The problem isn't resource usage per-se. That's why I have an overbuilt machine. The worrying thing is resource usage for no clear purpose. If the game is completely idle and my system is chugging away, what the hell is it doing? Is Stardock mining bitcoins?
I am not the developer. Maybe it's Stardock's master plan to drive my utility bill through the roof by using my CPU to animate clouds in high detail. I don't know. But this:
... is ridiculous. I know, it's a beta, there's a lot of optimization to go. But there's also a promised graphical overhaul. There's also all sorts of new features, new assets, the AI is basically brain-dead, etc. etc. I'm worried that resource usage (and wasted resources) is going to be a serious problem for this game. In a TBS it's hard to imagine needing something beefier than Fycome's machine.
As a subset to this, when I the game, your exe file remains in the process for an inordinate amount of time. Several times I have returned and tried to restart the game, only to be told I could not. Opening the task manager and looking under processes two files are still there, the exe file and a framework (I think, can't remember at the moment, but it is easily recognizeable.) They seem to remain up to about 20 - 25 minutes. As soon as I delete the processes I can restart the game.
I have never experienced that concern with this program. I have had this on a few computers at work, but the underlying root cause was not with the particular program that hangs, but somewhere else. You may need to do some clean up of the os, remove other programs or check for a problem with the registry. I'm getting to the end of another game on which I have 100+ ships myself, with star bases & 3 times the normal amount of shipyards. No increase in processor or ram usage. I have 241 programs installed on my machine (mostly games) that do not seem to affect each other in any way. I have installed some programs before (can't recall the names at the moment) that adversely affected everything. Needless to say, the came right back off and I found others that worked better with my setup. Not all computers, video cards, etc. are created equal or behave the same with programs (internally from os perspective) as others.
I work on the "SYNC" system for a Ford dealer & people constantly complain that their phone doesn't do messages or whatever that their neighbors does - "They have the same car and the same phone". Even though this is true, Ford has a compatibility matrix and the first thing you do is pick a carrier service. Even though they have the same phone, they have different carriers so they respond differently. Hearts, smiley faces, too many contacts, ect. in their phones causes the radio, sirius or navigation to hang for awhile before go to another task. This is an exaggerated example, but the principle is the same. On the other hand, it could just be the game (beta, ya know).
Same problem here, but not only in the titlescreen.
I play on a laptop. Ingame my chipset is working on a minimum of 40% most of the time causing heat problems and shutdowns.
For example a relatively new game like Evil within doesn`t cause any problems and runs on moderate chipset usage (15%).
Even if I disable all anti aliasing options and run it on a low resolution, the cores are getting in serious trouble to handle the game.
I checked all drivers to be up to date and I refeshed the heating paste on my cores, now I CAN play, but the core temp is around 90 ° Celsius.
Furthermore my computer goes into hibernation when I play with a closed monitor, but all hibernate and sleep options are disabled in the control panel, and I don`t encounter this issue on other games. It just goes into hibernation, no shutdown due to overheating.
Just wanted to tell that, perhaps it`s important to the developer.
I know I don`t have the newest maschine, but the game is running smooth so to me it looks like a compatible problem perhaps, dunno.
My system:
Asus N53 sv Notebook
4xcore i7 2630 QM @ 2.00 ghz
10 gb ram
64-bit windows 8
nvidia gt 540 m
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