Question before Pre-order: Performance with Intel x3100

Has anyone tried this game on the intel x3100 chip?

from Sins Forums
I am debating whether to pre-order Sins of a Solar empire. The only thing that is holding me back is my graphics card: the intel x3100. Yes, i KNOW this is not a gaming card, but its the first intel card with hardware shaders and it can play plenty of games. My processor is the T7300, and I have 2 gigs of ram. Using WinXP. Laptop, so I cannot upgrade my card :(

Here is some examples of the x3100's performance:

In 3dmark05: 700 points with Hardware shaders on, and 925 points in software emulation mode. Yes, many games will run better in SW mode. However, the games that run better in Software mode often have more slowdown when there is a lot of stuff on the screen.

Unreal 2004: with most of the options turned up in 1024x768, steady 35-40 fps.

Galciv2: very playable. When first starting a game 50+ fps. However, when there is a ton of stuff on screen, it can drop. Late game with dozens of starbases/ships on screen, if zoomed all the way out 17fps, if zoomed in the frame rate goes all the way up to 50fps again.

Civ4: Depends on the zoom level, 25fps zoomed all the way in, but only 12 zoomed out. Depends a bit on how many trees/units/structures are on the screen. And late game, its pretty unplayable.

Guild wars: Frame rate can be all over the place. Options turned very low. In towns with literally Dozens of characters on screen, 15fps. In low populated places, 30+fps. Hard to guess an average for this game.

Rome Total War: 25 fps average unless there are a lot of units/buildings in view, then its about 17fps. 1024x768, graphics set to medium (doesnt seem to make a difference if set to low).

Supreme Commander: Unplayable. In a skirmish game, zoomed in or out, about 10fps. In the first battle sequence for campaign mode about 5 fps.


So, do I take a risk with Sins? Has anyone tried it with the x3100? I've read that many of the special effects haven't even been implemented yet. How will the effects affect the performance? Lastly, how large can the battles get and is there a huge performance hit during the battles?
17,769 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
While we haven't tested it with that chipset, after looking at the specs on it I think it'll work. The features meet the minimum specs for the game, it's just that you'll probably need to play with Medium texture settings to prevent slowdown and stick to smaller maps.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Sounds exactly like my laptop, and my laptop works fine on all maps with low settings and small games with medium settings. I think it'll work fine, and you can just turn down the special effects if they cause any problems. My laptop actually has worse other stuff, just a 1.5 ghz core 2 duo processor (not sure what the code is) and only one gig of ram.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
When you say "sounds like my laptop" do you mean you also have the intel x3100?
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

When you say "sounds like my laptop" do you mean you also have the intel x3100?
End of quote


I'd say the guy rather clearly didn't say he had the intel x3100 -- he's saying your performance is in the same range as his laptop's :D
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
My laptop has a 1.46GHz Pentium dual-core, 1 GB ram and the X3100 integrated graphics running Vista Home Premium and it runs the game just fine 1024x768 with the effects off and the textures at the lowest setting. In one 4 player game with around 20 planets, there was about 20-25 frigates, 3 capital ships, and 3 fighter groups shooting at one planet and the frame rates were still decent for me. Zoomed out to manage the empire, the frames never really fell, only time it fell a good deal was zoomed in to watch the battles.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
xthetenth, if you do not have the x3100, what card do you have?

Crazysix, thanks for the info. How are you testing the framerate? Fraps? Currently, the drivers for the x3100 have very different results between XP and Vista. Some games run much better under one OS. Vista has some issues with Hardware shaders not working in many games, however some of the newer games such as Call of Duty 4 run much better in Vista. I am using XP, but even if the performance is worse in XP, eventually intel will probably optimize the XP drivers to match Vista's performance. Since the card's release, around June, the drivers have changed dramatically. How much does turning the textures up affect performance? Regarding performance with the x3100, I've noticed that in many games turning the textures up doesnt affect performance very much. There is no lack of video memory, because the x3100 is an integrated chip it utilizes system ram. Usually, turning up the special effects is what affects performance the most in my tests.

One question that hasnt been answered is if Sins is going to take a performance hit when the new special effects are added in. I read in another thread that many of the special effects havent been implemented. Is that true? If so, will it affect performance much and once the effects are added, will turning the effects off in the options menu have the same effect as it does now? Just wondering if some of the new effects are such that they cannot be disabled.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Final effects haven't been implemented (most of what we have are placeholders, rather than non-existant), but the "low" settings probably won't change much.

In short, you can expect "high-end" requirements to go up substantially (dev confirmed on that ;) ), while low end requirements will probably raise only slightly.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I was just eyeballing it judging from other games I've played. Fraps showed about 40 fps when zoomed out, around 30 when zoomed in on the planetary scale, and drops to 10 when you look at the planet. Turning up the textures is just unbearable even without the planet in view.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I didn't deny or state that my laptop has an x3100, because I didn't know. You should be able to see all the stats here I have a graphics media accelerator 950 derivative, not the 965 based x3100, but mine most likely isn't worse by too much, and those framerates seem identical, and you have a faster processor and more ram, so I know you're video accelerator limited like I am, so you should definitely be fine.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
gfx card is fine. Im on a X200 mobility express with 64mb of shared memory and ive played with 8 players ONLINE.

the trick is that in sins , alot of the game is played slightly zoomed out to manage your empire so theres less 3d stuff to render. When I do go zoomed in , I have everything set to low and effects off and i get a fps of around 20 which is playable .