Maybe go for a high-end older DX9 card on eBay? Something like a GeForce 6800GT or Radeon X1900. You could get one pretty cheap and it will run the game nicely, especially if you don't have a very powerful video card right now.
[quote]It's probably better that graphics remain behind a more generic interface such as PCIE, particularly for upgradeability and interchangeability. If they were on the motherboard via a socket, chipmakers would probably be a lot more likely to use varying proprietary socket types, with all the fun that involves (nonportability, forced upgrades, etc).[/quote] Good point, but think about it with respect to CPU's. We have Intel, AMD, and whoever else is still around. Each has it's own prop
[quote]How do you handle early-game invasions of your planets?[/quote] One other note, I do avoid early wars by working the diplomacy and military ratings pretty hard. That allows me to fight on my terms. However in DA, playing with the Drath messes that up because they're always inciting wars against you. You either need to take the Drath out of the game or make a special effort to waste them as early as possible. You can also disable super abilities, but that takes a lot of fun out of
[quote]Is having each planet be balanced a good idea at all?[/quote] Either way works, specialized or generic. One thing you need to consider is the number of habitables in your game. If each race only has a few planets, then losing one is a big deal. In a gigantic/abundant game with max habitables, you can lose a number and not worry about it, even if they're specialized. I play mostly gig/abun so my comments are oriented toward that. [quote]How do you balance out concentrated
There's a setting for that in the Options menu. However, I wouldn't know if there's a problem because I set Backgroud Star Density and Background Nebula Density to zero. I like a totally black background better, makes things easier to see.
It would be nice if the fog of war color was adjustable. It would be nice if Stardock could spend some time on the race colors to make them more unique. I know I can customize them myself, but it would be better if I didn't have to. That's my "feature" request for today :)
If I don't have it, it's the first tech I research. So no, it's not worthless. Even if all the races have it to start (which isn't the case), there's always custom race which can opt to exclude it in lieu of something else.
[quote]i remember a year, year and a half back, when i learned that AMD had about ATI, i was talking with a friend who said he was really interested to see what they'd do.[/quote] You know, I was thinking the other day, why don't they package GPU's that same way as CPU's and put a socket on the motherboard for it. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems? It sure would be nice to use a good CPU HSF instead of that hot noisy card mounted thing.
[quote]3D CG is my primary interest. [/quote] Yea, it takes some serious horsepower to do that stuff. I've read the fastest machines around right now can render about 1/4 the speed required to do movie quality stuff in real time. Applying Moore's law, it shouldn't be too long until a peformance gaming machine can do that sort of thing live. One of the things that motivates me on these upgrades is that I enjoy experiencing the improvement in 3D video quality as machines get faster. I imag
[quote]there's also this voice in the back of my mind that suggests you'll get better performance by matching your chipset and CPU[/quote] I haven't found that to be the case really. Although I have to admit, there is a certain comfort factor involved in running a chipset and CPU from the same maker. I've been happy with various chipsets from nVidia and VIA over the years. The nForce 520 has been the only exception and it may have been due to a quality issue with the ASUS board it was mou
[quote]as a totally separate item, Craig, i was wondering why you were down on nVidia chipsets? i mean, i'm not really interested in SLi, but they don't seem like bad chipsets. is it stability issues? [/quote] It's not that I'm down them because I'm not really. I've used several nForce motherboards in the past. My only dissapointment is that I didn't see a big gain in memory bandwidth going from a DDR400 to DDR800 system (according to my own benchmarking). I was expecting to, but didn't.
In Dread Lords, I usually get two or three PQ32 planets, but in Dark Avatar, they're class 29. It doesn't matter what alignment you're playing, it's just neutral doesn't have to terraform to get them. If you pay for the buildings, you can build one in 28 turns so they're always useful to me.
Merry Xmas As we do every year, had to travel to see the in-laws, staying in a hotel. Pretty boring for me, but at least I have my laptop with me and the hotel has a good wireless internet connection. Not the best way to spend Xmas for me. Maybe someday I'll get to spend it at home with my wife.
In a gigantic/abundant galaxy, every turn requires some thought and some action. In a small galaxy with only a few planets per race, there seems to be alot of that empty turn clicking. I think the bigger games are more interesting, but can also require too many repetive and mundane actions.
It's kind of a convoluted process, but you have to use the .sdc files. I like to keep a copy of the game handy and it took me a while to figure it out. You can get away with simply copying the directory with some game programs, but GC2 isn't one of them.
Yep, use it all the time in DA. Not in DL, but maybe its been fixed since the .129 version. That's one thing that's lacking around here is some release notes on what's been fixed from one version to the next.
Fun quiz. I missed the one on Lord Kona, I thought he was leader of the Korath Clan, oops.
I wanted to add that the Orbital Terraformer is broken in Dread Lords (unless it's been fixed since 1.5.129). It actually deletes all the terraformable tiles instead of upgrading them. So, neutral is more advantageous in DL than it is in DA. You get instant terraforming without having to reasearch any techs and evil has to terraform the hard way since the OT is broken in that game.
[quote]The bonus is stated as a .5 modifier to military production.[/quote] I believe the ".5" bonus works out to 50%. I play both evil and neutral and that's the difference I've been seeing. But yea, it's a good one. Combine that with max bonus points in military production and watch your military production points fly off the chart. [quote]The Mind Control Center provides a 100% bonus to your entire empire. Massively overpowered, but at least it has a significant down-side (the
I just don't use Rally Points or Governors to move ships anymore. I decided it wasn't worth the extra clicks/key strokes to set them up and take them down. The quickest/easiest way to move ships is to zoom the map all the way out, left click to select the ship, if necessary, click and drag the map so the destination is in view, then right click to to navigate the ship to that point. That would be your autopilot. The only problem with the autopilot is that the game occasionally forget
The other consideration is that most providers offer a basic phone for no charge. You can get a different one if you pay for it. I just went for the phone that came with my service. It's a tiny thing. I could have paid for one with a better keypad and possibly a larger battery, but I really don't use it much so I didn't want to spend the extra.
Yea, that's why I held back at "d" before moving forward. The fleet movement bug was addressed with a manual fix posted here, but it just took a while to update the version on SDC. That's understandable with the emphasis on TA right now.
You need to "archive" in Stardock Central to preserve old versions of the game. I've done that in case I have problems with "g", however, it's working well for me so far. It's an official release.
[quote]Try building nothing for awhile. Sometimes nothing is the best thing you can build. [/quote] I think it's common for newer players to put too much emphasis on building right out of the gate (I know I did at first). I really don't hit the social production hard until the latter half of the game. Until then, I'm mostly running on the output from initial colonies. In the early game, getting more planets is much more of a priority for me than building the ones I have.
hehe :LOL:
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