Hardware Poll

[Echo35]

Every now and then, a patch will come out promising better performance, and there are a number of you rejoicing this fact, so out of pure morbid curiosity, what kind of hardware are you guys running AI War on? Feel free to post your rigs here, I'm curious to see what kind of hardware this game is capable of running on. Lowest specced person gets a cookie.

My main gaming rig is a Quad Core q6600 overclocked to 3.15 GHZ, a 1 GB GTX280 and 4 gigs of DDR2 800 RAM which is underclocked a bit to allow the CPU to go higher, and of course, Windows 7

My laptop is a Dual Core T5600 2.0 GHZ with a 512 MB 9600 GT and also has 4 gigs of DDR2 800, also with 7.

Needless to say, AI War runs without issue Looking at the AI War system requirements on Impulse, they seem to be lower than running Vista itself, so I think a contest is in order to see how low we can go. Got any old machines lying around?

[x4000]

I've run it on a 1.8 Ghz single-core IBM Thinkpad R42 with 1 GB of RAM.  It's not ideal, but it works well enough for smaller games (a big limitation is the GPU there).  My normal machines are a Q6600 quad et al (my main workstation), and a single-core 2.4 Ghz Pentium D used as the second machine when my wife and I play the game together.  None of my stuff is overclocked, as I prefer long life to the hardware.

I know there are some more impressively-low specs out there, though, with dual core 1.6Ghz running a 33-hour 100 planet map, for instance.  And someone on another board got it working on a 1.6Ghz netbook, and said performance was fine for the tutorials, but that the lack of screen real estate was the killer.

[Volatar]

Running it on a self built system here.

Dual core Athlon X2 5600+ (2x2.8ghtz) with 2gb DDR2 RAM, a Geforce 8600 GTS. No over/underclocking. A pair of RAIDed SATA HDD's keep my load times short on everything. I run on a 19" LCD at 1280x1024. I have Windows XP x64.

[Gelatious Cube]

I use a Gateway FX gaming lap-top. Not too fancy--Intel Centrino 2, Geforce 9800M GTS, 4gigs of RAM. If it weren't for a total inability to keep itself cool, this lap-top could play almost anything out there.

[Echo35]

I use a Gateway FX gaming lap-top. Not too fancy--Intel Centrino 2, Geforce 9800M GTS, 4gigs of RAM. If it weren't for a total inability to keep itself cool, this lap-top could play almost anything out there.

Thats what I got a cooling pad for, they actually work pretty well. I OC my video card sometimes thanks to the added cooling, but not when I play AI War, its not necessary. You know, I am actually thinking of making a real contest out of this

[dumpsterKEEPER]

I play the game on two different systems:

• Manufacturer: Custom-built desktop
• Processor: Athlon64 X2 Dual Core 5200+
• RAM: 2GB
• Graphics: GeForce 8800 GTS OC 320MB
• OS: Windows XP Pro

• Manufacturer: Apple MacBook
• Processor: Intel Core2 Duo Mobile Processor T7200 @ 2GHz
• RAM: 1GB
• Graphics: Intel 945 Express (integrated)
• OS: Windows XP Pro (installed under Boot Camp)

Both systems handle the game just fine, although I still do appreciate the performance improvements. I have noticed a difference on both systems with some of the recent speedups, particularly when giving commands to large fleets.

[AcidWeb]

I will steal formatting from dumpsterKEEPER  

• Manufacturer: Custom-built desktop
• Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO E6750 - 2,66 Ghz
• RAM: 2GB
• Graphics: GeForce 9800 GT 512MB
• OS:Windows 7 Pro 64bit / Personally rigged Gentoo Linux

Working perfectly. Some slowdowns at x10 time acceleration.

[dumpsterKEEPER]

I will steal formatting from dumpsterKEEPER  

Hehe, no problem   I thought it made it easier to pick out the important bits, particularly when skimming the thread.

[Velox]

I'm not stealing, I'm recycling...

• Processor: 2.26GHz Pentium IV
• RAM: 768MB
• Graphics: GeForce 6200 256MB
• OS:Windows XP

It is a relic - we're retiring systems newer and better than this at work, which makes me sad; I'm considering upgrading to an Etch-a-Sketch, or perhaps an abacus with a piece of chalk tied to it.  I've started a lot of games of AI War but not yet finished one - once the real:game time ratio gets up to 8 or 10:1 (once battles start to involve a couple thousand ships) I start to feel like a fresh start wouldn't be a bad idea!

[Admiral]

I'll play too... On two systems:

• Manufacturer: Custom-built desktop
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
• Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45-DS3R F10 (suitable for OSx86 if I ever wanted)
• RAM: 8GB
• Graphics: geForce 280 GTX
• OS: Windows Vista 64-bit Ultimate
• Display: Apple Cinema Display 30" (2560x1600)

• Manufacturer: Apple MacBook Pro
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33 GHz
• RAM: 3GB
• Graphics: ATI Radeon X1600 256MB (I don't really trust Apple & nVidia)
• OS: Windows Vista 32-bit Home Basic (smaller install)
• Display: Internal LCD (1440x900)

Both systems handle the game just fine. I have no problem playing on either system. I turn most of the graphics off as I like the game for the strategy not the graphics (sorry).

I plan to try this under Parallels 4.0/Snow Leopard when I have some time.
[/quote]

[SoftNum]

Right now I run it on a Core 2 Duo laptop with 4 Gigs of memory, but Intel 945 GPU.   

under 1.201I I had to turn off a bunch of stuff and turn up frame skip to get real-time performance.   Under 1.201 it seems that I should be turning some things back on (notably, I don't need frame skip anymore)

[MorphingJar]

Slower? -Twitch-

http://www.xfire.com/profile/morphingjar/

Scroll down to the bottom.  Its too much to retype this 

[Echo35]

Slower? -Twitch-

http://www.xfire.com/profile/morphingjar/

Scroll down to the bottom.  Its too much to retype this 

I had debated getting an i7 for a while, but I don't trust the Architecture.

[eRe4s3r]

Am i the only one who likes the Q6600 series because of its absolute awesome overclocking potential? I will wait till the next cpu iteration comes i skip I7 E8800 etc.

What i really want, is a 8-Core Cpu with 4ghz each (comparable to a I7 running at 4 ghz per core) (so 32ghz or maybe i would settle with 30ghz) i could really use that atm i "only" have 4x3ghz = 12ghz Since 3d-rendering just needs raw power and huge caches... 8 core is the only expansion i will consider. I7 has no real gains in rendering, because its still just 4 cores no matter what they do, it won't be a noticeable effect on my daily renderings except some minutes here and there, when i upgrade, its the golden rule, it has to double the cpu power *at least* and double the ram, double the HDD space (atm i have 2.4tb) and double graphic memory/gpu processing units (not just real time rendering speed ;p)

Yeah ghz is a bad way to explain cpu power, but i think the point is clear, now i have 4 cores, my next cpu has to be twice as fast or better, and needs 8 cores

Otherwise i have a Q6600 at 3ghz / 4gb ram / 8800 overclocked and vista x64

[Echo35]

Am i the only one who likes the Q6600 series because of its absolute awesome overclocking potential? I will wait till the next cpu iteration comes i skip I7 E8800 etc.

Nope. Thats why I still run with my q6600. I've got it overclocked a full GHZ and it hardly even gets hot.