AGEOD Forums

I know, this has been talked about wayyyyyy too much but...
This is the best game ever. And I'm desperate to make it run faster. Really. I know a lot of other posters claim they find it a "minor" issue, but to me it's catastrophic that I finally found the greatest game that I could play obsessively, forever...if only it wasn't so slowwwww. Truth is, I would consider spending real money on a new processor if I could be sure it would improve turn resolution time. So does anyone have any experience with new processors (mine is a 3 year old intel i5-3570) average PON turn time = 2 minutes.

Has anyone found that the latest processors improve resolution time?

Maple Leaf wrote:I'm desperate to make it run faster. , I would consider spending real money on a new processor (mine is a 3 year old intel i5-3570)

For AGE games you don't need an i5.
I have this:
http://ark.intel.com/products/90733/Int ... e-3_90-GHz
but it should only slightly speed the game, so keep you processor and wait longer (i mean for another proc, not wait ingame lol).

I have an i5-6600 Skylake processor and I get around 70 seconds for early turns.

V for vegas: Did you overclock your processor? Or are you working with the stock 3.40 ghz?

Stock processor. Long turn times are just part of the game, I don't really mind them that much.

Maple Leaf wrote:Has anyone found that the latest processors improve resolution time?

My configuration is somewhat optimized, I try to keep extraneous processes to a minimum (though I'm not fanatical about it, I let Windows 7 do its thing). My CPU is a model first released in July 2015 (your i5 3750K is from April 2012).

I run Pride of Nations on an Intel Core i7 6700K 4.0 GHz (overclocked to 4.4 GHz) with 16 GB of memory running at 3200 MHz (DRAM frequency 1600 MHz). I haven't reset my rig in about a day, and I just ran the first five turns of a Grand Campaign scenario. The computer processing time, for "generating AI files" and so forth, from when I hit "go to next turn" until I hear the music announcing that I'm the active player again, averaged about 65 seconds for those five "inter-turn" periods.

So, my processor is significantly more new than yours, and seems to run turns in about half the time. Yet those amounts of time are not large ones, I wouldn't say. From what I've read online, regarding PoN, two minutes is a short time to wait for a turn to process, compared to the time taken by the average player's machine. Ten minutes or more is not unheard of, if you read some of the AARs.

Your question pertains to processors, and not software, so please pardon this digression: I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of cutting down the number of background programs you have running, and other basic optimization methods for Windows computers. The small tweaks do add up. For example, the later Windows versions will have a Bluetooth service running in your computer "background," by default. If you don't use Bluetooth with your Windows machine, that's an example of wasted resources. (The webpage of Black Viper is a good guide to these Windows services.) Some sources disparage this approach, but in my experience, tweaking Windows can pay performance dividends.

Thank you all for that great feedback! I'm surprised that V for Vegas' i5 6600K has a similar turn resolution time to Satchel's i7 6700k. I thought the i7 would be much faster. I will try to reduce background applications in an effort to speed things up.
And Satchel, the idea of 65 second processing times sounds great. I was nervous about spending money on a new processor before knowing for sure that it would improve the game's performance. Sounds like a lot of money for a strategy game, but here in Canada people spend that much money going to a single hockey game! Now I love hockey too, but PON has given me hundreds of hours of enjoyment. Hockey games end in 3 hours. Money well spent, I say.

Maple Leaf wrote:I thought the i7 would be much faster.

AGE games are not multithread, so what's important is to have at least 2 cores (more will do almost nothing) and much speed. So as I said you don't need more than a powerfull i3.
It needs only 2 cores: one for the game and the other for the system (however take an i3, not a pentium, for an i3 is able to have 2 more faked cores, as games will need more and more a 4-cores proc).

processors frequency is indeed what matters the most by far.

I have run PON on a Haswell G3258 Pentium at 4.5 GHz which is as fast a processor as you will find these days. Turn times are not significantly faster.

By "significantly faster", I mean fast enough not to have to find something else to do while the turn is processing. Oh, and everyone gets fast turns for the first year or so. It only gets slower from there onwards...

Egg Bub wrote:I have run PON on a Pentium at 4.5 GHz. Turn times are not significantly faster.

Yes, times are 13% shorter than with a 3.9GHz proc: If 70 seconds, it becomes 60 seconds.

ERISS wrote:

Egg Bub wrote:I have run PON on a Pentium at 4.5 GHz. Turn times are not significantly faster.

Yes, times are 13% shorter than with a 3.9GHz proc: If 70 seconds, it becomes 60 seconds.

You are correct that turns process faster when you increase clockspeed a certain CPU. My point was that the reduced processing times are not sufficiently small that you can sit watching the turns process instead of doing something else.

So there is no fix for PON or EAW with turn speed than just getting an older processor?

I have a god rig and depressed EAW turns run so slow.

No new things have come to light to speed this up?

Once you have used the Options menu to allocate maximum memory to the game, you just have to enjoy. One thing odd about the games, different players have different games which run slow. For instance, my ROP and EAW games execute slowly. But one of my opponent's has a fast resolving ROP and a slow RUS.
I just get something to drink or read on my iPad as it is not that slow.

The engine is CPU hungry ... the faster your CPU is, the better. Having 8 cores is of no help, the game runs on a single core (except PON which has a core for the map).

So anything to we can do with a high-end machine to tweak it to please PON? Or just wait for Vicky 3.
PON is truly the best platform after all these years. Too bard there will be no PON3

GuileMike wrote:So there is no fix for PON or EAW with turn speed than just getting an older processor?

I have a god rig and depressed EAW turns run so slow.

No new things have come to light to speed this up?

My turn for EAWs is about 1 to 2 mins. PON different story 5-10 mins..... Too bad LOVE PON.

Quantum computers might help. No, I'm joking!

PON is also based on the AGE engine which lacks some optimizations in certain places...