Best Setup for Ultimate Performance

[AlexandrosB13 184]

So i've been back to SC4 and i had almost forgotten how much fun this game is. I started a new region and notice that the performance is really bad.  Since it's about time i upgrade most of my older pc parts anyways, i was wondering what's the best possible setup for the highest possible performance for SC4.

I'm only keeping my GPU, a GTX 770 card, and my SanDisk SSD 256 GB, both are relatively new.

For example, what about the OS? I know SC4 was designed to run on XP, but XP won't go too well with modern hardware, right? Also how much RAM is enough, my plugins folder is a bit less than 2GB. Then processor speed and cores? Is less cores better? And so on...

I really have no idea what's best for SC4 so any help would be much appreciated. I have a dream that one day i will be able to play a developed city on a large tile smoothly.

[rsc204 21,805]

The problem is slightly related to your CPU, but before you go spending a load of cash assuming things will be better, there are a few things you need to be clear upon.

A simulation-based game such as SC4 has the potential for infinite growth. As such, regardless of the CPU you throw at the problem, at some point SC4 will be doing so many calculations lag will inevitably come into play. For example a modern (Haswell) i7 runs the game very well, to a point. But when a region gets really large and lots of props, models and textures are scattered around, it starts to get slower.

SC4 simply doesn't play nicely with Multi-core processors, if you don't disable multi-core for SC4, likely your game will CTD often. Therefore if you are approaching this problem from a money is no object perspective, buy the fastest single-core performance CPU you can. Since that's going to be very expensive, it's worth pointing out, running it on a mid-range CPU for less than half the price might only be a tiny bit slower.

Sure, one day a CPU may be created that can cope with the infinitesimal demands for CPU runtime SC4 places upon it. I'd imagine on that day, the application will itself fall over because the code itself can't keep up. Not that it matters, CPU's are not really getting faster. If you've a core i based CPU, I wouldn't bother upgrading it. Chances are, the new one will be marginally faster in real terms. The CPU manufacturers are not making CPUs faster, but more energy efficient. Most other improvements are coming from the multiple cores on one chip side of things too. The fact is, short of some really specialist needs, we don't need faster CPUs. Where such needs are required, options exist to add more clustered CPU nodes into a machine. At the lower end, something like an assisted GPU, at the higher end clustered mainframes. The problem is, SC4 can not harness such systems, since it was not coded to do so.

So without trying to put you off. If you are running a machine with a decent GPU, SSD and good amount of RAM, unless your CPU is hideously out of date or some low voltage energy efficient model. You won't likely see much benefit from upgrading in SC4.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, that's correct. 

A good solid GPU, a fast as you can practically afford CPU (use only one core), and an SSD and you are off and running.  A very big plugin suite isn't much of a drawback if you compress it to a set of *.dat files using the existing compression program whose name I can never remember.  The one thing about using it is to make four or five files, not one huge one, and don't compress frequently updated stuff like the NAM (which is all *.dat anyway).  I doubt very much that the real memory usage of this program will ever go beyond 2 to 2.5 MB or so.  Remember that all the plugins get reduced to a set of in-core tables and that virtual memory doesn't seem to be in use.  Think of the vintage of the program.  It is pre-bloatware.  The code is very tight and written in C++ Microsoft Version 6.

Where having a packed up plugin suite really makes a difference other than loading is scrolling or zooming as new POV images are brought in as things move around, and they come from your storage.  An SSD really pays off here.

As your simulation grows you will eventually cross the knee of the response hyperbola (yes, it really is one) and your CPU requirements will head to infinity.  Also, heavy use of RHW will cause a lot of interpretation of the RULs which is not very swift.  Unfortunately this stuff apparently cannot become code because of the way the program is written.  Under the circumstances, even running in full blast DirectX you will eventually come to an unacceptable frame rate.  The program doesn't lag, it just can't handle the number of objects at an acceptable speed per loop and keep the monitor updated.

Small cities and lots of them with the region treated as one dispersed government might be more acceptable than one huge megalopolis.