In the last couple weeks I built a new computer. There were many reasons for it and improved performance in this game was one of them. Not going to bore you with details, but I went from a 1.8 ghz processor to 3.3 ghz. Also I went from 4 gbs of memory to 8 gbs.
I had really hoped to improve the general game - fewer freezes and fewer bugs. But I wasn't prepared for the difference in the graphics. The world map looks a lot better and I've seen details on sims that I never saw before. It also loads and saves much faster.
In my current dynasty game, the founders were vacationing in France. When I started the game up here, half of China showed up as tourists. They took up all the beds downstairs and 2 upstairs. I had never seen more than two tourists before. Unfortunately, I've seen 3 paparazzi too. Guess we can't have everything.
The downside? It made my computer run hot. Part of that can be chalked up to poor planning and a couple of installation errors. But the game simply uses a lot more resources than any other game I play. After adding a couple of fans and a different heat sink, all is well.
I'm not writing this to make anyone jealous. I think it shows how hard this game is on a computer. Even when I turned the graphics way down, it still ran hotter than on any other game. Which is not to say you need to have a super machine to run it, but some of the issues we commonly have may just be the wear and tear we put on the computer. I'm beginning to think that a lot of my freezes on the old computer were just a result of overheating.
At any rate, just thought I'd share this. I had to take a hiatus from the game while building and testing this, so I'm stoked to be able to play again.
