Is there a way to see planets full details but ships only in icons?

from GalCiv2 Forums
Reason I ask this wierd question is because one ship on my screen and the computer goes chop chop.. even a small scout orbiting one planet is enough to bring the entire screen to a halt. Because of this i play with the interface zoomed all the way out and therefore everything is just icons.

I noticed that planets in full details (not icons zoomed entirely out) doenst lag me at all, and Im wondering if someone can help / enlighten me / modding possibilities etc so that its possible to have ships shown as icons (no 3d graphics that is) but still have planets in full 3d top detailed textures? This would allow low end systems to play this game too!

(Personally i find it ok to have ships as icons and not 3d, however when all planets turn to a grey circle too it gets abit too.. boring..)

Really hope someone have something clever to say!

And no, i dont expect to be able to see those ships in 3d as im playing on a laptop. However since i noticed the planets in full details worked really well without any slowdown im hoping i can combine this with ship icons!

Cheers
Prito
4,627 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There is no way to only see certain things in 3D. It is all or nothing.

Sounds like you need to do some upgrading if your system can't handle a single small scout ship.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
Is there a way to see planets full details but ships only in icons?

Maybe you can do sth. with game graphics settings. Try disablig some components there and check with the game. But I'm affraid Moosetek13 is likely right.

BTW if you succeed please let me know. I too have the same problem.

BR, Iztok
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmm ack, i fear my worst nightmare has come true! noooOO!

Oh well.. Regarding settings, i have tried to disable almost everything and meddled around for ages.. Bottom line is no matter how much i disable things, one ship result in lag, but this does not hold true for planets (which can have maxed out graphic details and no slowdown at all).

Is there someone that has modded things out there that could tell if this is even remotely possible? I noticed that the tactical zoom between 7 and 8 is the breakpoint when i see icons (7 and below) and 3d (8 and above). I just wish there were a way so that planets stayed 3d and ships not.. bah 8) oh well..

Thx for answers so far! Keep them coming as im still crossing my fingers for some Einstein telling me it is possible to mod or something. (but eh im no expert hehe)

Cheers
Prito
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It is not something that is moddable. Period.

It really depends on your video card and computer system - and how many polygons are being rendered.

You have not posted a debug.err, so we do not know what hardware and drivers you are running the game on.

But, the more polygon's, the more stressful it is to your system.

Planets have a low polygon count, while ships are high (to extremely high if you add in the modded hulls).


Asking the dev team to cater to your limited hardware is not reasonable.
Accepting the limitations of your hardware is.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I fully understand what you are saying Moosetek13. Im playing on a 1.5 pentium m, 1.2 gig ram laptop and hence im fully aware of my very limited video card thank you

Maybe because Im no mod expert I really do not know when im asking for much and not. From my point of view i just thought this: Hey there is a setting that makes all 3d rendered units to icons, maybe it is not so difficult to let some parts be icons others not. It would render alot of low end systems able to play just with ship icons i thought (so the change helps me but alot of others too). But i guess I am wrong judging from your post Moostek13 (as im reading your oppinion to be of the kind that im asking way too much for devs to do something this big for me + others with crappy systems hehe)

I guess i have to deal with grey dotted circles as planets lol

Cheers
Prito
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Please go to C:\Program Files\Stardock\Totalgaming\GalCiv2 (or wherever you installed the game at), open the debug.err file you find there in notepad, and copy/paste the contents into a post here. If this is a DA report, you'll find the debug in C:\Program Files\Stardock\Totalgaming\GalCiv2\DarkAvatar instead. This will give us some technical information that can help troubleshoot your problem.

Be sure to copy the debug immediately after the error occurs; if you start the game again, the debug will be erased and recreated for the new session.

Note: If running on Vista with DA 1.6b2 or later, the debug.err is now located in My Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatar.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hey there is a setting that makes all 3d rendered units to icons, maybe it is not so difficult to let some parts be icons others not


there is no setting that allows you to rend ships as icons but not planets. there is no way to mod around this. Stardock AFAIK only has 2 staff members allocated to developing GC2 further at the moment. if you want to play the game for the strategy, it seems you'll have to give up 3D plaents. honestly, the textures are really low-res on planets anyway, and really aren't much to look at. if you want to enjoy the graphics, it seems you'll have to deal with the lag.

another thought occurs: what map settings are you playing with? if you're trying to play a max settings on a gigantic map on a laptop, you're being unrealistic. power-gaming PCs with the highest end equipment sitll experience lag on maxed-out maps.

lag isn't pleasent. but it's better than constant crashes. even with 1.6 and not playing max settings, i can get really low FPS at times.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok thx for all the replies guys, when i get home tomorrow i will post the debug but honestly, i do not think it will help. Simply put, laptop videocard cant handle 3d ship rendering so its not so much a bug, just a question i had if it was possible to look at planets 3d but same time ships as icons 8)

Thx guys!

Cheers
Prito