Windows What kind of system specs for supreme commander?

I have my copy of supreme commander, and my system doesnt like playing it much higher then 1024x786.
Geforce 6800
AMD 64x2 3800+
2 gigs corsair ram
NF4 SLI-DR

I know the 6800 is the limitation, I would like to be able to get it up to 1280x1024, or hopefully, in a perfect world, 1920 x 1200 for the main monitor and 1280x1024 for the second monitor.

What sort of hardware would I be looking at to even get a 1920x1200 monitor even running at native res with supreme commander? I dont really keep up with the video card market when I'm not looking, it just moves to fast to make it worth keeping up when you dont need to buy something.

 

Have you tried pulling back on the level of detail that you are running at? Turning AA off and Fidelity and Shadows to Medium or Low really can help.
The main trouble though I find with the game is that it really does hammer the CPU due to the nature of the engine and the way it simulates every single shot that's fired and calculates physics etc for it.

 

What settings you got it on? Max?

My system is almost identical except my graphics card is a 7800GTX and I'm running it fine at 1280x1024 on two monitors, I haven't had any massive 4k + unit battles though.

To get supcom working it 1920x1200 and on a second monitor as well you'll be needing a lot better GFX card. I'd imagine a 8800 or a 7 series in SLI if you want to play on max settings with lots of units on screen.

Like Bio said, try scaling back some of the settings, stuff like AA hardly makes a difference at high resolutions and you can reduce shadow quality with hardly any change in visual quality since you're so far out most of the time.

 

I can manage 3,000 units on two screens (1440 x 900 and 1024 x 768) maxed out with the hardware I run.
A dual core will help you a lot (don't know if that AMD is a dual core... not versed in AMD cpus :S) as will a PCI-e card in the 7x or 8x series as said by Veles.
I do however have AA completely off and shadows on low as AA makes no difference at all since I find myself zoomed out more often then not, and in an RTS like this I don't think you take the time to drool at the pretty graphics on your little assault bot as he runs across the field on legs that don't match the speed he's moving at

Though I suggest you switch your second monitor to 1024 x 768, since it'll be used as an over-all map, having super high resolutions on it matters little, I could set mine to 1440x900 on both, but I've noticed there's very little difference except the game slows down a tidbit. Try lowering the second screen's resolution and see how you like it

 

I've had it running at 1920x1080 with a X1900XTX. Everything was maxe din graphics except for AA and shadows, but it ran great like this. I'm not sure how much the 2nd monitor would affect performance, but my brother ran dual monitors at 1280x1024 perfectly fine on a 7950GX2. As some other people said, I imagine you would need a pretty high end setup to run those resolutions, prolly a 8800 or a high end 7 series sli or X19XX crossfire setup. However, if you had a X1950XT or something similar you might be able to get those resolutions if you turned down the details a bit.

 

Ive a 8800gts and can run supcom at 1920*1200 on me dell, however, when you upgrade one thing, you find that something bottlenecks it so it doesnt perform as well as you hoped, so i would say get a g70 card, and turn some settings down a notch, you should then be able to get 1280*1024.

Sam

 

As said before, SupCom really does demolish the CPU. If I do a 4v4 with 7 computers my C2D@3.2ghz slows the game down to a crawl. I love me some 4v4 though!

 

I actually havent tried upping the resolution, because of the bogging at 1024x768.Though I did turn off AA and turning down detail. I'll give it a shot and see how that affects it. Reminds me of way back when playing total annihilation on my 300 mhz P2 and how it would bog with 1k+ units on the map.

Oh and I dont have a 2407wfp yet, I'm seriously contemplating one though. Of course if I wanna run dual monitors, that means no SLI. Which is fine with me current card for 19" and new card later for 24". Might be a driver issue, since it likes to bog a ton when the videos come up in the campaign, but I just got the newest nvidia drivers for the SLI ready giveaway.

 

You can get a box that does dual monitors from one port I believe, was in the news here at BT a few days ago but it's not cheap

Can you get dual monitors on crossfire BTW?

 

You can get a splitter cable too... fairly cheap

 

Doesn't that just copy the image so you have the same thing on two monitors?

 

yeah, a splitter cable would, I know what you're talking about, the box that would make 2 1280x1024 monitors into a 2560 x1024 monitor.

 

Oh. right, my bad

Why would you need that box to run dual monitors though..

 

I personally wouldnt use that box, but if someone had a top of the line SLI system and wanted to use dual monitors I think they would have to, since SLI only supports 1 monitor.

I tried it at 1280x1024 for a skirmish and all went well, I guess video and the like is somehow bogging my system during the campaigns (like the enemy commander taunts, and your commanders orders, etc.. )

On the other hand, according to windows task manager and the performance display on my Keyboard (just got a Logitech G15) its only using one core in the game, it sits at %53-56 percent, one core pegged and the other one pretty much idling... presumibly the idling part of the other core is just windows and other apps running. I'm searching around to see if I can find any information regarding this... anyone know about this allready?

 

I think the entire point of that box is for enthusiasts who have SLI but still one multiple monitor support. It's an incredibly bad oversight on nVidia's part and they really need to fix it.

 

Seriously? Wow that's lame. So how would you setup a quad display system...

Edit:
No thats false, I had a look see with google and the Nvidia forums, you can run dual screens in SLI no problem, you just have to configure them properly with the nvidia control panel thing