It seems the only downfall of this game is the engine.
My 2 biggest complaints are:
after 10 years the game starts to slow down. Reducing display settings is ineffective.
the game will pause for the engine to calculate long distance commands

I like to play long games and the game constantly slows down. So, in 100 years, 1 month seems like it literally takes 1 month to complete. I understand it must be difficult to develop an efficient engine for such a complex game, but if I can play crysis at max with my quad core, there is no reason that a more efficient engine cannot be made.

I would love to see these game engines go 64bit. They have really reached there limit with 32bit systems as they are limited on the ram they can use (meaning even if you have an 8gig system, Its only going tobe able to use 2. Now this game and Crysis hardly compare for performance. The only likeness they have is where Cryssis is Video card demanding, SR2020 is Processor demanding. And the Video card has been making huge leaps and bounds in performance. where the process has not, Recently the standard way for performance increases have come in the way of adding more cores. And while this method will increase performance when things are running on multiple cores. it does not increases it on single cores, infact having to split threads between multiple cores requires even more computing. So the person with one core will even take a greater hit in performance, while the people with multiple cores only recieve a smaller upgrade.

So it will be nice when programers stop supporting 32bit and single core systems. And the only way that is going to happen is to get people to stop using those systems. So go out and tell your friends and neighbors to all buy 64bit quad core systems, and if they bitch about the price buy it for them.

Well I am not computer savvy, but I have a Core I-7 with 12 gig of ram and I am guessing its mostly wasted on SR? As I have posted in the past, I did not notice a increase in game speed when I upgraded to this system over a Q6600 quad.

Note: I am not complaining about the speed, thats a dead horse. I simply let the game run while I am watching a DVD or playing a MMO. When there is no combat it is worthwhile to pass the time.

Agreed. 64bit support will be nice.

I think the engine piles up a bunch of info to calculate efter time and anly gets more to calculate. One fix could be to get the engine to replace old info better and comply info that needs to be saved in a seprete file/place. another improvement could be unit limits to the AI, that during peace it can only build to a certain point and have to either scrap or sell it's old equip (I think I proposed this "improvement" all ready in an independent thread, though I can't find it).

Though I could be wrong about the engine stacking info...

Good idea dont think they will do anything about it now tho

while playing SC2 i was thinking, how the hell it runs so fast, while SR is so slow, maybe the answer to that is unit build quota, a compromise.

in SC2 you can build up to 500, and you have lets say up to 4 players so max 2000 units at one engine.
in SR a player can pass 10000 units, and the engine is running other big countries thousands of units and they keep building like crazy. so you can reach 30000 units world wide. maybe a broad strategy game like SR can combine more units as bigger grouping or limit the number to a global constants (at least in advance options for configuration), a fix quota per country, and each part you take you can increase your build quota? a top bottom approach runs faster then a bottom up. this game does not suppose to be a pentagon simulation, unless I'm wrong...

The simularities between SR20 and SC2, are like WoW is to ME2. Sure SR and SC are RTS's. but thats really the only simularites between them. As for limiting units, I dont think that would work. Your talking about getting the total down to around 2,000, Hell there is more then 2,000 ciites bridges and faciliittes in the game. Those act like units, just as much as an infantry unit does. But lets just talk about units. How many countries are there ingame? somewhere between 150-200. I think its like 193? So each country can have up to 12 units? to reach the 2k max. That just wont work for what I like to call the GRTS (Global Real Time Stratagy). Now I dont want to knock SC2, its a great game for fast style gameplay. But its simple there are not very many unit types. (SR20 has tens of thousands of unit types). Spoting in SC2 is yes or no, where stealth can play a huge role in SR20. Then we also need to talk about how many players. Emagine playing SC2 with 150 players. Yea thats going to slow the game down quite a bit.

Really SC20, while a great game is still very simple. And while it has goten GFX improvments. its acualy gameplay has not changed dramaticaly becouse that style of gameplay has reached its maximum. This is where GRTS's take off and begin to show themselfs. However since they use the same engines (at its princeable) games have reached that blockade. And until developers make the plunge into requiring 64 bit systems, with 10 gigs of ram, where not going to see huge inprobments in gameplay, Its going tobe allot of the same oh with a new skin.

Which would simply kill sales at this point looking at the number of 32 bit OS's still being sold and used in the market. Its one thing to throw an extra ram stick or a new video card in.. but expecting people to buy a brand new OS and maybe a processor in order to run a game is a wee bit far.

yes, yes of course you are right! the comparison was not so good
but lets ask if for example the top number of possible units will not max 20K Units would the game be less playable? or somehow decide that a day should not tops 30 seconds (based on hardware requirements) like in graphic games you can decide to reduce effects to achieve performance, the user has a choice - would it effect the overall performance? maybe do a different sim for AI countries re fighting and military, not spawn real units just use some master equation to decide who wins over time, and only run "real" sim for countries that you are warring with.
what I'm saying and others would agree, it seems there is a block at a certain phase of the game 10-15 years forward, where it starts to really slows down NO-MATTER what hardware your running (as long its not cray), and maybe that tipping point should needs to be avoided for playability sakes. (or maybe we need to wait for moore's law to kick in)

give us performance or give us death!

Small FYI, the map starts with ~25k units before anything is built. If you'd like to see the performance difference with less units try the Global Crisis P1 mode. If you'd like to see the performance difference with no units try the lobby option.

I personally wouldnt want to play a dumbed down version. In fact I would like to see more stuffs added in even if it slows the game speed down. Theres plenty to do in game to keep your mind entertained and active. If you dont use all the features of the game , whats the point in playing.

I agree the first couple to require a 64bit system will probly suffer greatly in sales. Now I can see them holding back a bit on this requirement. But they really need to stop supporting XP. Becouse XP can only support 2gigs of system ram they cannot have it use more ram then that and still support XP. So trhrowing an xtra stick of ram in your system is no longer the upgrade it used tobe once you excede 2gigs. Games just dont use it.

damn! got it! got it! i'll sit quietly and wait... after all i'm polish

2 gigs User-mode virtual address space for each 32-bit process.. XP itself supports up to 4 gig total of system ram. Please note that all 32 bit OS have similar restrictions not just XP.. meaning WIN 7 and Vista 32 bit versions as well. Microsoft simply added code to allowing the newer versions to show all system ram even if its not accessible by windows itself. Meaning With 4 gb of RAM + ram the system sets aside in XP it will show 3.25gb. Vista and 7 will show 4.. but still only use 3.25 after setting system addresses aside. Hence why in my mind Vista and 7 arent upgrades.. simply expansion packs. An actual upgrade would be a 64 bit OS giving you access to over 4gb of system ram. So as for Memory support and OS nothing has changed with newer OS..I could potentially install Win2k pro xp pro etc etc and have same ram limits as win7 or vista.