How to play space empires V with better fps Guide (windows 7)

[Princey]

1. (right click the space empires V and click properties then run in compatibility mode (windows xp 3)
2. In the same screen. Click all the disable settings aka disable visual themes.
3. disable clear front. (right click on desktop > personalise > display > clear front
4. Enable multithreading in the settings file located in the data folder in your space empires folder. (this will enable the game to use more then one core)

5. if you have a nivida card. follow these instructions (my fps is like 60ISH now)


You have a NVIDIA card? There are a few advanced settings you can set in the NVIDIA control panel that really make a difference with SE5 - you can set them just for se5.exe so they don't mess up your other games, too!

Maximum pre-rendered frames: Set this to the minimum of 1; anything more just abuses the GPU since SE5 is so inefficient. I think the default is 3.

Power management mode: Set this to "prefer maximum performance". The default "adaptive" mode seems to think that SE5 isn't using that much GPU power, so it throttles it, but that kills the game's performance.

Vertical sync: Set this to "on" or "adaptive" to improve the framerate slightly.

Triple buffering: Set this to "on" to improve the framerate slightly above that of plain old vertical sync.

Here some other stuff you can try.

If the screen is flashing white in full screen. Close all background programs. change video memory usage in space empires v setup on main launcher to safe.

Play in window mode (You can change res on the "hud settings" file located in your space empires data folder.

I hope this helps anyone else.

Also make sure your 3D device is set to direct x and not RGB emulation on the space empires v setup located on the launcher.

You can also improve FPS by having your res at 16bit and not 32bit.

Also try disabling music ingame. I heard it improves fps aswell.

If anyone knows how to fix the menu ingame lag. (please share) I run a XP virtual machine and ran the game. With menu's open I had 200+ fps ( with no drivers or HWA)

[Coopdogmillions]

Sound advice on the Nvidia settings mate. runs like a dream for me now!

[Cheetah]

Great tips. Mine runs so much better now. Thanks a bunch!

[Pangolin Legends: Arceus]

It works well for me now, thanks a lot. I had previously tried lots of stuff including the stuff here but never the nvidia control panel stuff.

Here's some numbers for you, at the start of the game, viewing the construction queue having just added a space port to be built:

baseline, running in a window, no nvidia stuff, no compatibility, nothing turned off in windows: 8 fps. (ugh)

Added the nvidia tips (max pre-rendered frames, power management mode, triple buffering, (already had vsync on)): fps now 17-20 (about acceptable)

Turned off font smoothing too: bam 60 fps!

I don't really understand this, since I have tried disabling font smoothing before without such a dramatic effect. It could be the combination of that and the nvidia stuff.

Anyway I'd rather play the game now than question why it works! I've been unable to play it for ages.

Thank-you.

edit: windows settings: (font smoothing off) on its own takes the game from 8 fps to 30. Adding nvidia settings: (power management: max performance) and (max pre-rendered frames: 1) takes that 30 to 60. Enabling (triple buffering) in nvidia didn't have an effect.

[Apocalypso]

After following all the points above I still had the Problem that the FPS drops below 10 soon after the start (I have Win 7 64). I also tried to turn of the Music ingame without effect.

What REALLY helped me was to turn off the Music in /DATA/Settings.txt with the Option
Allow Music := FALSE
As I tried to play a Mod I also had to make that change in the Settings.txt of the mod which is located in /GameTypes/[ModFolder]/Data/Settings.txt

[TAW_Xomad]

Thanks, this should be added to the official manual for this game as it was a pain to get this working

[aevansjr35]

didnt really help me out at all. Can play empire total war with no issues but this game ugg. I know its becasue they are emulating the GDI but still annoying.

[Golo]

Thanks for the tips.
When I set it to run in compatibility mode, I get an error message: "Steam.dll not found on this computer". Any suggestions how to solve this?

edit: After consulting older posts, I discovered the solution: Copy the Steam.dll file to the folder with the SE5.exe. So I did that, but now I get another error: "This game is not correctly registered under steam".

[evilom]

Well done, thank you very much! :)

[tooeasy]

Thank you - works perfect

[Boomer]

I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love you man.... no-♥♥♥♥ :) Works like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dream now ;)

[SplatMan_DK]

Originally posted by Golo:

Thanks for the tips.
When I set it to run in compatibility mode, I get an error message: "Steam.dll not found on this computer". Any suggestions how to solve this?

edit: After consulting older posts, I discovered the solution: Copy the Steam.dll file to the folder with the SE5.exe. So I did that, but now I get another error: "This game is not correctly registered under steam".

To others finding this thread: When you mess with the compatibility settings of a program, or force it to run as Administrator, you often also have to run STEAM as Administrator.

Exit STEAM by right-clicking on the icon in your status bar. The right-click on your Steam shortcut and choose Run as Administrator for STEAM itself.

See if that solves your problem.

[JSSSX]

Thanks for the trick.

16bit texture (instead of 32bit) did the job for me, from 5/10fps in the constuction queue to 30fps and 60fps on main galaxy screen.

[Cephalon Sithalo]

wish someone could figure out menu. its hard to design a ship with a stuttering mouse.

and after doing all of those my fps seems to be worse than it was before... thats... odd... good thing i dont play often but was hoping this would help some. maybe i did something wrong dk doupt it.

oh yeh am compiling movies that is likely the cause of the extra lag

[Spartanjackwar]

My machine increased from 30fps to 60fps. Only problem was that most of the text is now invisible, and stays that way no matter what I do.

[Zorgomol]

Nice list but it is missing one thing. Probably the biggest thing.

Get a program called ClearType Switch.

Use it to disable screen font smoothing while playing SE5. That makes a huge difference.