Review :: Supreme Commander - PC

[Steven W]

Does Supreme Commander live up to Chris Taylors previous RTS, Total Annihilation? I've got no idea, I've never played it, but check out what I thought about the much-hyped futuristic RTS.

Check out the Review

[neonplanet40]

Ive come to the same conclusion it goes realyl slow on my computer at 1280 x 1020 reso. All settings high except shadows which is at low and antiliasing is off. Gets annoying because i would have thought my computer would have been ok. Seems there reccommended specs are way out tbh.

The sound also stutters. I hope C & C 3 Is Better

[kasavien]

I had severe slow downs with this game, but i updated to the latest nvidia drivers and the problems were almost eliminated, there are some slowdowns when there are lots of units on the screen, but the game is still playable. I don't have the game set to the very highest settings but it still looks very nice

I've played through about 1 and a half campaigns, and it has been very enjoyable so far. It will be interesting to see what the multiplayer is like, i'm not sure my style of play is well suited to it, but we'll see.

[Kiro-San]

I've just seen some early benchmarks from the game, and to be honest, the requirements are insane. The game seems quite CPU bound, and a bit GPU bound too. The lack of SLI support is a huge disappointment too.

I was looking forward to playing this on my new system build with the 24" Dell LCD, but I might have to reconsider buying the game now.

[Dorza]

Maybe you already know but the "comment in the forums" link at the end of the review doesn't point to this thread (i assume it should be pointing here); It goes somewhere completely unrelated.

[herulach]

OUt of interest, what do we reckon this would run like on my rig (x2 3800 & 6800gt) playable but jaggy? Or like watching a slideshow of red alert?

[Smokey21]

Im gonna be picking it up, even though the demo put me off.

[CrazyMonkey]

Great game, i was a BETA tester... My copy should be here tommorow.

For any RTS fan, old players of Total Annihilation or die hard Age of Empires gamers this game is a must.

Also very good to newcomers.
Does however require a ninja pc to run it maxed late game when the units and explosions begin to build up. Then again i cant be sure as the game may run better than the last Beta Release.

[redsky009]

OUt of interest, what do we reckon this would run like on my rig (x2 3800 & 6800gt) playable but jaggy? Or like watching a slideshow of red alert?

Its a tricky one, the gfx card will be a bottleneck for you I reckon, but then again, some people with similar or worse specs have reported reasonable frame rates at low-med fidelity. If you can, try the demo out first before you buy, that will give you a better idea. Importantly, when you run the game shut down any antivirus, antispyware, VNC etc as I saw framerates jump by 10-15 fps just by shutting down some processes.

PS, I have had the game for a few days now and am really enjoying it. The graphics aren't mind blowing, but they are good in a stylistic way and the effects are good: I think it looks perdy.

One thing, is that early on you dictate the pace more than the game: they let you get confident by buildingp forces with little pressure before you attack, but if you want more of a challenge, try starting to attack early on, before you have a 200+ unit army to wipe the floor with them. You can usually do it with 50 or so of the right mix of units and a good strategy and the missions wont be so much about building building then attack, but setting your factories to repeat and concentrating on the action earlier

[alsenior]

my 6800gts slows down hugly when there is alot gong on my cpu cant be helping either

[kalniel]

What spec computer were you playing it on Steven?

I've just finished the AEF campaign and I've yet to see any general slowdown. I did get two problems though - one is there is a slight pause (fraction of a second) when a large scale radar comes online, and the map is full. This isn't a problem most of the time, but when you run out of power and have radar and shields pulsing on and off it becomes noticeable. Second is on the final mission of the AEF campaign my sound card buffer seemed to get filled a lot, producing some sound artifacts - knocking hardware acceleration down to standard appears to have cured this.

Otherwise yeah, I agree the game does look a bit bland. I can't believe that in the FMV sequences the Aeon look fantastically shiney but then in game the textures look just the same as the other factions - come on! PC games have had shiney metal surfaces for years and it would have really added to it. The campaign story-wise is also atrocious - absolutely no feeling of atmosphere or empathy with characters, feels like they've just chucking in some standard RTS 'events' without putting their hearts into it.

Despite that, I can't stop playing It's a very 'fun' game

[dangel]

It's all about the gameplay tho isn't it? I love this game.. to the point where i'm facing divorce if I don't stop playing it all the time
Doesn't really slow down for me 1600x1200, no aa, simple shadows aside from when there's 8,000,000 planes attacking me..

[arthurleung]

It started to lag a bit starting from Mission 4.
I think its down to my machine only have 1GB or ram.

Pentium D 920 @ 4Ghz
7900GT (will try overclocking it tonight and see if it helps)
Resolution: 3200x1200

The dual monitor support is a MAJOR advantage. Having a FULL SIZE world view on 2nd screen is just cheating. Unfortunately it does not work like a mini-map so it is quite annoying trying to view to specific place in the map without doing zoom-out then zoom-in.

The minimap is absolutely useless because it is too small. your unit icons blocks off the view so you can't see where you're clicking on

And I'd recommend to use a different size monitor for primary/secondary because you'll lose the ability to mouse scroll (i.e. I have my monitor on the right so my mouse go to the 2nd screen but not scrolling the 1st screen.

And the keyboard scrolling is VERY laggy (first press does nothing, only repeated key will actually move the screen.)

I have yet to find a way to do something like...select group 7,8,9 together. In other games you could do it with 7-shift-8-shift-9, but as you'll know the shift key is used for command queuing in SupCom.

One final thing....Not sure if its in the manual, how can I use 20 gunships to transport 20 tanks and drop them off in the battlefield without it telling me "Transport is full"

And, is there not such thing as formation? It just doesn't work when I want a line of 30 missile launchers in front of enemy base doing carpet bombing. The way the unit move make it tends to be a triangle formation which is not particularly good.

P.S. DON'T BUILD TOO MUCH shield vehicle... I've had my energy bar going between +3000 and -3000 all the time because of those shield vehicles

[dangel]

And, is there not such thing as formation? It just doesn't work when I want a line of 30 missile launchers in front of enemy base doing carpet bombing. The way the unit move make it tends to be a triangle formation which is not particularly good.

There is - you left click on the destination you want them to go and HOLD down the button (don't release) and then you should see the formation appear if you drag slightly - you toggle between formations with the right button.

[kalniel]

Other way around - click and hold right mouse button to move in formation (can rotate the formation), left click while holding the right button down to change formation. (Maybe both methods work).

[dangel]

Other way around - click and hold right mouse button to move in formation (can rotate the formation), left click while holding the right button down to change formation. (Maybe both methods work).

You might be right - i've been forced to go to work and not play it today so i don't have it in front of me. It's easy to figure out either way