Improving computer performance to play Pride of Nations -- or any game.

[JWW]

I haven't played PON much. I've toyed around with it, but except for a couple of short combat scenarios have not gone very far in a game. On the other hand, I've recently committed myself to AGEOD games though, so maybe I will attempt a full campaign one day. I'm getting older and I want to focus on one game system and really learn it well instead of playing a wide variety of games, and I chose AGEOD, because their games have always intrigued me. But I digress.

Recently I began having performance problems with my 4.5 year-old Dell computer. I tried several things including several diagnostics, but made no progress. Even the Dell diagnostics would not work. They kept hanging up on checking the hard drive. I was about to throw in the towel. But Dell offered its registered customers one free use of Iolo System Mechanic. I read some reviews, saw it was highly rated, and decided, what the hell, let me give it a try. I also have a couple of friend who I found out use it regularly and endorsed it. This is not an ad for System Mechanic, but I ran the diagnostic and it told me I had numerous performance problems including a hard drive problem and 1200 registry problems. So with some anxiety -- especially about messing around with the hard drive and registry -- I clicked on it to fix all the problems. It did its thing and told me to reboot. Upon reboot I noticed my computer booted up a lot faster, ran the internet much faster, loaded games and other programs much faster, and shut down much faster.

So this morning I did a test with turn one from the grand campaign as Belgium. I just fiddled with a couple of things in Belgium and moved a unit and hit next turn. Typically the first turn in such a situation was running 2:30 - 3 minutes for me. The first turn this morning clocked in at 1:45 for me, a significant change. I'm not saying that is particularly fast, and I know turns get longer as you go into the game. But it is a big relative change for one computer.

Bottom line. Perhaps making sure your computer is in optimum working condition helps with the timing of turns in PON and other AGEOD games and other games in general. Based on all the improvements I bought the System Mechanic annual subscription and will run it regularly. But I am not recommending System Mechanic as the solution for your computer. I know there are other programs out there that do the same thing, and some may be even better. I really don't know. And I have to note I am at fault in not maintaining my computer the way I should.

[Egg Bub]

Thanks for sharing. Did you do both tests since the latest patch? I believe that speeded up the game a bit too.

[JWW]

Yes, the 1.04RC5 for both. I did a few turn tests after I installed it to see how long the turns were running at the start. And I should add that just because what I did helped me get apparently faster turn times on my computer, that doesn't mean it will work on someone else's computer. Results will probably vary, as they say.