Why is this game so graphically demanding? (possible fix)

Hey, so I have a question that has been bothering me with Supremacy (both this and 1914). Why is this game so graphically demanding?

Usually on my PC this is not a problem but as soon as I start Supremacy on my laptop gets flaming hot and the fans go at 100%. Its like i start a volcanic eruption inside my laptop every time i start this game!

The only way I can prevent this is by limiting the maximum processor state to 45% through the power plan settings of my laptop. This does not hurt the game performance and gives my laptop a break. I think devs should look at optimizing this game as well as Supremacy1914, I've been a fan for 10 years now and never understood why both games are so demanding. There should be a graphics setting option or at least limiting the processor usage option inside the game (at least for the steam version one). Its like the game uses all the power that my laptop has even though it definitely does not need it.

Some context:

To give some context, I have Surface Pro 4. My laptop uses less fans and heats up less while playing Europa Universalis 4 and even Imperator Rome. Hell, I even played most of Skyrim on this thing without my fans ever being turned on (Skyrim is not a good comparison tho). I also lower my resolution for all my games, even for Supremacy (since my laptop has 4K resolution).

I see this problem everywhere with Supremacy. I tried Chrome and Opera browsers, steam version for 1914 (which is even more demanding) and even phone versions sucks up my battery like a hungry vampire.

Solution?:

As I said, I would love to see more settings options for this game and possible limiter to how much of my CPU and memory this game uses. A battery saver option for the phone version would be great as well, I do not mind sacrificing visuals or instant access to the menu for less battery usage at all.

For those who have the same issue:

If you have the same problem as me this is how I make sure Supremacy does not turn my laptop into a heating system:

1. Lower your resolution if it is higher than 1080P.

2. Use separate browser for the game. I use Opera for everything, but I have chrome just for playing the game. I do this since I notice my Opera browser still acting weird after turning off the game tab (same happened with chrome). So my advice is to have another browser for the game.

2.5: Use Opera GX Browser, It has a built in CPU and Memory limiter (completely forgot about this when I was writing)

3. Limit the Maximum Processor State through the power options. This is not an easy thing to do on some laptops since you have to enable it first, but you only have to do this once. The whole process sounds more complicated than it is so dont worry about it.

How I do it:

- Go to Control Panel, then "Hardware and Sound" and there click on "Power Options". (or search edit power plan after pressing windows key and from there move to power options)

- You will most likely have "Balanced" selected, I recommend not touching this one and instead selecting another one for this.

- After selecting or creating a new power plan, go to "Change plan settings", then "Change advanced power settings" .

- A small window should open, there you should look for "Processor power management" and there select "Maximum processor state".

- I set this value at 50%. On my laptop, for me the fans start up after 45% but it may differ from your laptop. You do not have to change "Minimum processor state", in fact i would recommend not to set it higher than your maximum processor state setting (dont know even if that is possible).

- What this does? In short, it tells the laptop that it can only use 50% of its maximum power (depending on what you put in). The game still works fine and does not heat up the laptop. Why Supremacy uses so much power even though it definitely does not need it I do not know, but this at least limits it.

P.S: You might not have "Processor power management" option available. You can fix this through RegEdit, just google how to enable it and there are threads on official windows forums. Sometimes it works differently due to updates and I think official forum will explain it better than I ever will.

I am sorry if I posted this under the wrong section, I dont use forums that much and was defiantly not planning to make this thread this long I hope this helps someone and devs can look into this problem.

With love

Ottmera

Quote from psychlops

On a similar note: I've got a beast desktop from doghouse systems with a Geforce/EVGA graphics card with 32GB of RAM/8GB of video ram. My video card can push three 24" monitors at max res with no issues. I use a separate browser for the game (chrome for everything normal, opera for the game) when I'm playing 3 games in 3 tabs and I look at what is eating up system resources the 3 largest processes are invariably the three browser tabs. More than anything open in chrome, more than photoshop (even with a 20"x 30" image at 300dpi open), more than my ide or development server, more than 3ds max, more than video editing, no matter what I have open this game is hogging the most resources. I don't have a heat problem because my machine is a beast but I do hear the fan every once in a while if a lot is going on in the games.

I suggest setting up power plan with 40% - 45% max processor state settings (plugged for PC I guess) to keep your PC in "idle state" while you have few tabs open.

As for the rest, I never really noticed much on PC unless I have Supremacy running while playing a game. If you want to multitask while having Supremacy open I really recommend using Opera GX. Its same as Opera but has the built in RAM and CPU usage limiters. The only downside I see however is when you have multiple tabs open in Opera GX (while you have ram/cpu limiter active) the games dont run in the background. Basically mean it works best with 1 game open, if you wanna switch between them you will have to wait a few secs for them to load.

I never really understood why the game is so demanding but I hope this makes sense and helps you out a bit.