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>DX10 isn't the only reason to upgrade. SMP performance and general responsiveness is massively improved in 7 due to a better scheduler.

Sorry, no.

Win XP(NT 5.1) is better at multithreaded loads than Vista (NT 6). If you check out this thread, you'll notice in the graphs that SupCom is faster on NT 5.1 without MadBoris's optimization tool than NT 6 is WITH it. The tool statically assigns threads to cores, resulting in improvements for both OSes, suggesting that the scheduling in both is poor, with NT 6's being the poorer of the two: http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?p=173631#173631

On a 32-bit system, an application gets 4GB virtual address space. 2GB of that is kernel space (typically graphics memory related) and the other 2GB is user space. Supreme Commander does hit the 2GB limit now and then, crashing in a flaming heap.

Maybe... just maybe they should code it better, rather than blaming the OS. Really, I hate how things are going nowadays. No one seems to care about optimizations anymore and everything NEEDS to have shiny graphics with neat physics and whatnot. Originality != EyeCandy

Not even the most demanding new games require 3GB.

On a 32-bit system, an application gets 4GB virtual address space. 2GB of that is kernel space (typically graphics memory related) and the other 2GB is user space. Supreme Commander does hit the 2GB limit now and then, crashing in a flaming heap.

Then your enemy's not playing right. A horde of small/medium units should have been able to wipe out your base while you were building up to your uber units. Unless you were only playing against the AI, in which case you probably shouldn't have been expecting a challenge anyway :)

Exactly. Try playing against humans and see how quickly your strategy will change - if you reached Tech3 in 30 minutes before, expect to be barely hanging on at Tech2 after 1 hour... THIS WILL HELP. [GPG]

Don't be offended by the title - I always played SupCom by slow, quiet research followed by the same old blitzkrieg and got bored pretty quickly. You'll be surprised how intense and stressful a game can be when you play by going for blood rather than immediate research, not to mention how quickly your game (and adaptability) will improve.

Not to blow my own trumpet, but I also did a fairly successful AI patch for SC.

Get it here:
http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=23929

The AI script was all in lua so it proved quite easy to mod.

If it is crashing on a large map, you are more than likely running into 32-bit memory limitations. If you haven't patched SupCom with MadBoris' large address patch, the game is limited to 2GB of addressable memory (if patched, the limit will vary depending on your hardware and video ram.) Large maps with multiple AI will very easily bring it over the memory limit.

The only solution is to use a 64-bit OS. That will allow the game to use 4GB of memory (after you use MadBoris' patch, of course.)

The patch can be found here:
http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=2382

Not sure why your copy still requires the disc. SecuROM crap was removed in 3220.

Here is a retail to 3260 patch: http://thq.vo.llnwd.net/o10/SC/live/supcom_patch_1.0.3189_to_1.1.3260.exe, which I got from here: http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=13046

The original Unreal Tournament did the same thing. They required the disc up until the first patch, which is not unreasonable in my opinion.

I agree, there hasn't been a strong attempt by the actual game company, but the fans have tried to use existing AI APIs to do some awesome work. Some examples:

The Skirmish AI mod for Dawn of War: http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=15300 9

Sorian AI (and a host of others) for Supreme Commander: http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=14325

I wish the actual companies would put some effort in.

For Supreme Commander you can use my handy-dandy patch.

FYI, from the makers of TA: http://supcom.gaspowered.com/

hells yeah. also best intro ever.

http://www.planetannihilation.com/taucp/main.htm

http://supcom.gaspowered.com/

Total Annihilation was a game with soul, and spawned a huge following. You can still find TA servers to play on today, and mods are still being developed. Supreme Commander (http://supcom.gaspowered.com/) is coming out this year, which is basically TA2, and looks equally delicious. Games for games sake are great. The FF series has become all cutscenes and they lost their grandeur. It's things like that that turn my stomach. I want to play something, and have fun making decisions doing so, to achieve a goal. Not hit X or spbar for 10 minutes of ads or cutscene pushing the latest trendy ideas (Gaia)

I still play Total Annihilation at lans a few times per year. For the most part it runs fine on modern computers and with the 3.1 patch and the totala.ini configuration file a unit limit of 500 per player in a 5 player game runs quite nicely. Supreme Commander is looking like it will be good enough to replace TA but sadly it is still quite along way off and it doesnt seem that there will be much more information on it until E3. About the best I can do while I wait is hover arround SupComUniverse (http://www.supcomuniverse.com/) or the gas powered games forums (http://garage.gaspowered.com/?q=)

There is a demo download available here.

It is a fairly large demo at 1.4GB

You can download the demo from here a review the game for yourself.

Hopefully I can get it working under wine!

I bought Total Annihilation back in late 1997 and have been hosting lanparties since then with TA as one of the featured games. We have a small, dedicated group of about eight TA players.

I enjoy RTS games and have played most of them. Nothing I've seen comes close to the scale and grandeur of TA. In my opinion TA is simply the best. What other game can you have battles with hundreds of units at a time?

The source code should be released so that badly needed features can be added, lingering bugs can be fixed, and maybe the game can be optimized to run better. Anyone who has seen Switek's TA Bug Fix can get a good idea of how buggy the game was when it shipped.

A group called the Swedish Yankspankers wrote a program/modification for TA called TA Demo Recorder. It adds external functionality to the game which dramatically enhances its enjoyment.

With TA Demo Recorder you can:

1. Queue up units in increments of 100 instead of the default 5.
2. Execute multiple chat commands with a single keystroke. For example, execute +shootall, +noshake, +shareradar, +setshareenergy 10000, +setsharemetal 10000 with a single keystroke.
3. Share Line-of-Sight with allies (although covered by Fog of War). You can see what your allies see.
4. Instantly place your commander anywhere on the map at the beginning of a multi-player game. Great for allies who want to build close together without having to walk the Commander all the way across the map.
5. Draw lines of Dragon's Teeth or other structures with visible on-the-fly footprint resizing.
6. View resource production and storage of your allies (a floating bar graph which can be placed anywhere on the screen).
7. Place battlefield markers and attach a short text message. Good for coordinating attacks. Placing markers initiates a beep and spinning pointer to alert allies of the placement and location of the marker.
8. Using a "whiteboard" key players can actually draw on the battlefield using the mouse pointer as a pen.

TA Demo Recorder is the coolest thing I've ever seen for TA. The Swedish Yankspankers deserve high praise for their accomplishment. If you don't have TADR then visit their website and get it. Keep in mind that none of these features came with the game. They accomplished this on their own.

Other various hacks available include:

1. Increasing the unit max per player to 5000 from 500.
2. Multi-directional factories (helpful for players along the sides and bottom of the maps).

Various other features badly needed:

1. The ability to change game resolution from within the game itself rather than only from the menu.
2. Increase in the number of buttons per page in the build menus. Saves having to click through pages of buttons to find the unit you want to build. Also, the game has an internal limit of 8 pages I believe.
3. True Line-of-Sight sharing among allies.
4. Multiple chat macros so players can use a single keystroke to turn on/off resource sharing.
5. Ability to rotate factories in any direction prior to placement and construction so the exit faces whichever direction the player chooses. Since factories all face south it's kind of cumbersome for players along the bottom of the map in multi-player games.
6. Ability to assign units to groups with keys other than the 1 through 9 keys.

Understand that this is just a small fraction of what can and has been done. I'm sure there are many more things unknown to me.

Just some interesting factoids for the curious:

I presently have an Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53Ghz), 512mb DDR. My last PC was a Pentium 1Ghz with 384mb PC133. I play TA in 1280x1024 resolution and never experience slowdown even in huge battles. My old P3-1Ghz could run it in 1024x768 res but no higher without significant slowdown. At my TA lanparties we use the TA Demo Recorder features. I set the max unit limit per player to 1000 which is usually sufficient. We play TA once or twice a month with 4 to 8 people. When I bought TA in 1997 I owned a Pentium 166. Back then played in 640x480 resolution and the unit max per player was 200.

Chris Taylor now runs Gas Powered Games and his latest project is Dungeon Siege.