Lan SERVER ? Really ?

...wh.... wha.....

....do you understand the contradiction here?

In answer to your query ......you can't. go play another game. This game is from the family of the games for titans.

TA did not run on the hardware of it's era Supreme Commander did not run on the hardware of it's era and those games turned out to be fantastic due to that or rather due to their massive scale, PA .....Actually runs on the hardware of it's era. This time around the ambition was lower. they made it runnable on any ridiculous system ....with server. or you can do the same as before, run the server yourself and get overblown sys reqs (but at least sys reqs that actually exist in this day and age !!)

you have no idea what this game is about and I really don't get what your problem is.

You'll need to get the drivers direct from Intel... they release updates often but not via auto-update:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24329&lang=eng&ProdId=3712

Latest are from September

I recommended splitting server and client over two computers based on '1.5 dual core', that is certainly well below comfortable if running both the server and client. If your pc has quad core, it should be able to handle both at once to a playable degree (I know not all quad core are made equal, even so).

Whoah man, such hate. Calm down. Beside, you are not helping me. I am trying to get this great game to work, and you just come in with your big boots and you just say go play something else. Man, go hate somewhere else. TA was awesome, SC was awesome, and they didn't require an internet connection. In PA didn't need an internet connection I would not be here in the first place. Please, leave this thread, you are not helping nor polite.

Thanks man, I just realized that I downloaded them at once. Thanks for you help.

I'll check it out once I get back to my hometown, friday. This definitely sounds like an intersting idea, do you have a link to a tutorial for this maybe ?

Well it's a question of balance. For a typical desktop computer you'll usually have the performance weighted towards GPU, as that is usually beneficial to games like shooters (e.g. Crysis). In the case of PA, the cpu has to deal with many units, so draw calls and other cpu bound things become a bottleneck leaving a powerful gpu waiting. If you watch the CPU usage and GPU usage during the game, what will happen is the cpu will stay constant, whilst gpu usage and *frame rates* will drop. Note that due to using Open GL, PA can only really use 3 cores fully for rendering + a bit for UI. So if we take a core i5 + GTX 770 as an example, you'd likely hit the CPU limit at around 75 - 80% total CPU usage. In the case of the server, sim performance is also tied to cpu and can only use 1 core for that, so a maxed out SIM will only display 25% overall cpu usage on a quad core (the server does more than just sim so it really needs a minimum of 2 cores, more if hosting a lan with more players).

In your case you have a much stronger CPU than GPU, so your maxing out the latter before hitting the CPU bottleneck. Even so you may be liable to hit a CPU wall when playing offline as the server is dependent heavily on *per core* performance.

That sounds pretty complicated :X what I know is that I will definitely try to play it on my laptop and once I get back home I'll upload the .diag of my other computer. Thanks for your help again.

The specs are as high as they need to be. The game was not designed for XP or x32 simply because there is no way those would be able to run the game on any decent scales.
Minimum Spec is MINIMUM spec. You cannot expect to run every function on every scale with it. The requirements on Steam explicitly note that the values are not final and they explicitly note that the server need closer to required specs.
They gave you every bit of information to expect this.

If you get the recommended specs you can play decently sized games fully offline. I got them, I did.
If you got better you can play large games.
If you really have a lot of power (in the server rather then desktop/laptop range) you can even owerwrite the player limit and play 11+ games.

Heck, the GPU requirement is not even that bad. As long as you get OpenGL to work it runs.
You can run it on just about any Intel HD card at decent FPS. Just don't expect it to work on a Mobility series 6 years old, those are garbage anyway.

This is all well and good, sir, and your argument is valid enough. What I am saying is that if I don't have those perfect specs, then I am screwed because of my internet connection. I totally agree with you. I tried the server on my big computer and it failed. Then what should I do ? I just can't play. My internet is too bad. Give me a solution, sir, I wait only for that. Your argumentation is good and valid, but heck it is irrelevant. I can't run server because of my specs. Then I can't run game because of my internet. I'm stuck, trust me.

Thankfully I *know* your laptop will be fine to run the server so hopefully you'll no longer be stuck

Also to your earlier question about how to host the game on one machine and play on another: If you start the game up directly from 'pa.exe' you can play without logging in. That will run in offline mode, which gives you access to 'host LAN game' in the multi-player menu.

Host up a lan game on one computer, then jump on your other machine, go to multi-player and you *should* be able to see the lobby you created provided both machines are on teh same network.

Thanks, I will do that as soon as I get home. Thanks again.

I have no hate for you. to me, you are a normal person that I feel nothing towards.

I took the time to explain the fault in your statements, I explained succinctly (though I could develop, @cdrkf went into more detail and that seemed like too much, maybe now you see why I though the subdued approach was more on-point) why pa is the way it is, making you a wiser man, even though I don't know you. I find that rather outgoing of myself.

Well I don't feel wiser. You came in and you were quite rude. Seems to have calmed down so it's fine. I respect your opinion. My opinion is that it doesn't need to be that way. It would be perfectly enjoyable without internect connection. And I find that a lan server is a terrible idea for single player. A basic offline single player would have been perfect. But hey, can't have everything.

To be clear I was replying to @squishypon3 as he was asking why I said the game was more limited by CPU (short answer it's complicated ).

@tatsujb probably not your intention but you did come across a bit aggressively. I can understand that khoraindre was a bit frustrated in his OP, and if you read after that he's been perfectly reasonable.

@khoriandre I think the 'lan' bit is causing confusion. To be clear if you install PA on your laptop you can play offline single player without doing anything special (just make sure in settings 'local server' is set to 'on'). Your laptop is plenty for the game, although it sounds like the CPU on your other machine might be a problem- which is why we suggested you could use the lan option to spread the load between 2 machines.

No, I got that, don't worry What I meant is, in a more general sense, that I find this idea of a local server for offline play a bad one. Why not enable simple offline game ? That was what I meant. But yeah, I tested it on my laptot and it is fine once I get all graphics to low. So yeah, I'm happy now. Thanks again.

Because it is the same thing. There is no technical difference. Something needs to simulate the game. PA calls this something the server.
There is no "simple offline game" without a server. That's not any different to any other games. They all have a component that is similar to the server of PA. They just don't tell you as openly.

I mean why not do like any other RTS game ? Age of Empire, Supreme Commander, Battle for Middle Earth, etc... That was my question.

I'm not seeing how it's different. There's only one type of offline mode.

Other RTS don't need to run an local server to play in offline, where as PA does. That's the difference and I don't understand why it needs to do that.