Hosting solutions

what solutions are available to offset processesing? For instance, I want to play on a lan against a couple friends, but some of their computers can't handle the game well. Is it possible to put the game on a server where there is high local bandwidth? The server would not running a played version of the game.
Or what about lowering the amount of processing the slower computers have to do? if not possible to put on a server, offsetting to stronger desktop machines?
I love the game and have been playing since it's come out :)
Thanks for your response
ps, supreme commander 2 is hella lame|||As far as I know, there is no solution of the type you are asking. Every player must run the same simulation.|||Id say host the game on your machine, and let your friends join the game. Have fog of war on, and turn off 'The rings'. Also, Set the unit cap to 250, or something close to it.
I used to have a really crappy laptop that could run FA on its lowest settings, and I had my friend host the games. Worked fine for me.|||X-Cubed is spot on. It runs the same on all machines.
There's a few tricks to squeeze out a few more fps if you have weak like disabling range rings and having fog of war off but it won't stop the game from slowing to a crawl.|||yeah, turn off range rings, FoW (if you have to), don't play against/with AI, turn off shadows & AA & background border, turn down texture quality, play on smaller maps. but as already stated, the game will never run better than the slowest machine can handle. oh, and you might want to leave it to 1v1s too.|||ON LIVE
Wow! This is the way to go! I downloaded and got this running for free last night, instant supcom, as well as other games.
Had to give them a credit card # but free trial and I can cancel before they bill..
Now all my friends can play AND on their crappy laptops.|||oshout|||Doh.. Onlive does not offer support for multi player supcom
though 1000 units x 8 seems like a fun test of their ability.|||oshout|||You have to tell us how On Live fares in terms of performance.
This could have interesting results.|||*bump*
Onlive wasn't the supcom machine I thought it would be.
I don't know how to 'spectate' on games, and I imagine it's some sort of mod-only feature BUT
as I was playing, 7 AI's with each about 400 units, I started getting Spectators. People kept joining the game, I assume because they could see the processing usage.
Four times, after people started joining, the game crashed and I was disconnected. Four times, right about the same spot of units and random spectators joining, just up and "woops" - it says it allows save games, one per game, so i saved my game thinking i would be able to reopen it, if the game crashed, but lo and behold, the save game was gone when I came back.
Kind of lame, I wasn't charged for the trial. Glad they had one...
Would of been worthwhile if I could play my friends on their crappy machines OR I could have a battle the likes I've never seen, but alas, onlive is not meant for that, apparently.|||What can be said?
Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance is a game that is 3 years old-
They obviously aren't going to allocate a lot of their processing power
to help run a game killer with a relatively small fan base(in comparison to other games they offer).