Stardock has released its first major update to Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar. The patch for the award winning strategy game not only addresses minor bugs and play balancing but includes a brand new graphics engine.

“Many of our game developers have been working on our next game, a fantasy strategy game and in the process have made real advances in 3D engine development,” said Brad Wardell, Designer of Galactic Civilizations. “We wanted to bring some of those performance advancements into Galactic Civilizations.”

As a result, Stardock says players have reported seeing a ten-times graphics performance improvement.

“Now players can play on gigantic maps and be zoomed out quite a ways to display hundreds or thousands of ships and still get fantastic performance,” said Wardell.

While significant features are common in Stardock’s free updates for its games, a full-blown engine upgrade sets a new standard. The new version also includes dozens of new features based on player feedback.

Registered users can download the update via Stardock Central, the company’s unique download manager that not only allows users to update their games but to install the entire game from scratch — without requiring the CD — onto multiple home computers.

For more information, visit galciv2.com.