performance question

[charlieh]

hello there, i was just wondering how demanding this mod will be when compared to that of, say, stainless steel?

on a more personal note, how would the game likely to play on these specs: i7 4770, 8gb, NVidia gtx 770 (4gb). i ask only as i have had problems in the past with performance when playing old total war games. i could never work out why these specs could never handle rome 1, but were fine with rome 2.

thank you very much, would love one day to get involved with the mod, am an avid reader of history, could focus on a specific area if you guys need any assistance.

[Tux]

Hi,

Welcome to the forums!

It'll be quite demanding since for units we won't have any LODs like many mods out there. We also use higher resolution textures in many areas.
However seeing your specs it should be fine, but check the vanilla game and see that it runs fine to see if your drivers are ok.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Isn't it the case that for the MTW2 engine, single-core performance is more important than multi-core performance?

So an i3 with dual 3.60 Ghz cores will run MTW2 faster than an i7 with quad 3.0 Ghz cores?

A NVidia gtx 770 graphics card should be far more than MTW2 needs graphically.

[Tux]

Isn't it the case that for the MTW2 engine, single-core performance is more important than multi-core performance?

So an i3 with dual 3.60 Ghz cores will run MTW2 faster than an i7 with quad 3.0 Ghz cores?
Yes, but the graphics overhead can also be quite important too.
I don't think so, core i7 cores are also powerful(larger caches) so the performance should be similar.


A NVidia gtx 770 graphics card should be far more than MTW2 needs graphically.
That would be true for MTW2 but not a mod for it, it's good enough though.

[clone]

what about a 9400 gt nvidia card.( i can play all mods on max settings)

[I_damian]

Yes, but the graphics overhead can also be quite important too.
I don't think so, core i7 cores are also powerful(larger caches) so the performance should be similar.

That would be true for MTW2 but not a mod for it, it's good enough though.

What do you mean "good enough"? My specs are almost the same as his - GTX 770 (4GB), i5-4760 quad core @ 3.4 GHz, 8 GB RAM and there's not a single game on the market that I can't play with every single graphics setting maxed out at between 40-60 FPS. It handles Rome 2 with max settings and max unit sizes like a dream.

[Tux]

As in you won't get 40-60fps most of the time and it can be a bit laggy sometimes, that on max settings of course.

[I_damian]

As in you won't get 40-60fps most of the time and it can be a bit laggy sometimes, that on max settings of course.

Are you really saying EB2 is going to be more challenging for my machine than Rome 2 with everything maxed out and max unit sized, where I get 40-60 FPS ALL the time?

[Tux]

Are you really saying EB2 is going to be more challenging for my machine than Rome 2 with everything maxed out and max unit sized, where I get 40-60 FPS ALL the time?
Yes, I presume so.

It's an old game not optimized for multi-core or latest graphic cards.

[gstephenopolous]

Are you really saying EB2 is going to be more challenging for my machine than Rome 2 with everything maxed out and max unit sized, where I get 40-60 FPS ALL the time?

Nah, if you can run Rome 2 then you can definitely run this. Rome 2 is about as unoptimized as anything out there. M2TW performance was actually much better, on the old engine. I haven't seen anything high-res enough in the previews to warrant any fears about performance. As a test run Kingdoms with no LOD and all the pajama warriors you can fit into one battle. Not 120hz kind of performance, but that's always been the case when you make the computer render ten of thousand models at once.

[QuintusSertorius]

Yes, I presume so.

It's an old game not optimized for multi-core or latest graphic cards.

It may not be optimised for multi-core, but can't you use the same trick as for EB1 of moving the game onto a different core to everything else?

[Tux]

Guys, relax, I'm not saying it will run horrible and you'll need to have high-end pc to be able to enjoy it.
We're pushing the engines limits here, we increased polycount on the campaign map and battlefield, increased the texture size.

I've personally even worked on a enhancement mod (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?142166-EB2-Graphic-Enhancement-side-mod%28Open-Beta%29) that will ship with the release.

All that was done so don't feel you'll be playing a game from 2007, but all those cost performance. I'm sure you've seen the improvements in the screenshots and videos and noticed this.

So the only thing I'm saying don't expect 40+ fps in big battles with thousands of soldiers.

As a guideline with my specs: Core i7 2600k, Ati HD 6850, 16GB RAM, all settings maxed out, I have 20-40fps(30-50 w/o the graphics mod) on the campaign map.
And 20-40fps(30-50 w/o the mod), with lows of 15fps(18 w/o the mod) in the middle of a battle of 5000.

[I_damian]

To be honest I'll probably play it without the graphics mod (though I will undoubtedly try it some time). Graphics have never been a big deal for me. I installed Medieval 2 + Kingdoms a few days ago ready for EB2, it's just the vanilla game with no mods and I've been playing it quite heavily over the last few days and I'm loving it. The graphics still look amazing to me. I've been gaming since Tetris on the Gameboy and my top 10 favourite games of all time come mostly from the late 90's, so yeah, graphics just aren't an issue here. I'd rather have worse graphics and 60 FPS than better graphics and 20 FPS.

[QuintusSertorius]

I'm the same, as long as I can play on Huge Unit Scale, I don't really care much about the graphics. Since I'll spend most of the battle zoomed out far enough that I won't be able to appreciate the finer details anyway.

[gstephenopolous]

Guys, relax, I'm not saying it will run horrible and you'll need to have high-end pc to be able to enjoy it.
We're pushing the engines limits here, we increased polycount on the campaign map and battlefield, increased the texture size.

I've personally even worked on a enhancement mod (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?142166-EB2-Graphic-Enhancement-side-mod%28Open-Beta%29) that will ship with the release.

All that was done so don't feel you'll be playing a game from 2007, but all those cost performance. I'm sure you've seen the improvements in the screenshots and videos and noticed this.

So the only thing I'm saying don't expect 40+ fps in big battles with thousands of soldiers.

As a guideline with my specs: Core i7 2600k, Ati HD 6850, 16GB RAM, all settings maxed out, I have 20-40fps(30-50 w/o the graphics mod) on the campaign map.
And 20-40fps(30-50 w/o the mod), with lows of 15fps(18 w/o the mod) in the middle of a battle of 5000.

Doesn't sound bad actually, Tux. Thanks for your work by the way.

[Eastern Foot-Rocker]

I'm the same, as long as I can play on Huge Unit Scale, I don't really care much about the graphics. Since I'll spend most of the battle zoomed out far enough that I won't be able to appreciate the finer details anyway.

In stainless steel i made the experiance that even a large unit scale is too large for most defense structures on battlefield, and it is to be feared that it will be the same in EB2. I recommend to play with normal untit scale.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

In stainless steel i made the experiance that even a large unit scale is too large for most defense structures on battlefield, and it is to be feared that it will be the same in EB2. I recommend to play with normal untit scale.

What do you mean, too large for most defence structures? Are the towns and town walls smaller relative to the soldiers than they were in EB1?

[QuintusSertorius]

In stainless steel i made the experiance that even a large unit scale is too large for most defense structures on battlefield, and it is to be feared that it will be the same in EB2. I recommend to play with normal untit scale.

Unit Scale is the single most important gameplay toggle for me, anything less than Huge looks silly and doesn't feel very realistic. Huge is vaguely 1:10 scale with reality, anything less just doesn't cut it.

[I_damian]

Yeah... BUT... there are some huge advantages to using just normal unit sizes (so that an infantry unit is 80 men) in the Rome 1/Med 2 engine:

1. Pathfinding for both AI and player is much better and much smoother.

2. Sieges don't take an hour. When units fight in the streets, no flanking maneouvres, large or huge unit sizes means it takes FOREVER for a winner to emerge.

3. Way better frame rates (though this shouldn't be an issue for most gamers as we have better PC's than we did when these games came out 10 and 6 years ago.

Furthermore, I'm convinced the battle AI is better when unit sizes are on medium. Especially in sieges. It performs better. You're still going to win because it's the Total War AI and it's not very good if we're honest, but I'm sure it does better when medium unit sizes are on. I agree however that huge unit sizes does feel more realistic and is obviously more fun/satisfying to watch during a battle. But then, when you're playing a game where the Roman AI's are creating full armies of Pedites Extraordinarii in the year 269 BC, is historical accuracy really such a concern?

[QuintusSertorius]

Those might seem like big advantages to you, but they don't outweigh the fun I get from using the biggest Unit Scale. Pathfinding isn't bad enough to annoy me much, usually it just means a little more micromanagement of waypoints.

I don't care that sieges take a long time, there's a time-acceleration button for that. Besides I've had some epic siege defenses where units have fought literally to the last man on the walls which wouldn't be the same with less men.

Frame rates haven't been an issue on RTW when I had a weak old PC, my current rig shouldn't have any issues at all.

Siege AI is atrocious regardless, I'm not going to reduce my overall battle enjoyment just for a slight improvement there.

I use the console to spawn more units in enemy AI stacks to round them out properly. Such as when the Seleukids are trying to attack with six units of light infantry, so I add a phalanx core, some heavy infantry and some cavalry to make it a full stack worthy of fighting a battle with. I'll just do the same in EBII if I'm seeing silly army compositions.

[I_damian]

I used to think siege AI in Rome 1 and Medieval 2 was atrocious, then I bought Rome 2. Now I really appreciate the siege AI in Rome 1/Med 2. They use every piece of siege equipment they bring, they send extra units up ladders and siege towers if/when the first unit dies, they fight on walls properly (more or less) AND they retreat if the walls haven't been breached by the time they run out of infantry.

Siege AI in Medieval 2 is awesome :D

[charlieh]

thanks for info guys. brennus or tux, if you would indulge me, speaking from your own experience, what would be an 'ideal' set of specs to play this mod, speaking hypothetically of course ;-) btw, really enjoy all the sneak peaks, the level of detail is admirable.

[Tux]

thanks for info guys. brennus or tux, if you would indulge me, speaking from your own experience, what would be an 'ideal' set of specs to play this mod, speaking hypothetically of course ;-) btw, really enjoy all the sneak peaks, the level of detail is admirable.
Something similar to the one I have. :)
And more if you want to splash the cash.

[V.T. Marvin]

On a more "realistic" note: I have a laptop with i5 Sandy Bridge CPU, NVidia GT555M @1GB GPU and 4 GB RAM and I do play on huge with high details (on 1280 * 720 LCD display) just fine.

When half of my RAM died some time ago I noticed only after playing EBII. I did not noticed it on other applications, including games like Skyrim, but I noticed immediately in EBII - it was a slideshow especially on stratmap; battles were a bit more forgiving even then. This experience leads me to believe that RAM is VERY important - if you have 4 GB or more plus a decent specs around, you will be fine. With 2 GB RAM it would be a pain, essentially unplayable, in any case. :2cents:

[QuintusSertorius]

I've got an Intel Core 2 Quad 2.33GHz processor, 4GB RAM and a Nvidia GeForce GT640.

[Kull]

But then, when you're playing a game where the Roman AI's are creating full armies of Pedites Extraordinarii in the year 269 BC, is historical accuracy really such a concern?

The recruitment options in M2TW should make that a thing of the past. Nothing like that has shown up in ANY of the playtests.

[I_damian]

The recruitment options in M2TW should make that a thing of the past. Nothing like that has shown up in ANY of the playtests.

Awesome. That's one of the only things that used to annoy me about the EB mod. I always played on hard campaign, medium battle difficulty and I believe the AI got quite large cash injections each turn to help them manage the huge building/recruitment costs compared to vanilla (which I agree with, they needed it or they just went bankrupt instantly). However they also got a boost to building speed I think, which meant Rome ended up with max level barracks in every city 3 or 4 turns into the game. So when I played as Epeiros and king Pyrrhus decided Greece just wasn't worth the hassle and he was going to conquer Sicily and Italy again, I had to fight my way up from Tarentum to Arretium, taking each city as I went. Every turn I had to fight an army consisting of like 16 Pedites Extraordinarii. I don't think I ever saw Hastati, Principes or Triarii. :(

[fallen851]

But then, when you're playing a game where the Roman AI's are creating full armies of Pedites Extraordinarii in the year 269 BC, is historical accuracy really such a concern?

You know what, at least they are building in decent units that provide a challenge.

In Rome II you face full stacks of slingers.

[I_damian]

You know what, at least they are building in decent units that provide a challenge.

In Rome II you face full stacks of slingers.

True that they're building challenging units at least. I wouldn't know about how the AI builds its armies in Rome 2 though - while I paid full price for it on release day and have indeed played it for 20 hours, most of that time was spent gawping in disbelief at how badly my beloved TW franchise has been screwed. EB2 will be the real Rome 2.

Developers and publishers can learn a lot from the year 2013. There were a lot of crappy games but two in particular can be used for decades to come as examples of exactly how NOT to make a game. One is Rome 2, the other is Aliens: Colonial Marines.

[sonnet]

As a guideline with my specs: Core i7 2600k, Ati HD 6850, 16GB RAM, all settings maxed out, I have 20-40fps(30-50 w/o the graphics mod) on the campaign map.
And 20-40fps(30-50 w/o the mod), with lows of 15fps(18 w/o the mod) in the middle of a battle of 5000. Tux
You have a overclockable cpu, 20-30 fps is with cpu default or overclocked? (it the second ,how much?)
If it's the former, maybe can you try to overclock the cpu to check if the cpu is being a bottleneck with your conf?

[Tux]

Yes, just with the plain turbo boost(@3.8GHz). I will try that and let you know.
However I'm pretty sure for my case it's the GPU, like I said we don't have any LODs made for the first release.

[fallen851]

EB2 will be the real Rome 2.



Well put.

[V.T. Marvin]

Hopefully the hype-rant pattern will not repeat itself. :pray:

[Shadowwalker]

After reading this topic I'm starting to wonder if I should even bother downloading the mod when it's out.
I have an Intel Core Duo (2.13 GHz), 2 GB RAM (not expandable anymore) and an ATI Radeon HD 4800. :shame:


Is there anyone on the team who's able to play the mod with similar specs?
I'm fully aware that I'll have to play with the lowest possible settings. That's something I'm expecting since years, the computer I'm using I bought years ago to finally play Rome TW - or better: EB I :creep: - and it wasn't highend even back then. And that was 7 years ago . . .

It would be frustating if that wouldn't be enough, since I simply can't afford a new computer.

My only hope is that I never had any problems with any M2TW mod (not even with Third Age or DLV) with this computer. *crosses fingers*


EDIT: Just to be clear - this is not meant as complaint about the current system requirements or as some kind of "How dare you to create a free game I cannot play on my computer!" - I am just afraid that I will not be able to play it, after all those years of waiting. :wall: And I hope that the team can perhaps ease my concerns. ~:)

[Tux]

You should have no problems playing it, but not on huge scale, I suggest small to normal, and with lower graphics settings.

Even for the campaign map we offer a lower version of the vegetation for low end systems, to use it go to the graphics settings and set disable campaign map shadows.
Also you should consider to disable the graphics mod, via shift+f12 or uninstalling it completely.

[Alcibiade]

About specs. I'm prepared this time but I remember that I had quite a shock when I realised my computer was unable to handle the high res version of Roma Surectum 2.6.
Not being able to play a mod based on a 2002 engine when it could easily play R2 with everything on high ; that was a total surprise.

[VikingPower]

I remember that it could happen in Rome and Medieval 2 that reinforcements would be delayed on the map, because my computer was not powerful enough. I think it did not happen with 2v2, but more like 3v3 or more.
The game was otherwise without problems. But at that time then I did not know that the single player could be played on huge, so it was always on normal I think.

My processor is Intel (R) Core (TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz 2.80GHz
Ram: 4 GB (3,25 usable).

If I wanted to play on huge, with low to normal graphics, and participate in battles with 3v3 or 4v4 then...

Would I need to upgrade both the Ram and the Processor, or only either one?

[Shadowwalker]

You should have no problems playing it, but not on huge scale, I suggest small to normal, and with lower graphics settings.

Even for the campaign map we offer a lower version of the vegetation for low end systems, to use it go to the graphics settings and set disable campaign map shadows.
Also you should consider to disable the graphics mod, via shift+f12 or uninstalling it completely.

:2thumbsup: Thank you, Tux! That's more or less exactly what I hoped to read.

And now - back to anticipation mode. :)


P.S.: Thank you, EB Team, for spoiling us with so many screens and other goodies lately. Much appreciated (although each new information makes it harder to wait patiently. ~;) )

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Thanks to Tux for the tips.

I'm going to start playing on Huge unit size, but with the absolute lowest possible graphics settings and the lowest possible screen resolution. If EBII seems 'fast' to me on that setting, then I will incrementally increase the graphics settings and screen resolution little by little until I reach what seems to be a good balance between frame rate and graphics detail.

(Although graphics detail, for me, is the least important aspect of EBII.)

[QuintusSertorius]

Thanks to Tux for the tips.

I'm going to start playing on Huge unit size, but with the absolute lowest possible graphics settings and the lowest possible screen resolution. If EBII seems 'fast' to me on that setting, then I will incrementally increase the graphics settings and screen resolution little by little until I reach what seems to be a good balance between frame rate and graphics detail.

(Although graphics detail, for me, is the least important aspect of EBII.)

Indeed, I agree on all fronts. Unit Size is the primary consideration, coming a long way ahead of graphical detail for me.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Any performance comments from people who have downloaded EB2? How are people doing with frame rate, unit size and graphic detail? Is it slow or fast on your PC?

My new mini-PC is on order, but won't arrive for 2 weeks. Patient.... I must be patient...

Spec:
CPU: Intel Core i5 4690 (3.60 Ghz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte H97N-Wifi
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1333mhz (2x4GB)
Hard Drive: Samsung 120GB 840 Evo SSD
Secondary Hard Drive: 1TB
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB
Case: Coolermaster Elite 130
PSU: 450W Corsair VS

[Chuffy]

I've noticed some pretty gigantic drops in framerate, even when zoomed out and viewing the unit sprites which usually (if my TW memory serves me correctly) should result in better performance. Also some weird slowdown in battles when I wasn't even looking at anything. In fact because it was slowing down so much I moved my camera far away from the action and looked at the scenery and it was still chugging.

For the record I have an i7 4770K and a GTX 770 (4GB... although Shogun 2 and Rome 2 think it's 2 and 3GB respectively. Nice engine work, CA! :V )

I'll do some more testing though on different settings. How much performance impact does the new grass have? Also just a personal opinion but I think the new grass looks pretty awful :s

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Wow - your specs are far better than mine will be! Presumably you're on high detail levels and using the graphics mod?

[joshmahurin]

Chuffy if I remember correctly the units don't use sprites ATM. I could be very wrong here I was just pretty sure I'd read this somewhere. Tux

[Tux]

We have sprites, we don't have LODs for most units.
I suggest setting the lowest detail for unit graphics just as a test to see if it improves performance and you don't have more issues.

If not try to update the graphic drivers.

[joshmahurin]

Ah yes I was wrong indeed sorry :P