View Full Version : Better graphics and still good performance
Derfasciti
02-04-2007, 00:28
I got this game on Christmas and after some lagginess on the Best graphics I decided to keep it at medium. Now, I'm trying to think of ways to maximize my efficiency and graphical ability without spending money to upgrade my computer. The computer I have is fairly new, not even a year old, and was bought in mind for playing games.
Is there something I can do?
Poopflingr1
02-04-2007, 00:34
well, first off: take off grass. it isnt cool anyways... u cant see the dead too well.
take off AA, and glints, and shadows.
u can then crank up textures and stuff.
also, keep unit size at normal unless u like BIG battles and dont mind having a lil slowdown if u have like 4 armies fighting at the same time. :dizzy2:
Forward Observer
02-04-2007, 00:39
First of all, your post may belong in the forum hardware thread or even the hardware forum, but your question is basically unanswerable since you provide no system specs at all.
I am trying not to be rude, but It's kind of like asking the forum how good your gas mileage will be when you don't tell anyone what kind of vehicle you drive.
Cheers
Derfasciti
02-04-2007, 00:43
No offense Taken Forward Observer. The reason I didn't cite any specifics was because I asked a general question and I don't know much about this computer in all honesty. My graphics card is an Nvidia. I have an Athlon Dual Core processor.
I've found that you can disable shadows and gain a lot of performance with very little noticeable graphical change.
As for the specs, if he's not going to upgrade the system, why do they matter? The things that help performance do so generally no matter what system you are running, so I fail to see how his hardware is at all related to the topic of this thread. If he was going to upgrade then it would be helpful so we could suggest what was most in need of upgrade, but as he's not it seems entirely moot to me. To run with your analogy Forward Observer, it's less like asking what gas mileage you'll get w/o knowing the car - more like asking how to get better gas mileage without knowing the car, which is in fact substantially different and very answerable, where the other would not be.
@derfasciti - while you have a point the specs would still be useful, in particular what resolution you run the game on
@poopflinger - it's important to keep at least 2x aa on - it really improves the image quality. bloom can go though
Derfasciti
02-04-2007, 02:12
Errr I run the game on the only resolution available: Both battles and campaigns are run on 1024 x 768
@poopflinger - it's important to keep at least 2x aa on - it really improves the image quality. bloom can go though
I tend to agree that AA should be kept on... but for the sake of digging deeper, perhaps we can discuss which settings should be prioritized if you're trying to up them. For instance if you can run the game okay with 2x AA on, and okay with high textures on, but the performance suffers too much if both are on, then which setup should you prefer:
- 2x AA with Medium textures
- No AA with High textures
This of course leads to a more general discussion of which settings give you the best bang for your buck (i.e. provide most benefit with least performance hit) and which give lower benefits or greater performance hits and are therefore less important to upgrade. Maybe we can even devise a setting upgrade guide (priority order to bump up settings) to help maximize the way the game looks. You'd bump up a setting at a time until the game became intolerable, then back off the last change and use the resulting config.
So what settings are the most important to get the best look out of this game given limited resources... and which ones are better choices to bump up for those who are trying to squeeze out a little more quality?
HoreTore
02-04-2007, 04:09
Perhaps a little off topic, but how do you get the best performance on the game?
My graphics card sucks, but I've got a good duo cpu and lots of ram, so The only thing making the game lag is the graphics.. Anyone know if you can get the game lower than "low" in the graphics options? Like buy-your-self-a-new-card-you-cheap-bastard low..
Evil_Maniac From Mars
02-04-2007, 04:34
Perhaps a little off topic, but how do you get the best performance on the game?
My graphics card sucks, but I've got a good duo cpu and lots of ram, so The only thing making the game lag is the graphics.. Anyone know if you can get the game lower than "low" in the graphics options? Like buy-your-self-a-new-card-you-cheap-bastard low..
:laugh4:
You sound like me.
Only I'm so cheap I haven't even bought the game...
Perhaps a little off topic, but how do you get the best performance on the game?
My graphics card sucks, but I've got a good duo cpu and lots of ram, so The only thing making the game lag is the graphics.. Anyone know if you can get the game lower than "low" in the graphics options? Like buy-your-self-a-new-card-you-cheap-bastard low..
Eh, good luck. I did that with Oblivion when I first got it, had to download hacks for the shaders to get it to run on an GeForce 5600 (I've since upgraded), but I don't know if that would work with Medieval and I certainly don't know how to go about doing it.
Edit: Here's a screenshot of what Oblivion looked like when I first "fixed" it to work with my card, purple water and all:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v167/Laconic/Scene2.jpg
@laconic - you should have used oldblivion :yes:
Oh, I was. That was when it was very first released, and it was truly hideous. They smoothed it out eventually and made it look better.
With the recent release of DX10 GPU's, the cost of a decent mid-ranged GPU is very very low. I picked up a 7900 GS for about 170 bucks, to tide me over until the next best is released from Nvidia (at which time I will by the latest 8800 series... The bleedin' edge is too damned expensive to ride)
It's definitely worth waiting for ati and nvidia's dx10 cards atm :yes:
With the recent release of DX10 GPU's, the cost of a decent mid-ranged GPU is very very low. I picked up a 7900 GS for about 170 bucks, to tide me over until the next best is released from Nvidia (at which time I will by the latest 8800 series... The bleedin' edge is too damned expensive to ride)
I heartily agree. To upgrade frequently enough to have a top of the line graphics card all the time requires huge expenditures. A lot of people who can't afford to do that would figure they should just save up and then buy the best card around... but that tends to mean you go a while between upgrades, which can really start to hurt as the card falls more and more out of date. I think in general it's better to upgrade more frequently but do so with cards that are just off the cutting edge - you can spend the same amount, but have a card that consistently performs in the midrange instead of buying a top-end card that becomes midrange and then low-end before you can afford to upgrade it again.
With the recent release of DX10 GPU's, the cost of a decent mid-ranged GPU is very very low. I picked up a 7900 GS for about 170 bucks, to tide me over until the next best is released from Nvidia (at which time I will by the latest 8800 series... The bleedin' edge is too damned expensive to ride)
I picked up a 7900 last summer...when it was still $350 American ~:pissed:
Poopflingr1
02-04-2007, 19:36
ya, me too... exctept i got of them... OC'd and everything.
was worth it at the time :laugh4:
now? heh... man... what i could do with that money now. :furious3:
I picked up a 7900 last summer...when it was still $350 American ~:pissed:
my point is perfectly illustrated. Thanks. :laugh4:
Right now, for about 50 USD more than what you paid last summer, you can get a DX10 card that will blow a lot of SLI/Crossfire systems out of the water.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130071
MrsCabbage
03-28-2007, 23:01
I tend to agree that AA should be kept on... but for the sake of digging deeper, perhaps we can discuss which settings should be prioritized if you're trying to up them. For instance if you can run the game okay with 2x AA on, and okay with high textures on, but the performance suffers too much if both are on, then which setup should you prefer:
- 2x AA with Medium textures
- No AA with High textures
This of course leads to a more general discussion of which settings give you the best bang for your buck (i.e. provide most benefit with least performance hit) and which give lower benefits or greater performance hits and are therefore less important to upgrade. Maybe we can even devise a setting upgrade guide (priority order to bump up settings) to help maximize the way the game looks. You'd bump up a setting at a time until the game became intolerable, then back off the last change and use the resulting config.
So what settings are the most important to get the best look out of this game given limited resources... and which ones are better choices to bump up for those who are trying to squeeze out a little more quality?
Hey everybody this is a Jewel of a post and it has largley been ignored!
I have been searching this forum for this type of information on and off for a few months (with the painfull 180 second pauses between each search:wall: ).
Well from my not extensive experience shadows really seem to slow things up - but u can't go without shadows as it looks weird without them - so I go lowest setting.
I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on clever settings to get the most out of the game. And to be fair I really don't know what half of them are going on about anyhow and I bet I am not the only one :beam:
this seems like an appropriate place to post a performance-related question of mine: how well can my rig run m2tw?
i'm going to build it this summer. the most important details are a 6300 intel c2d (which i will likely overclock to 2.24 or 2.5ghz) and an nvidia 8800gts (320mb version). can i crank it way, way up and still get good performance (i.e. above 30 fps)?
Well how much ram will you have?
Malcolm Big Head
03-28-2007, 23:51
"Like buy-your-self-a-new-card-you-cheap-bastard low.."
How about your-wife-thinks-that-you-screw-up-the-computer-everytime-you-add-a-new-component-low.......
Not that I am bitter....
Must remember to buy a computer with a graphics card next time.
:wall:
TevashSzat
03-28-2007, 23:53
Regarding Foz's post on which things you should upgrade before everything else this is what I think.
1. Resolution. Playing a game at a lower resolution than what you computer screen is inately just sucks period. If you have played those older games that can't change resolutions or to very high ones and if you have a wide screen lcd, you will know.
2. Unit Size. I generally like to play M2TW on Large at least. Huge may be too much for some people, but most people don't have issues with Large. Anything smaller, and you are ruining the grandness of the game like by having full stacks that are less than 600 men.
3. Texture. This is all-encompassing and will basically affect everything making it pretty important to upgrade, but also remember that it will probably affect performance by alot.
4. Everything Else. All of the rest are smaller things suchs as aa, bloom, or shadows and do not make as much of an importance to gameplay as those listed above.
I don't know if this is right, but I remember seeing somewhere that you cannot have Bloom and AA on at the same time so remember it. Pick something and stay with it
HoreTore
03-29-2007, 00:17
"Like buy-your-self-a-new-card-you-cheap-bastard low.."
How about your-wife-thinks-that-you-screw-up-the-computer-everytime-you-add-a-new-component-low.......
Not that I am bitter....
Must remember to buy a computer with a graphics card next time.
:wall:
Heh.....the joys of integrated cards. I knew it could play RTW well on high settings(a friend has the same), so I thought, what the hey, they can't increase the graphics so much that I can't play on minimum settings, might just save some money.
I was wrong. Very wrong. And now, I have to change my motherboard too.
Well how much ram will you have?
2GB 800mhz ddr. reasonably nice stuff, since i'm planning on OC'ing my cpu.
pike master
03-29-2007, 03:09
i would either get a >4ghz single processor gaming computer with room for up to 4 gigs of memory at least.
otherwise i would hold off until the dual cores get up to near 3.0 ghz before i buy. that should happen sometime near this years end i think.
TevashSzat
03-29-2007, 03:33
I wonder how awesome graphics would get if you hypothetically say get access to Intel's Blue Gene Supecomputer (fastest single installation in the world) and install a couple of the newest videocards on the market and run them togeather ie something like crossfire mode.
PutCashIn
03-29-2007, 04:43
So, back to the question, does anyone know of commands that might alter the graphical look and frame rate?
Someone mentioned Oblivion, where you could change almost any graphical variable, like the density of the flowers on a bush, etc, these commands went much futher than the options in the menu.
For example, can we have a low res sky box and medium res terrain textures?
Many people on this forum seem to have extensive knowledge about the code, thanks in part to the unpackers, has anyone found a section of graphical details that differ from those in the GUI menu?
Yours truely, PutCashIn.
SoxSexSax
03-29-2007, 04:50
Errr I run the game on the only resolution available: Both battles and campaigns are run on 1024 x 768
If that's the only available resolution then either A) your monitor drivers aren't installed (or your using the Windows default crappy ones), or B) your monitor is awful.
Gawain of Orkeny
03-29-2007, 05:27
i would either get a >4ghz single processor gaming computer with room for up to 4 gigs of memory at least.
otherwise i would hold off until the dual cores get up to near 3.0 ghz before i buy. that should happen sometime near this years end i think.
But the Core 2 Duos out perform those 4 ghz single core cpus already. You cant judge them 1 on 1 just by the ghz rating. Besides that I can crank my E6600 up to 4ghz np.
Someone mentioned Oblivion, where you could change almost any graphical variable, like the density of the flowers on a bush, etc, these commands went much futher than the options in the menu.
I just set it for highest graphics and set my 8800 to HDR :2thumbsup:
Neat graphics.
MrsCabbage
03-29-2007, 10:17
Many Thanks Xdeathfire!
I hadn't taken much notice of textures and had them low so I increased textures and lowered some others and WOW!
My little pixel combatants look better and move smoother.
So for me I gained a lot more from having higher textures and lowering others.
Regarding Foz's post on which things you should upgrade before everything else this is what I think.
1. Resolution. Playing a game at a lower resolution than what you computer screen is inately just sucks period. If you have played those older games that can't change resolutions or to very high ones and if you have a wide screen lcd, you will know.
2. Unit Size. I generally like to play M2TW on Large at least. Huge may be too much for some people, but most people don't have issues with Large. Anything smaller, and you are ruining the grandness of the game like by having full stacks that are less than 600 men.
3. Texture. This is all-encompassing and will basically affect everything making it pretty important to upgrade, but also remember that it will probably affect performance by alot.
4. Everything Else. All of the rest are smaller things suchs as aa, bloom, or shadows and do not make as much of an importance to gameplay as those listed above.
I think this is pretty reasonable. Obviously unit size is far from required - it's nice to have bigger units, but if you're trying to squeeze performance they could be set lower since it's fairly load-intensive to use the bigger units. I currently use normal size, and don't see a particular reason to change: the units feel large enough. AA and AF are probably the most important of the unmentioned "everything else" since they affect the look of the scene SO much, but I agree that textures and res belong before those things.
For those of you not really acquainted with video settings too well, perhaps a brief explanation is in order. Anti-aliasing (AA) is a method for smoothing the stepping that you can notice in diagonal lines in a scene. Without it, you can see that the lines seem to form steps like this:
_
|_
|_
|_
For a good example of this, look at the edge of a wall without AA on - it appears jagged. AA smooths that defect and makes the line look more natural, i.e. straight. It does this by treating the scene like it is at a higher res than will actually be displayed. 2x AA typically treats the scene as twice the res in one of the directions (horizontal is typical I believe) while 4x is twice the res in both directions. This makes it an important setting, as much of the graininess we detect in the scene is due to aliasing (the stepped lines I mentioned). So the end result is a much cleaner look once AA is applied.
Anisotropic Filtering (AF), on the other hand, directly affects the textures in the scene. The main problem here is that textures, when viewed at angles and/or at a distance in a scene, become distorted, looking blurry and just bad in general. AF is a process that sharpens up that distortion through calculations, which I'll spare everyone from having to read. Again this is important because the scene will look bad if nothing is done to sharpen up those imperfections in the textures: your eye immediately notices that things appear out of focus and "off" somehow. Higher settings represent more involved calculations, and thus better results (i.e. more realistic textures when viewed on angles). This is especially noticeable on walls and buildings in M2TW, since you will so often be looking along them as opposed to directly at them, but the effect on units is noticeable as well.
So in general I'd recommend setting AA x2 and AF x8 if it's at all possible to do so - it makes a massive difference in the way the scene looks.
Someone also mentioned that shadows are really computationally intensive, but the game looks really wrong without them. I couldn't agree more. I too arrived at setting shadows to the lowest setting - it removes them for units, which I actually think was a plus (they look VERY poor for units on lower settings than highest, try it). However, lowest keeps the shadows of buildings. It's those wall and building shadows that look wrong when missing, so I too strongly endorse the lowest shadow setting as the best balance between performance and quality.
Other settings like bloom and reflections can make their own contribution, but I personally find them quite optional and frankly less than worthwhile. They simply don't make as big of an impact as the other settings... and if you're concerned at all with performance (which most people are, since few cards out right now just waltz through this game's graphical demands) then these things are almost certainly the first that should go.
MrsCabbage
03-30-2007, 19:49
Well well... I have read through pages of so called explanation of what all those oddly named special things graphics cards do and have to say I was none the wiser.
I read the post by Foz last night and when I came back today I could stll remember roughly what Anti-aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering actually refer to! The only amusing thing is if I try to explain it someone else I am likely to start by say
"You know when you are looking along the edge of a castle wall..."
he he - I should get out more! :book:
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to explain these things. :2thumbsup:
Quickening
03-30-2007, 20:13
Okay so I can play Medieval 2 fine with a couple of losses in beauty here and there. But I don't want any loses. I want to play it in it's full glory and without performance loss. Time for an upgrade then.
My PCs specs are:
3.06 Ghz Intel Dual Core Processor
GeForce 7600 GT
1 Gigabyte of RAM
Windows XP
I want to stick with the Nvidia Geforce cards in an upgrade if possible. What upgrades should I be looking at to get M2TW running perfect?
Okay so I can play Medieval 2 fine with a couple of losses in beauty here and there. But I don't want any loses. I want to play it in it's full glory and without performance loss. Time for an upgrade then.
My PCs specs are:
3.06 Ghz Intel Dual Core Processor
GeForce 7600 GT
1 Gigabyte of RAM
Windows XP
I want to stick with the Nvidia Geforce cards in an upgrade if possible. What upgrades should I be looking at to get M2TW running perfect?
Well, it's likely your video card and your ram are both limiting factors at the moment. You'll likely want a GeForce 8800 card, and an additional GB of ram (fastest you can get your hands on). I haven't shopped for either one really recently though, so I can't comment further since I don't know if they have multiple 8800s out and what the differences would be, nor exactly what ram is best to go with right now.
Well well... I have read through pages of so called explanation of what all those oddly named special things graphics cards do and have to say I was none the wiser.
I read the post by Foz last night and when I came back today I could stll remember roughly what Anti-aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering actually refer to! The only amusing thing is if I try to explain it someone else I am likely to start by say
"You know when you are looking along the edge of a castle wall..."
he he - I should get out more! :book:
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to explain these things. :2thumbsup:
Glad I could help :bow:
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