Inexplicable "lag" in battles

[aecp]

I've been playing EB since the first public release and the only problems I've had have been the occasional CTD.

But since I installed 0.81 and later, 0.81a I can't play any major battles(anything more than perhaps a total of 1500 soldiers on 'huge' setting) without suffering from an extremely low fps. This problem only affects battles and I haven't been noticing any problems with the campaign map. Something that might be of interest is that it takes ridiculously long time to load the game when starting it (the game itself, not a campaign or battle). The game also sometimes CTD's when starting.

All these issues have been persistent even though I completely reinstalled RTW and EB upon the release of 0.81a.

I've been wondering if this might have anything to do with the map.rwm problem I've been hearing about, but I thought that seemed unlikely since the battles are my main problem.

As for performance issues, my computer should be able to handle EB easily (and has before) and I've played M2:TW on the highest settings, so lowering the graphics settings or upgrading isn't really on the table. I've also played other games to confirm that there isn't a problem with my hardware and those have not suffered from the drop in fps that EB has.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[bovi]

Maybe you should consider bringing back to the table the possibility of reducing your video settings? Personally I play on large unit setting rather than huge, and have no problem at all. As for slow loading, you can't avoid that.

[aecp]

Maybe you should consider bringing back to the table the possibility of reducing your video settings? Personally I play on large unit setting rather than huge, and have no problem at all. As for slow loading, you can't avoid that.

Well, it just seems really unlikely as I havent had these issues before on the exact same configuration. I realise that i was a bit uninformative when it comes to my specs, so here they are:

Windows XP Proffessional
Service pack 2

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ 2,20 Ghz
2,00 GB RAM
Nvidia Geforce 7950 GX2

So I think its safe to say that EB shouldn't pose any problem when it comes to performance. And furthermore, I've been able to play M2:TW, Supreme Commander, the Command & Conquer 3 demo and Company of heroes, all on the highest possible settings without problems. So there's really no logical reason why these problems should be affeccting EB exclusively.

Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[bovi]

I don't know what else could be happening, sorry. No antivirus slowing down all file access I presume? My rig has a slightly better CPU and similar ATI graphics card but only half your RAM, yours should be as good or better.

[Dooz]

In order for the antivirus (Norton in my case) not to slow down other apps, what do you have to do? Is just turning it off enough, or as I read somewhere else, do you have to completely uninstall or something?

[bovi]

You would need to turn off realtime monitoring at least. I don't know the specifics of Norton, but from earlier experience with trying to get AOE3 to work in a network on not-so-excellent computers, you're in for a bit of work to get some antivirus programs to lay off. Simply turning it off seems to trigger some defensive response, automatically restarting it and alarming you of the "attempted intrusion". Possibly you'll need to disable the relevant services and restart (remember to enable them again afterwards!).

I recall someone in the AOE3 group used some Microsoft thingy that could disable all non-Microsoft software from starting at the next boot, which might be the best choice. I can't remember what it's called; my first guess would be Startup Manager but that's not sure at all. Feel free to share your discovery here if you find out :2thumbsup:!

[aecp]

I tried disabling and shutting down my antivirus, but unfortunately that didn't help. Thanks for the advice though!

[Dooz]

With regards to Norton specifically, you can disable the 'Internet Security' and 'AntiVirus Auto-protect' seperately. It gives the option of keeping it off until restarted, or for a certain amont of time until it automatically restarts. I haven't had any problems with intrusion messages or anything. I just don't know if disabling those things improves game speed basically.

[bovi]

All I know is that antivirus software will scan all files being loaded before allowing them to be used. Depending on the game's frequency of accessing files this can mean a lot of time spent. Sorry to hear it made no difference, and that I have no more ideas for boosting the performance.

One of the guys keeps complaining about the long winding road it is to disable his antivirus each time, but I guess it's not Norton then :2thumbsup:.

[antisocialmunky]

I've run into this too. My units run around like they're underwater -_- since I went from .80 to .81a + the Rebel City CTD patch on a .81a savegame.

[aecp]

I know this thread has been dead for a while, but I just wanted to give a heads up since i figured out what the problem was.

Apparently I'm having troubles with my the fan on my graphics card, which shuts down for some reason. Why this only really affects RTW I have no Idea, but there it is.