What machine are you running MTW on and how is it performing?

[hach]

Hi

Just wondering about the people who already have MTW.

What Specs are your machines and how is the Game running?

Also if sluggish what has made the biggest difference when changed?
Lowering the Resolution/Detail or Sound Settings?

Thanx

[dancho]

Well, after a considerable struggle, my Athlon 800, TNT2, 128mb RAM system is performing very well.

At first, there were problems (see my other posts here and at totalwar.com). But things straightened out when I moved the game from the E: drive to the C: drive. At the same time a went ahead and clicked on "Install DirectX 8.1" (even though it said my version was up to date). The problems went away *completely*.

For the single player campaign, my system is more than adequate (and I'm familiar with how 'wishful thinking' can alter my perception, but that's not the case here).

[ToranagaSama]

Win2000 pro
Athlon XP 1.8 ghz
Swiftech MCX462 HS - Alpha PAL 8045 80mm fan
512 megs Corsair XMS Memory
ATI Radeon 7500 AIW (stock fan)
Customized Addtronics 7890A case
(with enough fans to take off and fly)
blah, blah,....

Currently, I have two Swap files on separte drives, 490 and 900 megs respectively. (don't ask!) Because of this, every now and then there's a slight milisecond hiccup. This is a tweaking issue on my part.

I experience no sluggish or slowdowns (just the slight hiccup). I run MTW with a bunch of utility type programs going, i.e., Norton's cleansweep monitor and anti-virus (auto-protect), a cookiewall, utilities for my video card, printer, and cdr; as well as monitoring utilites for my cable connection, rrmedic and netstatlive.

So far, I've noticed my "free memory" drops to rougly 200 megs, which is about the lowest I've experienced. STW-MI would drop free memory to the low 300s.

Now, I do experience some sort of graphic glitch after extending playing. Screen freezes in the midst of play. Alt-tab cures the freeze. I suspect that this is a video driver problem. MTW's readme specifically mentions that Radeon users need the latest drivers. The readme left me with the impression that there's still some Radeon driver issues not fully resolve as yet. ATI is notorious for issuing weak drivers. I've d/led the latest drivers but have yet to intall. So we shall see.

All in all the hiccup and freeze are minor issues in Single play, but would probably be huge in multiplay. The new drivers may just cure both issues.

If you've got an less capable systeme, my suggestions is before you start turn off MTW's "fun" stuff. Tweak your system!!

1) Defragment your hardrive and keep it defragged!! A weekly auto-defrag is nice. Put MTW on a separate harddrive or separate partition. (Use Partition Magic and put this partition to the "front" of your HD.)

If you "cannot" use a separate HD/partition then use a good Defragmenter and move all elements of MTW to the "front" of the HD. Defragment weekly.

2) Despite what the readme states, DO NOT let Windoze manage your Swap file. Set the swap file size yourself. I strongly suggest 500 megs on a separate HD or separate partition. (Again, move this partition to the "front" of your HD.) Defragement the Swap file weekly.

[The above is excellent system maintenance, throwing money at poor maintenance issue doesn't make sense.]

3) Do a google search for "video tweak" you should come up with a couple of sites with howtos tweak your video card settings (for your particular video card/chipset).

[Successful implementation of the above can amaze you.]

4) Lastly, (before pumping up the CPU and consequently the motherboard) memory, memory, memory!!! 256-512 megs of the best "quality" memory you can afford.

Before I recently upgraded, I had a Celeron 300A o/ced to 450, 128 megs PC100 Corsair, Voodoo 3 and an Addtronics 6890A case. STW and STW-MI, as well as, Homeworld, Half-Life, RRT2, Troppico, CivII, Pharaoh, Earth 2150, Ground Control, etc.---NO PROBLEME! I made NO adjustments to the game performance settings-NEVER!

Finally, if your operating system, if your using WinME, dump it pronto. If Win98, spend cash on upgraded OS before hardware. Win98 is a resource hog. Win2000 is a vast improvement!! Oh, yeah, a cache manager helps wonders (lots of good free utilities out there).

Moral of this story: Tweak and Maintain, Tweak and Maintain.

[Vanya]

GAH!

Vanya's PC dates from the Stone Age. Its a P3 500 with 128 MB RAM and a cable connection. Runs like the wind. Really. Vanya has had no problems with it, and has experienced no lag so far. Of course, Vanya has not tried any MP games yet...

GAH!

Oh, and it runs Win98SE.

GAH!


[This message has been edited by Vanya (edited 08-29-2002).]

[The Sultan]

On a similar note, has anybody tried MP with a dial-up yet? I am planning to switch to broadband soon but haven't quite got round to it.

I do know playing first person shooters is completely pointless on d-up (but then who would want to waste their time on them anyway?),

My theory is there may be much less actual data flying around with MTW - eg. a dynamically updating battlelog or something which may facilitate d-up gaming... Most likely i'm just making this up looking for a way out of shelling out for broadband http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[solypsist]

my computer is three years old, and runs 600Mhz. it plays MTW fine, but sometimes has a little problem running large battles. It's fine running complicated/huge games like MOHAA, and MTW, but I have to turn all my settings to their lowest or off to get things to run smoothly. MTW has not frozen or locked yet, and I think my system can handle it all the way through.

[CaPeFeAr]

i set up a connection montering program during a 4v4 and averaged 80kbps download and im only on a 56k. the host was on dsl. this tells me that mtw uses a different form of compression to send data than before, a much more efficient system. an example for those who dont understand compression: i can download a txt file at almost 500kbps but sound and images only at 50kbps, the reason is that txt can be compressed much more.

mtw will also run slightly out of sync. this allows multiplay to go on without much lag because the game doesnt wait for each bird to be in sync before the next frame.

so the connection is not only faster but more constant/consistent.

P.S. i dont know if ive read this anywhere or not but when battles do freeze online... 1 press of the esc button will instantly take you back into foyer. no more lockups! (execpt for the host)

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[DaCount]

Only played singleplay so far.
But have a AMD700Mhz/256MB/Soundblaster Live!/Geforce 2MX 32mb and the game runs like a charm. No problems at all, stable as hell and smooth. Oh standard settings in the game as i didn't chance a thing yet.

[The Sultan]

Thanks for the info CF.

So I am right then in thinking that MP games are just bunging a (compressed) text file around? This is good news for us 56k peeps.

The game specs claim 28.8k + modem, but I find it really quite hard to believe!

[Puzz3D]

Sultan,

Yes, just the unit orders are sent over the internet. Each machine in the game uses those orders to run the full battle. I've played with two people who have trouble staying in a game of WE/MI, but they were fine in MTW. So, what CapeFear is saying would account for that.

[The Sultan]

Thanks for that, so in simple terms only the moves are transmitted. The game generates the battle based on the coordinates fed to it...

Thus we may not see exactly the same battle on our screens but representations of it. I guess what I'm wondering then is how does the game keep track of casualties?

Is it not possible for the algorithm which determines what happens to differ on various machines or is that something thats all worked out at the host...?

Am I just being completely naive?