Empire Total War system requirements

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Originally Posted by knoddy

ok i have a couple of tech questions for the computer savvy. i know wot im talkin bout most the time but ive had a few issues.

I upgraded my pc with a second 2 GiG stick of ram, a MSI 4670 512MB GPU. i also updated my power supply. and yet my performance has gone down. my pc is loading slower, and its performance is just alot worse than b4.

so my question is why? the only reason i can think of, is that my mate who is spose to be computer savvy said that the new stick of ram was faster than the older one, would this ruin the computers speed and performance?

also the only other thing is that i had alot of drama's updating the drivers but now they are up to date and its still chugging.

this is not just in game, windows takes ages to load, any game i try and play takes way longer than b4. let me know :)

Cheers knoddy

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Yes, at that point, it does sound like a RAM issue. It could be in my experience one of four things

1) The RAM is a different brand - different brands of ram can cause speed issues, since each company has their own tweaks.
2) Your Using RAM that is faster then the other RAM. Again, this can cause issues as the faster RAM scales down to sync with the other RAM.
3) Motherboard incompatibility - Some motherboards just do not like certain RAM, no matter what you do.
4) Not getting enough power - This is actually an issue on the motherboard, and it can be a short or one of the transistors has gone bad (have you experienced any crashes?)

Someone else may have another suggestion as well.

Try taking out your old stick of RAM and only use your new one.

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Originally Posted by YLC

Yes, at that point, it does sound like a RAM issue. It could be in my experience one of four things

1) The RAM is a different brand - different brands of ram can cause speed issues, since each company has their own tweaks.
2) Your Using RAM that is faster then the other RAM. Again, this can cause issues as the faster RAM scales down to sync with the other RAM.
3) Motherboard incompatibility - Some motherboards just do not like certain RAM, no matter what you do.
4) Not getting enough power - This is actually an issue on the motherboard, and it can be a short or one of the transistors has gone bad (have you experienced any crashes?)

Someone else may have another suggestion as well.

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hmm nope havnt been crashing, the ram is the same brand, the same size, just diff speeds.

my house mate says that it mite be a driver issue. cos i had several crashes installing the new drivers

ima try reinstallin the drivers after work, if that doesnt work, ill try taking a stick of ram out, finally ill formatt the pc heh.

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Originally Posted by knoddy

hmm nope havnt been crashing, the ram is the same brand, the same size, just diff speeds.

my house mate says that it mite be a driver issue. cos i had several crashes installing the new drivers

ima try reinstallin the drivers after work, if that doesnt work, ill try taking a stick of ram out, finally ill formatt the pc heh.

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Hmmmm...only when installing new drivers?

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Originally Posted by YLC

Hmmmm...only when installing new drivers?

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yes i had 3-4 hard locks while installing the new graphics drivers and also ive had a lot of sound driver issues. after i sucessfully installed my graphics ones. im thinking sometime this evenin, ima restart in vga mode, unistall my sound and video drivers and then reinstall them


any other suggestions

Cheers Knoddy

Dell Studio Laptop
Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 @ 2.0GHz
4 GB Ram
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650
Vista 32 bit

My only concern is the graphics card and what I can put into a laptop vs. desktop.

just a quick update on my issues - pulled the older ram stick, made no diff, pc still takes n age to load, WoW which normally takes 10-15 secs to load the log in screen takes 1-2 mins im thinking its a driver issue so ima uninstall/reinstall my graphics drivers tonite.

Cheers Knoddy

Here are my system specs:

Processor: 1 x AMD Opteron 1218 Dual Core 2.6GHz
· Processor Technology: AMD PowerNow! Technology
· Bus Speed: 1000MHz
· Chipset: AMD 690G
· Standard Memory: 2GB
· Maximum Memory: 4GB
· Memory Technology: DDR2 SDRAM
· Memory Standard: DDR2-667/PC2-5300
· Hard Drive: 1 x 160GB Serial ATA/300 7200 rpm
· Optical Drive: DVD-Writer (Double-layer) - DVD-RAM/±R/±RW (Serial ATA)
· Controller: Quad-channel Serial ATA/300 PCI Integrated RAID Controller supporting 0, 1 RAID Level
· Graphics Controller: nVIDIA Quadro NVS 290 256MB DDR2 SDRAM PCI Express x16
· Network: Broadcom Netxtreme 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet IEEE 802.3ab PCI Express x1 Integrated
· Ports: 1 x 59-pin DMS-59 Display
· Operating System: Windows Vista Business

I got good advice to upscale the graphics card and was going to get a GeForce 9600 512 MB card DDR3. Can you guys tell from what I typed if the GeForce card will work with my setup/mb/and power supply. I know very little about computers and want to run the game on medium at least. Any suggestions are welcome.

also, should this set up be good enough to run the game on medium.... and maybe even high?

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Originally Posted by JeromeBaker

also, should this set up be good enough to run the game on medium.... and maybe even high?

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Probably not high but medium it should do depending on the resolution. The GPU will work with you current system.

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Originally Posted by knoddy

just a quick update on my issues - pulled the older ram stick, made no diff, pc still takes n age to load, WoW which normally takes 10-15 secs to load the log in screen takes 1-2 mins im thinking its a driver issue so ima uninstall/reinstall my graphics drivers tonite.

Cheers Knoddy

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Your problem screams of bad drivers. But it can also be a lot of other things. If you went from an Nvidia GPU to an ATI GPU then there might be some part of the old GPU's drivers left. Easiest why to make sure you get everything right is to do a fresh install of the O.S. seeing as it could be a bunch of problems like spyware, bad drivers, etc. But if you don't want to do that then make sure you uninstall the drivers the correct way. First unistall them the normal way. Then when it asks you to restart do so. When loading windows back up go into safe mode and use a program called CCleaner to completely remove all the files. There is another step and that is to go into the registry and manually delete any part of the old driver, but if you delete something that you shouldn't have then you will be forced to reinstall windows.

If this doesn't help then I would do a fresh install of windows. And if that doesn't work then you might have bigger issues.

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Originally Posted by Barkhorn1x

Just came into some $$ and can afford to spend approx. $200 to upgrade the old rig. Here are my specs.:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU
4GB DDR2 PC4200 Non-ECC Memory (4GB x 1)
MSI K9N Neo-F V.3 AM2 NVIDIA nForce 560 MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
16X DVD+/-R/RW Dual Layer Drive w/Cyberlink
GeForce 8600GTS 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express (2 DVI)
Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU ATX 12V 2.0 500W Power Supp

Found an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 Dual-Core Processor on NewEgg for $88.00 - will that work with the mobo? And do you think I can upgrade my GPU (Nvidia only) for - say $120?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103272

Thoughts?

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I am not to knowledgeable on AMD systems but it should work. Here it isn't on the compatibility list. http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...odel=K9N_Neo-F

This is though....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103210



You can get some nice GPU upgrades for that mobo for 120.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187030

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127406


and if you can afford a tiny bit more (less then half the cost of the game) you could get this..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187052

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Originally Posted by Belgolas

Your problem screams of bad drivers. But it can also be a lot of other things. If you went from an Nvidia GPU to an ATI GPU then there might be some part of the old GPU's drivers left. Easiest why to make sure you get everything right is to do a fresh install of the O.S. seeing as it could be a bunch of problems like spyware, bad drivers, etc. But if you don't want to do that then make sure you uninstall the drivers the correct way. First unistall them the normal way. Then when it asks you to restart do so. When loading windows back up go into safe mode and use a program called CCleaner to completely remove all the files. There is another step and that is to go into the registry and manually delete any part of the old driver, but if you delete something that you shouldn't have then you will be forced to reinstall windows.

If this doesn't help then I would do a fresh install of windows. And if that doesn't work then you might have bigger issues.

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nope didnt go from nvidia to ati, why would i buy that nvidia crap ;)


thanks for the help but ye this was basically my next steep. ima download CCleaner now, and uninstall them and reinstall hopefully it works!

Cheers Knoddy

ok so ive reinstalled my drivers and it doesnt seem to have helped much at all but im not quite sure lol, it mite have helped a bit but still a bit off.

i have another theory tho, when i install the drivers i get a windows logo testing warning, saying my card isnt tested for XP, is it possible that my issues are stemming from the fact that im running XP for a DX10 card?

Cheers Knoddy

For those of you considering a new pc, just a few pointers. I found these out when I looked couple nights ago, and it's been a while.

One: Don't buy alienware...not worth it

Two: The I7 is coming, and while not perfect it is supposed to provide more multithreading for games.

Three: If possible, go nvidia (i have nothing against Radeon, but most game companies seem to favor Nvidia)


The bottom line is, if you are planning a brand new pc, to last you 2-3 years, you are better off waiting another 3 months and spending 2k then spending 2k now and finding out in one year it's obselete.

The tech geniuses here could tell you what models work but if your like me and are getting store bought and not custom, your best bet is a desktop. The XPS's are good models and I have not heard many complaints.

Plus main benefit with a desktop is you can switch out the graphics card (it's not hard even I can do it) where as a laptop you can't.

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Originally Posted by Belgolas

I am not to knowledgeable on AMD systems but it should work. Here it isn't on the compatibility list. http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...odel=K9N_Neo-F

This is though....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103210



You can get some nice GPU upgrades for that mobo for 120.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187030

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127406


and if you can afford a tiny bit more (less then half the cost of the game) you could get this..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187052

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Thanks - great info.

Tried cleaning up with Driver Sweeper (http://www.phyxion.net/) before reinstalling?

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Originally Posted by Polemists

If possible, go nvidia (i have nothing against Radeon, but most game companies seem to favor Nvidia)

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Really? Hard to favor Nvidia when ATI/AMD is putting out such compelling cards right now. I just upgraded to this, and it's cutting through my games like a hot knife through butter.

I think ATI owns the sweet spot on the price/performance curve right now.

I have XP, 2GB RAM (1066 MHz), an EVGA 9800GT 512 MB, and a e7200 wolfdale dual-core (2.53 Ghz). I'm playing at high settings, 16x antistropic, low shadows, and 1440x900 resolution, and have no problems with fps. I haven't tried increasing graphics yet, because the game takes so long to load as it is, and I just want to play...

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Really? Hard to favor Nvidia when ATI/AMD is putting out such compelling cards right now. I just upgraded to this, and it's cutting through my games like a hot knife through butter.

I think ATI owns the sweet spot on the price/performance curve right now.

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I'm certainly not going to argue that ATI has the price/performance advantage, espically since they arn't sold by most major main stream sellers.

However, it has sadly been my experience, back when I owened a ATI, that Nvidia graphically issues get addressed first, before ATI. As nvidia is a game sponsor many times.

If you look at Empire, nvidia is a sponsor.

Once I get my new RAM these will be my system specs:

64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+
465GB Memory
4GB DDR2 RAM at 800MHz
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS

How well should Empire run on my PC?

Yeah that should run it

I wonder if Empire is a big enough deal that the graphics companies will issue special hotfix drivers for it ... assuming any are warranted, that is.

lesse...my laptop...broke on the week of release(this week) so I need to send it in..no release date playing for me...:( However, this may be a chance to upgrade some parts. I have:


Vista Home Premium Edition, 64-bit
4gb ram
intel pentium dual CPU t3400 @2.16 GHz
nvidia geforce 9200m GE(256 mb i think)


which would you guys say I should upgrade most on? I probably have a low budget so as little as possible but something that could help play the game at least with unit/texture/effects detail on medium....the other stuff I'm fine with low settings....Oh and I like the large-scale units though I'm kind of disappointed large units only give you 80 men

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I wonder if Empire is a big enough deal that the graphics companies will issue special hotfix drivers for it ... assuming any are warranted, that is.

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Well they are saying do to Dawn of War 2's problem that ETW may be the strategy release of the year. So i'd say that's a pretty big deal. Plus the fact no other major title is coming out till June on pc (EA moved all titles back to June, and EA now owns most pc only companies) i'd say you may get one or two.

Intel Quad Core 2,4 GHZ
XFX GeForce 9600GT 670M 512MB PhysX CUDA
4 GB RAM

Would this run Empire, at high settings? Or do I need a better GPU?

Not that tech savy but I can't imagine 512 and a Quad not running it on high.

I mean they do make i7 and a 1gig video card now, but Duo and 512 graphics card run it on ultra, so dunno why your rig wouldn't.

You should be able to run it on ultra no problem.

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Originally Posted by Polemists

Not that tech savy but I can't imagine 512 and a Quad not running it on high.

I mean they do make i7 and a 1gig video card now, but Duo and 512 graphics card run it on ultra, so dunno why your rig wouldn't.

You should be able to run it on ultra no problem.

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I bought a card with similar specs in the 9800-series, instead of the 9600. Hm... somewhere around 130 Euro.

That should do it. If it doesnt, Empire is flawed :viking:

I decided to buy a TW game for my birthday. I also want to buy a 1GB DirectX 9.0c compatible video card (shader 2.0 or higher). And an Intel processor. And i could buy M2TW or ETW (My RTW has a cyclic redundancy check, please help!)

Clone Trooper, you should not buy any video card that has 256 megs of ram. 512 will get you through the day much better, and it's not even terribly expensive.

Will my processor run this?

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+ with 2.01 Ghz

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Originally Posted by Leonhard

Will my processor run this?

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+ with 2.01 Ghz

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It's under the minimum requirements, so I'm afraid I would have to say probably not. :no:

Will this game make better use of multi-threading? If that is not the case will my dual-core 2.4ghz t8300 cut the mustard?

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Originally Posted by a-e

Will this game make better use of multi-threading? If that is not the case will my dual-core 2.4ghz t8300 cut the mustard?

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It does use multi-threading and you should be fine with that Processor :2thumbsup:.

Thanks, I hope the rest of it can cope :D

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Clone Trooper, you should not buy any video card that has 256 megs of ram. 512 will get you through the day much better, and it's not even terribly expensive.

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I was browsing through a huge number of GPUs and the price did not always seem to fit the megs of ram. Is it such a big deal? The ram. I found some 1 TB cards which were cheaper than 512.

Depending on how big your monitor is, yes, the amount of RAM on your videocard might be a big deal. For people purchasing right now, I would recommend either an ATI 4850 1 gig as a great deal, or the Nvidia 9800 GT 1 gig.

Note that the Nvidia card will be approximately 10% slower, but some people really like Nvidia, so it's important that they have that option in front of them.

Ram is not everything thing. Performance will be worse on most cheap 1gb graphics cards because the memory bus is too small. For the 4850 or 9800 GT just go with the 512mb card because you wont see a benefit with the more ram.

I bought my machines as MTWII was coming out. It was a beast back then so I'm interested to see how it handled E:TW

it's slightly modified.

XP Service Pack 3
Overclocked Dual Core at 3.4Ghz (OC'd from 2.4Ghz)
2GiG's of 800Mhz Ram
Overclocked 8800GTX 768mb ram (running at 8800 Ultra speeds)
150 Gig WesternDigital Raptor 10 000 rpm

I'm hoping I can turn down the AA to x2 and run it on the top level settings in the game.

Fingers are crossed though.

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Originally Posted by Belgolas

Ram is not everything thing. Performance will be worse on most cheap 1gb graphics cards because the memory bus is too small. For the 4850 or 9800 GT just go with the 512mb card because you wont see a benefit with the more ram.

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I don't remember saying that RAM was everything. At higher resolutions, with AA turned up, you will see a difference between a 1 gig 4850 and a 512 meg 4850. And as games come out over the next two years that use larger and more detailed textures, the difference will become more pronounced.

In my opinion it's worth spending the extra $20 or so to buy more time at higher settings. Obviously you want to get the right chipset, that goes without saying.

In the end it's a relational situation between "through put" and "ram". Getting a balanced card is the best way to go IMO.

I hope that E:TW gets enough leverage in the gaming world for NVidia and ATI to release drivers for us as they do for other big games. I've never seen that to date and it would be great if they did.

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Originally Posted by Pinxit

Intel Quad Core 2,4 GHZ
XFX GeForce 9800GT 670M 512MB PhysX CUDA
4 GB RAM
Vista

Would this run Empire, at high settings? Or do I need a better GPU?

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Update: Confirmed! I played it, the demo, and my god, it runs without flaw with everything set to Ultra. AA set to x4. Holy mother of some weird guy in the clouds that does not exist! Its the most beautifull piece of technology I have ever seen. The battles... the drowning soldiers... the damage on the ships... its so.... AWE.

And that means a lot coming from a :viking:

Hi guys, I'm thinking of buying this laptop, do you guys think it will be able to run E:TW?

Base Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40Ghz, 3MB, 1066MHz)
Microsoft Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 - English
Memory 4096MB 1067MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
Video Card 512MB ATI® Radeon™ HD 3670 graphics card
Hard Drive 250GB (7,200rpm) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive

It's a Dell Studio XPS 16.

Thanks guys!

first off, I would say Yes definetely. Maybe not on ultra max, but definetely will be able to run it fairly well I would guess at minimum medium settings


I'll ask again since nobody answered my question:smash:Which do you think I should upgrade first-a 256 mb graphics card into a 512 mb or would you say I should upgrade my dual-core 2.16 GHz processor?(cheap laptops ftw)

Cant believe I've only just registered here. Been skulking around these boards for years now!

Anyway, down to business. Got empire today and finally after 8 hours of updating (yes, eight) I could play it... but only with settings on low, and frankly its just not the same seeing hundreds of 4 pixel men running around the screen, so I'm willing to spend a fair bit on upgrading my rig, but I'm really not sure what needs upgrading.

Heres my specs:

Windows XP
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU @ 2.4 GHz
3gb RAM
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256mb

I got it 18 months ago and it was pretty expensive at the time, save the graphics card which I intended to upgrade every now and again but never got around to it. Is this the weak link in my setup, or would I be looking at upgrading more than just the graphics card to run it on higher settings? (preferably high, but medium would be acceptable rather than spending £300 or something)

Any help would be appreciated, since I'm bound to go out and buy the wrong thing without advice.

You should get more RAM, just to be safe because of XP

But your graphics card is seriously old.

Quad-core makes the min. 2.4 well.

Actually, Smurflor, I'd be surprised if you needed more RAM or more processor. Your initial assessment was correct, the videocard is the weak link in that chain. Moving to a medium- or high-end ATI or Nvidia card would make you happy. If you want to talk specific models, just ask.

Alright, thanks for the input. I'll try get a new card sorted in the next few days. Guess I can cope with units that look like they were taken from C&C 1 for a while ~:)

Welcome to the Org Smurflor :2thumbsup:.

I think you should add Steam to the first post, as it is required to play the game and is not mentioned in other reviews. People should be informed about what they buy.

Sir Beane, and others ;)

I´m worried that the game doesn´t handle multi threading, any news on that? Here´s the specs for my new PC I bought for christmas.

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz
Graphics: 2xASUS RADEON HD4870 512MB
RAM: 2xKingston HyperX 2GB DDR2 1066Mhz
HD: 2xWestern Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATA2
Sound: ASUS P5Q Pro

With 4 cores I´m hoping to be able to play on maximum graphic settings. Huge units are NOT important to me. I rather go with medium settings here. What y´all think?

Vista
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4GHz
2 gb memory
256MB ATI Radeon X1650XT GDDR3

I can only run realistically on low campaign map and medium battle.

I assume it would be because of the graphics card? Maybe could use another gb of ram?

Im upgrading my computer now anyways can someone reccomend a set up that would allow me to play it with everything on ultra

I currently have

2.6 Ghz processor
2 Gb of ram
Pentium 4
XP home edition

Its really slow and choppy playing now.

The game supports multi threading.

Get a dual core processor zim, as wlel as a decent graphics card. That is what is holding mine back, I've got an nvidia 8600 laptop card.

One day. One day I will custom build my own computer.

I'm probably going to pick up 1 or 2 gigs of ram and a 512 card today...

512 card in what? Nvidia? What series? ATI?

That matters more than the memory on the card.

Also, what type of RAM? :laugh4:

Hey pev,

based on what you are seeing now and what machine you have do you think my machine will be able to handle Ultra settings?

XP Service Pack 3
Overclocked Dual Core at 3.4Ghz (OC'd from 2.4Ghz)
2GiG's of 800Mhz Ram
Overclocked 8800GTX 768mb ram (running at 8800 Ultra speeds)
150 Gig WesternDigital Raptor 10 000 rpm

I just realized my problem may be because of the resolution I'm playing it on. Hmmm... I have a 19 inch widescreen monitor, resolution around 1400 wide. That may be messing with my poor, poor graphics card.

I've had the card for like 2 years now, so I'm gonna upgrade it anyway. If it still can't pull it off, I
m turning the resolution down to 1080 or so, playing in a window so that my screen doesn't bug out every time i run the game.

I'm considering a "gaming laptop," since this game just came out and we've been considering a laptop for a while. Would GREATLY appreciate any recommendations among these three available at Best Buy. I assume laptops are something where you get what you pay for, more or less, but if the cheapest one ($750) will run E:TW at high settings, I'd like to go for that.

Toshiba Satellite Laptop $750

Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with SP1
Intel® Centrino® Intel® Core™2 Duo Mobile 2.0GHz
WXGA TFT-LCD 15.4" widescreen with TruBrite technology (1280 x 800)
4GB PC6400 DDR2 SDRAM
ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3650 512MB

Asus Laptop $1,000

Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Intel® Centrino® 2 Intel® Core™2 Duo Mobile 2.13GHz
WXGA 15.6" widescreen with 1366 x 768 resolution
4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS 512MB GDDR3

Gateway FX Edition Laptop $1,150

Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with SP1
Intel® Centrino® 2 Intel® Core™2 Duo Mobile 2.26GHz
WXGA 17" high-definition widescreen TFT-LCD with Ultrabright technology
4GB DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS 1GB GDDR3

Thanks very much for any input!!! All I can humbly offer in return is concise yet thorough AARs, with screenshots provided by one of the PCs above, written in character as best I can! (I love writing AARs but haven't done it on here since MTW1). I'm thinking "The King's Journal" ... "In receipt to-day of a missive from our cousin in The Hague. He has offered to acquaint our Admiralty with a most ingenious improvement in the design of a frigate, strengthening the hull without any sacrifice in speed. I am skeptical, but all he asks in return is a blockade of our mutual enemy's port at Brest, an action whose merit is obvious and one we likely would have done anyway."

What the... I run everything on ultra, or max, but the soldiers in the game fade away into 2 pixels when zoomed out, even the slightest. WHY? It looks awful.

Well my machine seems to handle High setting at 1600 x 1200 (21 inch 4:3) with 4 x AA and 16 x AF without too many problems.

Ultra settings drop it to less than 20 fps so it's not playable.

Just though I'd let you all know.:beam:

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Originally Posted by Pinxit

What the... I run everything on ultra, or max, but the soldiers in the game fade away into 2 pixels when zoomed out, even the slightest. WHY? It looks awful.

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IIRC, M2TW was the same way. It's like there are two different models, one for zoomed out and one for zoomed in. This allows for the thousands of troops on screen at once without heavy lag when zoomed out and commanding.

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Originally Posted by peacemaker

I'll ask again since nobody answered my question:smash:Which do you think I should upgrade first-a 256 mb graphics card into a 512 mb or would you say I should upgrade my dual-core 2.16 GHz processor?(cheap laptops ftw)

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I say upgrade the graphicscard, a 512MB card should be better but it's not just the amount of Mb that does the trick, a 512MB GeForce 8600GT is weaker than a 256MB Geforce 8800GTX although I think the latter doesn't exist, but a 512MB version of the same card usually doesn't do a whole lot and is certainly not worth an upgrade.

My system is...odd. I bought a powerful laptop right before the new DX10 cards came out, so I'm stuck with a 7950 GTX. Whoa is me.

Anyway, I'm running the following:

Vista x64 Premium
Intel Quad Core 2.4 Ghz
4GB RAM
7950 GTX

I have a 24 inch (or 25 inch, hell, can't remember) monitor. On "high" settings at max resolution I get severe stutter, on medium I get very light stutter but playable. Any recommendations on settings/resolution? I'm thinking that running at max resolution (1920x1200) is probably a no-go with the card I have...

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Originally Posted by ArtillerySmoke

IIRC, M2TW was the same way. It's like there are two different models, one for zoomed out and one for zoomed in. This allows for the thousands of troops on screen at once without heavy lag when zoomed out and commanding.

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But I had no such experience with the previous games, not in this extent. This is not intended. Its some weird flaw. It must be. The game looks like crap in land battles because of this. I cant even place the camera 20 meters from a unit until it goes 2 pixels. And thats going from Ultra to 2 pixels.

No, it isn't. It is totally intended.

My comp can't make it past medium, and I barely see them

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Originally Posted by Pinxit

But I had no such experience with the previous games, not in this extent. This is not intended. Its some weird flaw. It must be. The game looks like crap in land battles because of this. I cant even place the camera 20 meters from a unit until it goes 2 pixels. And thats going from Ultra to 2 pixels.

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Think about it. When you are zoomed in, the computer is rendering and completing animations of hundreds of troops. It goes slower, when you are zoomed out, its better for everyone if the problem of animating and rendering all that is just turned into sprites with a few frames. Every total war game has used sprites. Zoomed out and watch things walk, they have a 2 frame walk. Go back to Rome: Total War and zoom out while facing the front of Hastati. They will suddenly face a different way, due to the sprites.

It makes the game go better, you can't tell the difference.

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Originally Posted by pevergreen

Think about it. When you are zoomed in, the computer is rendering and completing animations of hundreds of troops. It goes slower, when you are zoomed out, its better for everyone if the problem of animating and rendering all that is just turned into sprites with a few frames. Every total war game has used sprites. Zoomed out and watch things walk, they have a 2 frame walk. Go back to Rome: Total War and zoom out while facing the front of Hastati. They will suddenly face a different way, due to the sprites.

It makes the game go better, you can't tell the difference.

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Im going to give you a screenshot of what it looks like when I am able to. I do promise you, either the design is very flawed, or there is something wrong with my comp. Its not supposed to look like that. But since I dont have a screenshot, I am using someone else to make my point. This, below, is how it is supposed to look. In my game the first row of soldiers do look like that, and all is well. But the line behind is a blur on my set up. It isnt on everyone elses. Its crazy.

https://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k...2006/ETW04.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pinxit

Im going to give you a screenshot of what it looks like when I am able to. I do promise you, either the design is very flawed, or there is something wrong with my comp. Its not supposed to look like that. But since I dont have a screenshot, I am using someone else to make my point. This, below, is how it is supposed to look. In my game the first row of soldiers do look like that, and all is well. But the line behind is a blur on my set up. It isnt on everyone elses. Its crazy.

https://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k...2006/ETW04.jpg

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That guy probably has a better graphics card then you.

Different cards render in different ways. As Pevergreen pointed out to you - This is a matter of rendering only what it's zoomed in on, so that your performance doesn't suffer.

Your experience with previous Total Wars might not matter. This is Empire and it has significantly higher requirements than previous titles.

For the record - Everything you're describing is something that I, and everyone else I know, dealt with when it came to M2TW. There are basically 2 models - the fully rendered zoomed in version, and the zoomed out "sprites". I don't remember any TW being different except for MTW and Shogun, where it was only sprites whether you were zoomed out or not.

My set-up is pretty low budget, but also pretty recent.

Pentium Dual-Core E2200 2.2GHz
Vista 64 bit
4GB RAM
ATI HD 4670 512MB GDDR3
More than 100GB free on a 7200 rpm hard drive

What sort of settings should I be able to run at?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ArtillerySmoke

That guy probably has a better graphics card then you.

Different cards render in different ways. As Pevergreen pointed out to you - This is a matter of rendering only what it's zoomed in on, so that your performance doesn't suffer.

Your experience with previous Total Wars might not matter. This is Empire and it has significantly higher requirements than previous titles.

For the record - Everything you're describing is something that I, and everyone else I know, dealt with when it came to M2TW. There are basically 2 models - the fully rendered zoomed in version, and the zoomed out "sprites". I don't remember any TW being different except for MTW and Shogun, where it was only sprites whether you were zoomed out or not.

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I didnt have that problem when playing Medieval Total War 2. Not even close. It looked fine at a distance. But this is like they have used sprites models from Shogun.

https://img73.imageshack.us/img73/8312/russiabattle.jpg

Most of those units are sprites, I think they look damn good.

Vist 32bit, 4gig ram, 2.4 dual core, 8600 GT.

Playing on Low for nearly everything for FPS increase.

Hender, probably low-medium

Pinxit, the units go like that all the time. I don't possibly see how you could view that as a problem, since I can barely ever zoom in on a unit without my flank collapsing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Martok

Processor: 2.4 GHz Single Core Intel or AMD equivalent processor.

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What would be the AMD equivalent of this processor? Tried to find answers on the internet, but couldn't find it.

Lol I think at this rate we are going to need to change this thread to

What pc can I buy to best run Empire within my budget :laugh4:

Here is what I have, I dont experience much lag at all and I have unit Size on High:



Manufacturer:
BIOSTAR Group
Processor:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
Memory:
2046MB RAM
Hard Drive:
250 GB
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT OC

the game DOES support multithreading, at least dual core CPUs (I have an core duo 2 E8400). I don't know how this legend spread to the forums, but in battles I'm constanty around 60% of CPU occupation. Multicore support doesn't mean having the cpu at 100% occupation all time (even if it would be good, and some engines manages to do that).

If you fight a battle, then exit, restart, set the affinity for only one core in the taskbar (use alt + tab while in the main menu), and then re-fight the same battle, you should see a sensible loss of FPS.

I'd further say that, after you turn off that (badly implemented and as of now useless) SSAO rendering, the game becomes CPU bound for a lot of systems imho.

It says it works well on i7 cores, arent they quad cores?

that's marketing gimmicks and probably not much else

intel pay developers to feature that logo and optimize their code for intel CPUs, and in return offer some help with their engineers, but since the engine was a work in progress for so long I really doubt they had the time to make advantage of the new quadcores

Well all I know is the game runs like CRAP. I'm running a Quad Core (see my stats page a few posts up), but I think a lot of my problems are due to my 7950 GTX.

I can't seem to find the proper balance with my resolution, either. 1920 x 1200 is just way too much for my crappy card to handle. I'm running somewhere around 1600 now, but I'm not happy with it. The game is certainly playable, but I have everything on low and it looks TERRIBLE. The campaign map still stutters slightly, the occassional video is almost unwatchable (duelling videos I can't watch, and the last video in the RtI campaign....but all the others are fine, weird), and every now and again I get lag in battles.

When I was toying with settings, the game looked GREAT on high but was just unplayable.

Other than sending the computer (laptop, Sager) back for a %^&*#$@ $900 upgrade or building a desktop, anybody have any recommendations for settings?