So slow it's unplayable.

Greetings, fellow RTW lovers!

After reading some positive feedback on others fora about EB I decided to reinstall RTW and try out EB. I downloaded it, installed everything the way I was supposed to do it and booted up the game. I could live with the years it took to actually install the game, but it takes <minutes> to load the game up to the introduction videos? I timed it, and it's at least 3 minutes on my computer. So we move on to actually play a campaign game. I picked Pontus and after what appeared to be ages of loading time again I got to the campaign map. Fun, I'm losing thousands of coins from the get go, but that's okay - I got a big army. After moving some units around, I press the 'end turn' button and bam, that took another minute at least.

Now, my main gripe with the mod is that it makes the game so-incredibly-slow. Booting it up, starting/loading a game, ending a turn and loading battles/overlandmap take years. My question is, is this normal? I have a rig with a 2.80 pentium processor, 1024mb ram and a 512mb video card. I know it ain't good, but it runs Medieval Total War 2 without any problems at all and only with really big battles do I have to turn the unit detail and such down.

Maybe I'll give the game another try if there are decent fixes to be found, but for now I can't enjoy it thanks to the slowness of it all. I'm tempted to move back to Rome Total Realism, though I can't find the last version of it anywhere : <

A RTW lover

Some people dream of a 1 minute turn time. Some people live with EB with turn times for 3-4 mins (and some even longer). I know for a fact that at least one fan was able to pass an open university course and play EB thanks to his long loading times. While another is now competing in the world's strongest man competition, for the waits allowed him to lift weights and drink protein shakes for much of the day.

On a lighter note, there are no fixes for slow loading times. Such a fix would rob EB of its scripting, its government system, its complicated recruitment, its descriptions, its ...

Foot

Well the slow loading times are to be expected... However, after the initial load it never takes more than a minute for loading on my laptop, which ist 2 years old.

If you don't have the patience, then EB is probably not for you. But for 99% of us here, the slow loading times are more then conpensated by the immense depth and uniqueness of EB

well, let me break it to ya, EB needs a fair deal more system resources to run than M2TW. Try turning every other task off before loading it. And mind, you clearly don't have enough RAM there, as well as CPU power, assuming ur on a single core.

Europa Barbarorum is more demanding than other mods, also, trust me there is no way RTR can ever come close to EB in gaming and strategy, I played them both, and over the years I fell in love with EB. You cant except an easy ride with no faction in EB, within the first few turns, you must built your economy first.

Cheers.

Get +1GB of RAM; should speed things up. RAM is dirt cheap nowadays...
I had a similar problem with my machine -
AMD Athlon XP 2500+, then 1024MB, Radeon9800Pro GPU. With much less RAM than yours.
I upgraded with another 1024MB system-RAM; now general loading times are much shorter.
I can still go cook something during loading of the intro video but that is something I only have to do once so I actually DO go cook something after firing the game up.
Loading always takes long, but that's the price of sheer awesome. EB is sort of "encumbered" because it is packed full of history.

Consider getting the installer for EB with Barbarian Invasion; while it alters the behaviour of the AI, it considerably speeds up the AI turn on campaign map.
Same goes for ALX.exe if you have it (or so I heard; I don't have ALX.exe myself so I couldn't test it).

I tried a previous version of RTR very briefly - but I prefer to stick with EB because it puts more emphasis on historical accuracy even in battle-details (as far as the engine permits).
Also, I love the special feel EB has about it; you will only be able to appreciate this if you play it for more than just a few turns and you will have to read unit and building descriptions, year in history announcements etc a lot to get into it. EB imo is not about playing through twenty years in half an hour. Twenty years take me more something like a week or two - and I greatly enjoy it that way. I take a lot of time to thoroughly contemplate every move on the campaign map and I "role-play" my faction a lot; something that is possible due to the trait system of EB, which is extremely intricate and multi-faceted.
If you prefer "bang, bang, action, MORE BANG, DAKKADAKKA" and the likes and are in a hurry to rush through campaigns, EB will be only "playable" to you on a much faster machine. It's system requirements are much higher than vanilla RTW.
RTR might be somewhat "faster" on your current machine.
I am not saying that EB has no DAKKA, however. Only that it takes much computing power to play it like that.
I can't really do a *comparison* between EB and RTR however because I only played RTR for about three turns and because "comparisons" quickly lead to stupid statements like "X is better than Y". So I have simply posted what I personally like about EB. I hope this, and the recommendation to get more RAM, is helpful to you.

Slow load times were more of an issue when we were first releasing the mod and working on it, but at this point I'm surprised that it's much of a concern unless you are on a fairly old cpu. Our high school computers are a few years old and at max had one minute waits between turns (though the initial load time for the game was a little over ten minutes on them).

Believe it or not I play with 1024 RAM even on Vista :yes: I am happy to have around 1- 1,5 min for each turn end and EB main menu opens around 4-6 mins.
If you want to speed up: reduce video options. Though It may get you a CTD, do not activate the script if you do not matter the popups that will occur in each turn.
or try defragmenters, it makes wonders...

There is a thread somewhere instructing us all in how to speed up our machines. Try a search.

Also, we forgot one thing...

Welcome Fugazi, welcome to a wonderful world of Antiquity nerdness in EB, if you are a history affectionardo, you will love it despite the slowness, EB is slow because it stretches the RTW engine to its absolute limit, and it stretches it because it is crammed full of historical accuracy.

Welcome again to the game and the forum.

My comp is fast so first loading takes around 3 minutes. Ending turns 1 min or less and loading 45 secs or less. Im used to it, sometimes the loading screen takes even less, then I am angry that I couldnt read the quote:laugh4:. I can wait it, read something, get something from the kitchen, call someone, watch some tv, go to the toilet, or some private business:clown:

Anyway, if I have to wait longer to play the best mod ever, its ok with me!:2thumbsup:

There are a lot of ways to use your time useful, also as you're a new player you can take a good look at the quotes or loading screens.

~Fluvius

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Originally Posted by fugazi

Now, my main gripe with the mod is that it makes the game so-incredibly-slow. Booting it up, starting/loading a game, ending a turn and loading battles/overlandmap take years. My question is, is this normal? I have a rig with a 2.80 pentium processor, 1024mb ram and a 512mb video card. I know it ain't good, but it runs Medieval Total War 2 without any problems at all and only with really big battles do I have to turn the unit detail and such down.

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RTW running EB easily eats up about 2GB of its own. There's much more data in the form of traits and units and descriptions and script involved. It doesn't really help that you are using what looks to be Pentium D ?

(As an aside: I think by now the intrinsic value of the gold connectors are worth more than CPU as such.)

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Maybe I'll give the game another try if there are decent fixes to be found

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No there are none, and never will be. Lowering system requirements by ripping out features does not constitute a fix (at least in my book). So unfortunately -unless you upgrade some of the PC components/specs- it looks like you will be stuck at very long loading times.

fugazi, do you happen to play Civilization?

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Originally Posted by fugazi

Greetings, fellow RTW lovers!

After reading some positive feedback on others fora about EB I decided to reinstall RTW and try out EB. I downloaded it, installed everything the way I was supposed to do it and booted up the game. I could live with the years it took to actually install the game, but it takes <minutes> to load the game up to the introduction videos? I timed it, and it's at least 3 minutes on my computer. So we move on to actually play a campaign game. I picked Pontus and after what appeared to be ages of loading time again I got to the campaign map. Fun, I'm losing thousands of coins from the get go, but that's okay - I got a big army. After moving some units around, I press the 'end turn' button and bam, that took another minute at least.

Now, my main gripe with the mod is that it makes the game so-incredibly-slow. Booting it up, starting/loading a game, ending a turn and loading battles/overlandmap take years. My question is, is this normal? I have a rig with a 2.80 pentium processor, 1024mb ram and a 512mb video card. I know it ain't good, but it runs Medieval Total War 2 without any problems at all and only with really big battles do I have to turn the unit detail and such down.

Maybe I'll give the game another try if there are decent fixes to be found, but for now I can't enjoy it thanks to the slowness of it all. I'm tempted to move back to Rome Total Realism, though I can't find the last version of it anywhere : <

A RTW lover

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I can only dream of those lightning speeds you get with EB.

I've installed many mods to play when I don't have the time to start EB (less than 2 hours ain't worth starting EB), but all those mods last about 3 weeks until the novelty has worn off.

Eb is worth the wait (+ you can exercise, read, write, learn, do homework and pretty much every other home-activity that doesn't need a computer or constant attention.

It takes me 40 sec from starting eb shortcut to being in main menu of rtw..
I also have no complaints about campaign speed..
If I have many spies scattered than it gets slower but otherwise its fine..maybe 2 sec per faction or something..
But eb sometimes takes up up to 3.3 GB ram..
I dont know if that is normal or some kind of memory leak?

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Originally Posted by Mediolanicus

I can only dream of those lightning speeds you get with EB.

I've installed many mods to play when I don't have the time to start EB (less than 2 hours ain't worth starting EB), but all those mods last about 3 weeks until the novelty has worn off.

Eb is worth the wait (+ you can exercise, read, write, learn, do homework and pretty much every other home-activity that doesn't need a computer or constant attention.

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In fact by installing EB you agree to read more history, waiting times are ideal for that. I do it, and work on Turbator Germanium.

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Originally Posted by aelflune

fugazi, do you happen to play Civilization?

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Yeah, and you're one of the people who reminded me of the existence of this mod :laugh4:

I took notice of the mod years ago while I was still playing RTR daily, but at some point I stopped playing that and moved on. A month ago I picked up MTW2 at a bargain bin and got hooked again. Seeing you (and other people elsewhere) recommending EB I couldn't help myself but try it out. Maybe I'll give it another go and grab some books to read while waiting for turns to finish. Still gotta finish Guns, Germs and steel :idea2:

Thanks for the feedback, it goes to show that there's a lot of heart for this mod. Maybe I'll grab some extra ram sometime soon. Or just get a new computer, haha.

ps - I'm a history student hehe

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Originally Posted by fugazi

Still gotta finish Guns, Germs and steel :idea2:

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That's my current EB literature!

Great book! Although you have to keep in mind that it is just a theory and not the absolute truth.

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Originally Posted by Mediolanicus

That's my current EB literature!

Great book! Although you have to keep in mind that it is just a theory and not the absolute truth.

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Yes, but it's great food for thought. I got The Dutch Republic and Il Principe laying on my antique wooden desk too ;P

.. and I guess I'll give EB a try next week. I'll try to bump this thread by then with a report on how it was while accepting the slowness of the game (thanks to my crappy computer).

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Originally Posted by Mediolanicus

That's my current EB literature!

Great book! Although you have to keep in mind that it is just a theory and not the absolute truth.

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As a History Student he will have learned long time ago that there is no absolute truth. Source Criticism is the foundation of any good historian.

Palle, Ma Hist.

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Originally Posted by fugazi

Yeah, and you're one of the people who reminded me of the existence of this mod :laugh4:

I took notice of the mod years ago while I was still playing RTR daily, but at some point I stopped playing that and moved on. A month ago I picked up MTW2 at a bargain bin and got hooked again. Seeing you (and other people elsewhere) recommending EB I couldn't help myself but try it out. Maybe I'll give it another go and grab some books to read while waiting for turns to finish. Still gotta finish Guns, Germs and steel :idea2:

Thanks for the feedback, it goes to show that there's a lot of heart for this mod. Maybe I'll grab some extra ram sometime soon. Or just get a new computer, haha.

ps - I'm a history student hehe

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Shoot, I've been recognised! :lol: Well, enjoy. Initially, the long loading times were kind of weird, but after a while I got really used to it. Sometimes, I study while waiting :juggle2:

EB Forever...:balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2: :balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2: :balloon2::balloon2::balloon2:

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Originally Posted by Macilrille

EB Forever...:balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2: :balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2::balloon2: :balloon2::balloon2::balloon2:

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Mine, all mine!

I think that 'unplayable' is not the right word to use. Unplayable means either tons of CTDs, tons of bugs or bad programming making goals unaccomplishable etc. If that is what you define as unplayable then you seriously need more patience.

EB is not meant to be a light mod, its meant to be the definitive detailed historical mod, and due to that it requires a lot more loading time. If you don't like that then fine, play another mod, but you'd be missing out.

I personally don't notice any slowness at all, although that is partly that I am playing EB on a reasonably good computer while I originally played RTW on my old pc with only 512 RAM and a rubbish video card.

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Originally Posted by madbriton

I think that 'unplayable' is not the right word to use. Unplayable means either tons of CTDs, tons of bugs or bad programming making goals unaccomplishable etc. If that is what you define as unplayable then you seriously need more patience.

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To be fair, extreme slowness can make it not worth playing. When I started playing EB, I hadn't adjusted to it and found playing to be somewhat inconvenient because it seems to demand a lot of time. I thought I had to play for a long time in one sitting in order to justify the amount of loading time I had to put up with, and I don't always have that amount of time to spare.

But soon enough I got used to it, knowing what to expect, so I simply multitask while waiting. And it turns out that the loading times don't seem all that long now after all. Still, I find it funny when Supreme Commander, which my laptop can barely run, loads a lot faster than EB.

I like to play with my guitar in my lap and just do some picking between turns. Easy way to practice without wearing yourself out on either activity :)

When I started I two loathed the loading times. Now it is my favorite PC, mostly because of its awesomeness, but I like the load times. I don't watch TV usually, but I'll play with the TV in the background and watch it in between turns, also I read, or do homework while in school. This is the only game where I'm actually sometimes productive when I play, not completely wasting time.

I also find it adds to immersion, you aren't having the 4 hour campaigns of MTW2.

I've got less than 900 mb ram (and no, I don't even consider getting more), and the loading times still take maybe two or three minutes. But I managed to bring down loading times by (1) clearing my entire D-disk (which has some 6 GB for EB, and 33 GB free hard disk space), (2) uninstalling/turning off all programs I don't really need, (3) defragmenting my hard disk.

I remember there was a thread about someone who managed to play EB with some 500 mb if I'm not mistaken. I can't find it right now, but I'm sure it contains dozens of information.

As a sidenote: I do play on huge unit settings, with unit details set at least to the second best. :yes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mediolanicus

Great book! Although you have to keep in mind that it is just a theory and not the absolute truth.

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Yeah, it's a pretty good book. I had it assigned as Summer Reading prior to taking my AP World History Class. I absoloutely love Jared Diamond (Hope to go to UCLA for grad studies, meeting him would be pretty sweet :2thumbsup::2thumbsup::2thumbsup:) However, I found that book just a tad on the dry side. I liked Collapse though, that was an excellent read, and I found it more interesting than Guns Germs and Steel.

Oh and just to keep things on topic: On my old computer my load times used to be way long. I found myself falling asleep in between turns. However that just encouraged me to take my time on each turn, and get absorbed in the Role playing and reading descriptions and such. Opening screen wait times can't be helped. However I will tell you that when I switched to my new comp (2 gigs RAM, 2.8 GHz Dual Core), speed picked up a lot. Now I hardly wait at all.

try to run combofix to get rid of malwares..... after that, my EB loading time improve dramatically 1 year ago...

I also loathed loading times. when I first let EB run, it took 45 min for the first load (:wall::wall:). Then waiting for the turns and script advisor was a guaranteed 5 minutes(:wall:). But it got better eventually, by clearing my ram of useless rubbish programs (:yes:). But then I got a quad cored 4 Gb ram computer on my birthday(:beam::beam::beam::beam::beam:). Now loading times are such a breeze. But now I miss reading those quotes and it finishes while i'm halfway through.

Somtimes, your worst curses are really your best blessings.

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Originally Posted by fugazi

Still gotta finish Guns, Germs and steel :idea2:

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Funnily enough, I too read some of the book while waiting for EB to load. However, I now use the time to revise, so even when I am having a break from revision I still am by just reading the odd page or so! :book:

Though it's not too bad, takes around 5 minutes from pressing the shortcut to actually getting in game for me and the turn-times are marginal (around 30 seconds or so), and I'm running 2.8ghz dual core but with only 1 gig of ram (that is balanced out due to the fact I'm on XP and not Vista).

I don't really know why everyone says eb is slow. For me at least the loading screen takes a minute or two, end turn takes 30 seconds, and battles load just like vanilla.

I guess we can't all be lucky :laugh3:

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Originally Posted by TruePraetorian

I don't really know why everyone says eb is slow. For me at least the loading screen takes a minute or two, end turn takes 30 seconds, and battles load just like vanilla.

I guess we can't all be lucky :laugh3:

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Such is usually the case for me, though on some days the loading screen takes upwards of five minutes.

Yeah I used to loathe the loading time as well, and made a similar topic complaining about it just like you. And so I tried other mods, like RTR. As I moved East as Romans, the frame rate gradually dropped from 19 to 8fps because of the information in Turkey. So I got used to it without knowing. Now going back to EB I'm more patient with the loading times and low frame rates.

But technicality wise, you are disabling the intro-movie, playing in windowed mode, and putting lighting on brightest, right? This way the initial loading is faster, you can multitask on your computer, and have higher frame rates during battles, respectively. Still, with your 1gb ram, it's still going to be slow (considering EB takes close to 1gb ram to run anyways), but I gradually learned to deal with it. And by the gods was it worth the wait.

for battles reducing to large makes wonders but as I like huge battles I decrease details and af course anti-aliasing.
but again best solution is buying more RAM that became cheaper now.

Hehe on my old computer, it really is almost unplayable. I have to autoresolve all battles fx, or it will take like 10 minutes loading the battle then 10 minutes loading campaign map again. It takes me 20 minutes from starting the game till I reach the main menu. But I'm getting a new computer soon, so whatever :D

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=94861


This is a link to the sub EB mod alexander EB. It makes the game run faster and gives u alsorts of other advantages such as better AI and night attack.

Bear in mind their are 2 mods on this page the engine (which im talking about)

and a modded version of EB which is called EAEM.

I suggest the DL the engine if u want it to perform faster when ending turns its half the speed of the vanilla version.

And as for foots comments at the top rofl, long loading times must be an advantage to 3 out of 1000 people lmao

Edit: If you stick with vanilla EB its worth waiting the extra 10 seconds per turn to play the best mod for RTW

To re-iterate everything said, "It'll get better, but times will still be a bit slow".

That being said, you might as well just run EB in windowed mode and do something else while it loads. In my experience, turns are maybe..... 20 seconds or so, but I have a quad-core with 4GBs.

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Originally Posted by Atraphoenix

but again best solution is buying more RAM that became cheaper now.

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I play on the highest settings, as always, but increasing my RAM from 1 GB to 4 did not noticeably improve anything. However, my laptop has 3GB RAM and a dual 2.4 processor, and it had a perfectly smooth and fast performance. So I got a quad 2.4 for my desktop, and now everything is perfect. The processors are pretty cheap too.