Is this game uglier than RTW?

Is this game uglier than RTW? Now before everyone thinks I have gone mad I do know that everything has more of everything in MTW2, in close on very high settings the game looks amazing but as you zoom out to have a proper view of the battlefield a lot of this beauty quickly disappears the grass becomes superfluous, you then find yourself looking at very colorful blobs.

The movements of the calvary are quite jarring at certain times especially when they turn, very reminiscent of the 2D units in MTW1.I have been struggling to play this game on various settings so I have been fooling around a lot to find a comfortable area. The individual soldiers seem to have their own little space to perform killing movements, loading muskets etc however zoomed out a lot of this is lost or worst looks wrong.

There seems to be a lot of sliding on the landscape this could be due to my settings, sometimes I find a certain number of individual soldiers in a unit (especially horses) will perform no animation and simple slide across the screen. Now if this is dependent on your settings what will happen if you attempt to have larger unit sizes as in RTW. I think most people like the larger unit size, if the only why of achieving this is to lower your settings or have a turbo charged system will you end up having a higher percentage of horses performing no animation.

End result an uglier looking game?

This is the point I’m getting to. Now I can’t comment on the complete lack of animation nor any animation as I don’t have the demo and couldn’t play it anyway BUT…

…..taking that fancy “bloom” away and zooming out it appears to me from the screenshots everyone’s providing that the graphics are at least “no better” than Rome. The battlefields appear to be bigger though, the settlements have more detail etc but the “nuts-n-bolts” of what counts – i.e. Military units – doesn’t seem to be as large a leap as we’d all thought.

To be honest the Lack of horse animation sounds like a Beta-test issue that shouldn’t be in the finished game.

Well isn't the thing that the models have twice as many polygons now and higher resolution textures. But if your machine can't play on High everything they is is not necessarilly going to look way better (especially if you where playing RTW on high everything). If I switch off shadows (or set to Lowest) I can set everything else to High and all plays well...

On High, with 1280x1024 with AAx2 and AFx4 and Bloom I have to say that the individual soldiers look fantastic. And the more fluid aminiations makes everything look more natural. Now if I have 1280x1024, no AA and AFx2 and no Bloom things start loooking a bit more like RTW, but I think the model textures are still more detailed.

Zoomed out is another story and I have noticed lighting issues with units being lit or in shadow depending on your viewing distance to them. Additionally the sprite versions of the models are noticably brighter then many of the actual models which can have an odd effect.

I have see individuals slide around without animation a bit, but only occasionally.

I certainly do not thing th game any less pretty than Rome and I will sound the often heard cry of old demo version for some of the issues we are discussing...

"Is this game uglier than RTW?"

Well if your PC just meets the minimum requirements, yes.
Zoomed out it looks like MTW. :wall:

Well I did not like the looks of RTW when zoomed out either. ;)

I would have to say they look better not uber better, I know its a demo and now we have a new term called a beta demo? So allowances are due. But it seems the game was designed to draw you in close to the units yet most people will zoom out to control the battlefield, it is here that I think things get a little strange and you must wonder about the need for all these extra pixels.

Edit: And units are at normal size I wonder what will happen at the largest size.

THe difference between medium & high unit detail was very noticable to me. I'm still twiddling with the settings to get the best look & speed.

However, it would be fair to say IMO that RTW with mods such as RTR on high settings, looks better than vanilla MTW2 demo on medium-low settings.

But thats comparing apples & oranges ~:)

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Originally Posted by Tempiic

Well I did not like the looks of RTW when zoomed out either. ;)

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M2TW:
- Sprite-Distance is a lot nearer
- furthermore, the differences between sprites and 3D objects are immense, due the fact that 'every' soldier look different
-> so you have white and brown horses in the same unit, but the sprites have just one appearance

- only 'uber-computer' could turn shadows on
-> shadows make a hugh difference when you look at your troops from afar

At high settings I find it a beautifull game, however on lowest it looks like horrible stuff.

The game looks WAY better than Rome... animations, cloths, armor, flags... i really don't understand why you say that Rome looks worse, altough on lower settings it is indeed ugly. But that is only because CA hasn't optimized the lower settings.

Even with shadows turned on high I did not like the look from afar that much still. But still somewhat better than RTW.

If you have a sufficient powerfull pc the game looks better.

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Originally Posted by Maizel

If you have a sufficient powerfull pc the game looks better.

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What a surprise! :laugh4:
But if you haven't, nowadays games look often worser than their predecessors.
(Just a warning to the 'low-enders'. :2thumbsup: )

It is way better.
I have it on medium settings and it is so pretty :gorgeous:

Well my specs are...

AMD64 3500+
2 No 6800 GT 256 MB in SLI
1024DDR
Wide screen 24”....

middle of the road I suppose these days but should this set up be unreasonable for playing a game. Where will it all end?

I find the M2TW 2D sprites to be just as ugly as in RTW. Some of the units like the longbowmen have 2D sprites of very different colour (in this case light grey'ish) than the 3D graphics.


CBR

I don't have any complains regarding graphics. Afterall I won't be observing my units during the match.

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Where will it all end?

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In a smoking heap after every gamer's 200 megawatt power supply explodes in the year 2085.

More to the point, there are sprite lighting issues with some of the units, but I expect this is a beta issue that will be for the most part resolved in final. To claim that this makes the game ugly is rather a stretch though. I couldn't be more impressed visually.

graphics aren't as important as is gameplay/performance. I find the demo very hard to enjoy myself. that's said after I've ran it on 3 different systems. one bein' low end, mid range and high end P4s. in a nutshell, only high end system was able to run game on high enough settings to enjoy better graphics and still have a decent performance. the processor speed didn't seem to make any difference. it was bascially down to the video card!
interestenly enough, the low end system did have a much better performance than that of the mid range one. but both were only able to run game on the LOWEST of lowest in order to get a good performance and ya can see what the game looks like on all LOW from my screenshots posted in the apropriate post.
anyhow, I'm gonna post more details on the tests in another thread. good luck with this game if ya don't own a high end/state-of-the-art system :)

Did any of you play RTW on the lowest settings? I did just to see what it was like. The lowest settings on M2:TW are far superior to the lowest settings on RTW. If thats is the lowest TW ever go with settings, its phenomenal.
I reckon Sprites are incomplete in the Demo. In Pavia, some of the french units appear to be brown peasants when I zoom out. So they can't be finished. I'll wait until M2:TW is done before I judge the Sprites.

Am I the only one here who doesn't give a damn about graphics?

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Originally Posted by King Henry V

Am I the only one here who doesn't give a damn about graphics?

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I dont care about fancy clone or no clone 3D graphics. All i care about is how it looks from a distance as thats where I control the battle. Personally I prefer STW and MTW as the 2D sprites are superior compared to RTW/M2TW.


CBR

I think it looks miles better! Granted I have a fairly beefy rig so I can play at 16x12 with everything maxed ( I turn bloom off tho - looks too cartoony) but even at distance it's way better. Up close, gowever it's in an entirely new league for graphics - I've never seen anything so sweet :2thumbsup:

I have placed the setting to as high as possible and I must say that it looks awesome.

It runs well with the little jerks when my fan comes on, but I get that with all games.

It will now be down to game play.

Whats your specs shades?

I think it looks much better on the higher end comps, which is what it was built for. My computer is out of date but I could run Rome at lower graphics settings. When I tried the MTW demo it didnt even load... So obviously theyve raised the bar in some ways. It did look stunning on my brother's new 1500$ Dell tho, but even on that comp I could not run it on max settings with noticble FPS decline, so I guess you really need a new top of the line gaming rig for that.

If you need the best gaming comps to run it now, I dont see how you can ask for more graphics. Keep in mind there are thousands of soldiers on screen, more details = lower FPS and then you'll be turning down the graphics anyways.

Mines's not a monster rig - only pretty good and everything's maxed out. It's an FX-55 @ 2750MHz, 2Gb RAM @ 250MHz, 512Mb X1900XT. You can get much faster rigs with the new Core2Duo setups for not a lot of money ~:)

Bwah, depends on what you'd define as a monster rig, Except for your graphicscard, You got the system of a very serious gamer.

I mean, the fact that Intels C2Ds are faster, doesn't make an fx-55 a slow processor by any means

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Originally Posted by King Henry V

Am I the only one here who doesn't give a damn about graphics?

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I don't need highend graphic too. For multiplayer an improved MTW 1 engine would be better than a 3D engine, that I will use very rarely.

Sometimes I zoom in, if watch a replay. But very seldom while I play.

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Originally Posted by redriver

graphics aren't as important as is gameplay/performance. I find the demo very hard to enjoy myself. that's said after I've ran it on 3 different systems. one bein' low end, mid range and high end P4s. in a nutshell, only high end system was able to run game on high enough settings to enjoy better graphics and still have a decent performance. the processor speed didn't seem to make any difference. it was bascially down to the video card!
interestenly enough, the low end system did have a much better performance than that of the mid range one. but both were only able to run game on the LOWEST of lowest in order to get a good performance and ya can see what the game looks like on all LOW from my screenshots posted in the apropriate post.
anyhow, I'm gonna post more details on the tests in another thread. good luck with this game if ya don't own a high end/state-of-the-art system :)

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wel, i've got a Radeon 9800 PRo... This card USED to be the number 1 videocard to buy.... 1,5 years ago! But it runs MTW2 GREAT! Very good graphics AND good performance. Just turn the shadows off, that helps alot! Everything else is on High on my rig!

I have a brand new C2D system that I just built and I am playing at 1920x1200 with most settings on high and up close the game is glorious. However, when pulled all the way back (which I wish could be even further) the game probably looks worse than MTW did. I am also finding it hardish to tell how things are going because of all the dead bodies, so I keep pausing and zooming in to make sure everyone is doing ok, then zoom back out and resume fighting. It's sort of annoying. However, I haven't played a Total War game in at least a year so maybe it will all come back to me and make more sense with a little practice.

It will come back. I find myself mainly looking for banners when zoomed out so I can judge rather easily whether things go well or not.