system requirements help.

[craziii]

what is the recommended system to play EB on?

I got 3.0 ghz P4, 2 gigs of ram, 7600gt. playing on 1000 res in 16 bit color like the faq stated. got everything on low except unit detail which is set to high. I get random slow downs :( either scrolling the campaign map or during battle. by random I mean, it comes and goes at will, some play sessions would be 100% free of it. it is confusing.

what could be the cause? I play m2tw fine along with the mods that are release, the setting for the game is even higher then the above. I know my comp is old, like 3.5 years old now. it plays all my games decently besides crysis, yea, I thought too highly of my comp when I bought that game.

any help would be nice, I did a search of the forum and scanned the faq, didn't see any system requirement question or threads.

[Hooahguy]

recommended:
1 gb or RAM
a 128 mb video card, but it really doesnt matter.

your system is fine, trust me....

[craziii]

so, those random slow downs are normal? anyway I can get rid of it? I don't mind the campaign map slow downs, since I can just wait a bit then it goes away. but when it happens during a battle, it is a pain in the ass and annoying.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You happen to have, by any chance, some updating services running? Scheduled tasks, any?

Apart from the garbage collect, which is inavoidable the slow downs are most likely either some software running in the background (can be as simple as Messenger) suddenly waking up or system measures against overheating/overflowing workload.

[craziii]

the only program I have on, it is always on, when I play other games etc, it is always on. is AVG free edition. the only non bloat ware that I trust these days. I don't have any other background programs on during gaming sessions, not even messengers. it doesn't cause any problems for me so far with other games/mods? could it be that simple?

[Korlon]

Try turning AVG off to see if that helps. It doesn't hurt to try.

And have you defragmented lately?

[craziii]

I tried it, didn't help. seems like the slow downs are trigger by selecting units or cities, especially units with the green highlight indicating movement area.

I haven't defrag for over a year now, will try it tonight when I go to sleep.

[Xurr]

What you need to do is stop running everything in your system tray except for maybe your sound. The real reason you machine is slowing down so much is because the script that EB uses has a ton of endless loops in it. These loops will suck up huge amounts of resources and you need to free up as much as possible. Unfortunately the loops are necessary to keep the script from exiting so until someone comes up with a better way you'll just have to work around it.

Please also note that your game will eventually crash so make sure to save often. I can get it to run on my computer for about 2-3 hours before it crashes with 2 gigs of ram so you should be ok.

[Korlon]

On the campaign map, when it slows down, when you select a unit, is its animation moving abnormally fast? Normally, that happens when you try to move a unit, but it does not have movement points anymore. Moving another unit fixes that.

[craziii]

woot, thx xurr for clearing that up. basically the slowdown is part of the mod. I guess I will just have to deal with it if I want to play it. I thought it could be negated with hardware, guess not.

korlon, no, it isn't that, it is usually the units that have full movement points. it doesn't always cause slowdowns, but when it does, I just have to bite it.

[Hax]

Well, you're pc specs are fine. P4 processor is okay as well, can't see a problem there. Defragging could REALLY help, I'll have to do it myself tonight.

Normally I'd give the advice of buying another gig of RAM, but since 2 is pretty good, I guess you're fine.

[overweightninja]

I tried it, didn't help. seems like the slow downs are trigger by selecting units or cities, especially units with the green highlight indicating movement area.

I haven't defrag for over a year now, will try it tonight when I go to sleep.

If that's what I think it is, it happens frequently but is very easy to fix (for a short while anyway). I swear a lot of the people talking about "lagging campaign map" and stuff mean this but I rarely see this solution presented .
Just select a unit in a settlement (usually works with field stacks too but just to be sure...), move them just outside, everything should pick back up again. You can then just put the unit back in the town or do whatever else.
System specs sound fine if its running cleanly, keep AA off and I can see that rig coping okay with medium settings.
Hope that helps
Cheers

[Tellos Athenaios]

And if is that thing, overweightninja thinks it is then it is something beyond EB to fix; since it's due to the infamous memory leaks in RTW.

[craziii]

ninja, my man, thx for that, slowdown during campaign solve!!! it is waaay less annoying now that I can get out of it by just moving another unit, I used to end turn asap whent that happens haha. battlemap slowdown also solve by defraging it seems. mod is now enjoyable. thx for all the help guys.

ps: tellos, I have never encountered this problem with vanilla or other mods.

Edit: I forgot to ask something, don't want to make another thread for it.

how do I get rid of the cultural penalty when the settlement I take is already at the highest lvl? I can't destroy the governor building or upgrade it.

[overweightninja]

And if is that thing, overweightninja thinks it is then it is something beyond EB to fix; since it's due to the infamous memory leaks in RTW.

Tellos, I believe you are not a native speaker, so I may have got the wrong end of the stick and if so I apologise, but short answer wasn't a dig at EB/team, I know its a RTW problem and likely isn't something the EB team or any other mod team could fix, just presenting a temporary solution.

ninja, my man, thx for that, slowdown during campaign solve!!! it is waaay less annoying now that I can get out of it by just moving another unit, I used to end turn asap whent that happens haha. battlemap slowdown also solve by defraging it seems. mod is now enjoyable. thx for all the help guys.

ps: tellos, I have never encountered this problem with vanilla or other mods.

Edit: I forgot to ask something, don't want to make another thread for it.

how do I get rid of the cultural penalty when the settlement I take is already at the highest lvl? I can't destroy the governor building or upgrade it.

You're welcome glad I could help (Might have to start copy pasting that answer in the many many slowdown threads popping up nowdays, I found out the same way), now to enjoy the carnage

In regards to you're other question, I think you've pretty much answered it yourself. To eliminate the culture penalty you need to replace as many of those enemy buildings as you can, but in a top city the big one, the palace can't be replaced. I'm afraid you'll just have to do you're best, I find it helps to be careful about the order you replace buildings, for example don't tear down the temple with +20 happiness/law or whatever if there are less important structures around.

Cheers