Demo Discussion Thread

**Don Esteban** · 02-20-2009, 18:16

I have a tough decision...

Empire Demo or night out drinking with the boys?

I think going out has to win but I suspect a drunken attempt to play at 2am is on the cards

**Zatoichi** · 02-20-2009, 18:20

Oh rude words! It's happened to me again - this time I got to 52% before it reverted back to 'Download starting'. GAH! The innernets hate me!

Still, third time's a charm.

**Greyblades** · 02-20-2009, 18:21

Hmm... I went to the dentist for an hour and it went form 2% with no kb/s showing to 40% at average 100kb/s

**Zatoichi** · 02-20-2009, 18:22

Hey, maybe that'll work for me too - I'm off to the dentist! Any dentist will do!

**Greyblades** · 02-20-2009, 18:37

Originally Posted by Zatoichi

Hey, maybe that'll work for me too - I'm off to the dentist! Any dentist will do!

Its amazing what having clean(ish) teeth will do.

[edit] woo 50% through... ok I'm going to stop posting percentages before it gets silly.

**Gregoshi** · 02-20-2009, 18:39

I was at about 2 MB/s during the download with my FiOS (fiber optic) service. The download went pretty fast.

Alas, for me, that was the only thing that was fast. My computer meets minimum spec but the demo was pretty much unplayable. Load screens were over 5 minutes (I know because I was microwaving some food). Even changing screen resolutions took nearly 5 minutes the first time - the second time the demo hung (not responding). I did have the tutorial up for a few minutes - looked great but it was at higher display setting and was a slide show with screen updates in the 1-3 second per frame range. I'll give it a shot later on when I have some more time and see if I can get anything reasonable acceptable at the lowest settings, but I guess I'm probably going to have to wait until I can get a new machine.

BTW, my specs:

P4 2.53mHz
1 mb RAM (max my motherboard supports)
Radeon X1300 (512mb RAM)
Window XP SP3

**Relic** · 02-20-2009, 18:52

Forgive me for this fellas but...
"OMG! WOOT! WOOT!"

It's finally out!

**Fisherking** · 02-20-2009, 18:57

After finely getting the download to restart I got a result of half the previous time…it is now below 14 min. But my wife and kids are all home now…so I don’t know about reports.

Odd thing though, I didn’t get a download screen this time, only a bar and I can’t shop servers…what is up with that?

**Monk** · 02-20-2009, 18:59

What a horribly optimized demo you've decided to give the masses, CA. I'd have rathered listened to the complaints of everyone who wanted one than played this. My experience is the same as Greg's, however my specs are much better than his.

3ghz CPU
GeForce 9600 GT
4gb RAM
Windows Vista

With these specs I was experiencing load times of 5 min. The battles ran great, but the load times were horrid. Loading into battle, loading out of battle, changing graphics options, getting to the main menu. It didn't matter, it all took a solid 5 min.

I finished the download around 12pm and have been wrestling with it for the passed 45 min. I didn't play the land battle to it's finish because quite frankly by the time I got into the battle I didn't care anymore. getting out of battle is just as much of a fiasco. If anyone knows what's causing this and how to fix it, i'm all ears. If its simply the game...

What about battles, you may be asking. Well, combat animations are really sloppy. Cavalry charge into a unit, but if the cavalry charges and envelopes the unit, sometimes the horsemen who didnt hit the line just keep riding instead of stopping to fight. As if they are chasing a ghost they'll go on for a long time. Melee animations look unfinished. Artillery crews get stuck in animations while they move back around the cannon to get out of the way, gliding around. Were these things seen in M2? Maybe. But not to this extent.

I couldn't tell you how the AI performed, i was too distracted by the buggy animations.

I really hope this was some sort of earlier build, CA. This was ridiculous.

**pyradyn** · 02-20-2009, 19:10

The animations I have to say yes were sloppy, as for long load times I am having lag which is really sad because my computer is not some little rinky dink,

Specs:
AMD 64 Duel Core Processor 3.2 GH 6000+
Geforce 9800
2 GB RAM
Windows XP Pro

**Discoman** · 02-20-2009, 19:10

I have 2.8ghz and a double core
Nvidia XFX 8600 GTS (512mb)
2 gigs of Ram

The loading screens were too damn long! I got 5 minutes the first time and later it took around 2 minutes. I was a bit annoyed at the camera controls as When I zoomed it then got horribly slow and my constant zooming in and out didn't help. I didn't really notice the animations mainly because I was too preoccupied looking for a way to flank those bloody yanks. The AI seems all there.... except when my men decided to go in one straight line by accident.

I really loved the Ship Battle, except for the sudden turning of the ship...