Is TW meant to run slow?

[LegionOfSteel]

hey im new, got into total war a few days ago...

its a fully mad game, except for in battles it seems to run really sluggish and crappy... i have a Celeron 2000 with 256DDR ram and GEFORCE2... is my computer not fast enough, or does total war just have a really shitty game engine.. it gets to the stage where its easier automatically calculating large battles, because trying to control it at 2fps is too annoying..

other things too.. does anyone use assassins? i been trying to use them, even making emmisaries and stuff for them to kill to make them better, but they always die, i have never been able to kill anyting worthwhile..

and i been playing as catholic nations.. i really hate the pope, everytime i start somehting, he gets all cut and excomunicates me... is there any nation which starts off near sicily so i can kill the fool at the start? or will that set off mass crusades against me..

And i like to use arbalesters to blast everything which gets into contact with my infantry... is this a good idea or does it cause too many friendly casualties?

any help would be appreciated

[Ja'chyra]

Lol, just a few questions then

1. I don't really know about your comp, but mine runs ok so I would say there is something wrong there.

2. Assassins are cool and do work, the more experienced the target the harder to kill. Look up the tech tree and build the buildings needed to get more experienced assassins.

3. Don't bother trying to kill the pope, he just comes back again every 5-10 years. If you're playing a catholic faction he only takes offense if you attack other catholics, try attacking muslims, rebels or orthodox. Failing that if you attack another catholic faction make sure you will complete the attack within two years, or wait till tey're ex-comm'd.

4. Arbs are great but it's always a good idea not to shoot your own men.

The best thing to do is read frostbeastegg's guide which is here http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/faq.shtml

Anyway, have fun

[Knight_Yellow]

its a fully mad game, except for in battles it seems to run really sluggish and crappy... i have a Celeron 2000 with 256DDR ram and GEFORCE2... is my computer not fast enough, or does total war just have a really shitty game engine.. it gets to the stage where its easier automatically calculating large battles, because trying to control it at 2fps is too annoying..


Its a tad low on memory, id recomend 500DDR, and the geforce 2 is getting old now....

maybe a nice radeon 9600, pretty cheap now and a hundred times better than a gf2.

other things too.. does anyone use assassins? i been trying to use them, even making emmisaries and stuff for them to kill to make them better, but they always die, i have never been able to kill anyting worthwhile..

Assasins are better at killing low priority targets at first, like very bad enemy generals or priests etc.

after a few low level kills their skills will be good enough for you to kill more famous targets like good generals and after a few of those if the assasin isnt cuaght then they should be able to go after kings and royalty.

and i been playing as catholic nations.. i really hate the pope, everytime i start somehting, he gets all cut and excomunicates me... is there any nation which starts off near sicily so i can kill the fool at the start? or will that set off mass crusades against me..

To be honest being excommed doesnt matter, and neither does killing the pope, he just comes back every 10 odd years with a massive force and you gotta keep a large army on him to make sure he doesnt win.

i have made some nice $$$ from selling him back if i capture him though.

And i like to use arbalesters to blast everything which gets into contact with my infantry... is this a good idea or does it cause too many friendly casualties

yes, you will be taking friendly casualties by firing into a fight.


in my experience Arbs are only useful in Multiplayer games becuase in SP the enemy AI just charges you and only takes maybe 6 casualties per unit.

if i was going to fire into a melee id use longbowmen or another archer unit, they tend to kill more enemy than friendly at least.

[Ragss]

on my p4 1.6 ghz with a 9500 pro and 512 megs of ram it runs pretty crappy. Mind you, i do have it on the biggest armies...But still, it goes about 9 fps when all the units are on screen.

[LegionOfSteel]

and another thing, is there anyway to make the battle music repeat, it is so cool and gets you worked up, it would be heaps cool if u can make it not stop.

[*Ringo*]

Quote[/b] (LegionOfSteel @ Feb. 03 2004,08:15)]i have a Celeron 2000 with 256DDR ram and GEFORCE2... is my computer not fast enough, or does total war just have a really shitty game engine.. it gets to the stage where its easier automatically calculating large battles, because trying to control it at 2fps is too annoying..

Your comp should run the game ok Have you got the latest drivers for your hardware??? What resolution are you running at? Try turning down the detail if new drivers don't sort your problem

Welcome to the .Org btw

*Ringo*

[MonkeyMan]

Quote[/b] (LegionOfSteel @ Feb. 03 2004,08:15)]hey im new, got into total war a few days ago...

its a fully mad game, except for in battles it seems to run really sluggish and crappy... i have a Celeron 2000 with 256DDR ram and GEFORCE2... is my computer not fast enough, or does total war just have a really shitty game engine.. it gets to the stage where its easier automatically calculating large battles, because trying to control it at 2fps is too annoying..

Welcome to the org LegionOfSteel

It's been a while, and the link i used to use has gone from the totalwar site. However there is a known issue with some creative sound cards, you might want to try going into your sound cards settings and turning off the hardware acceleration (look under control panel & sound card settings, I forget where exactly sorry), for some reason this often resulted in rubbish frame rates in game. Also go into your graphics card settings (right click on the desktop and then settings,advanced) somewhere in there, there should be settings for antialiasing and PCI memory settings, put both down as low as they go (PCI memory to 1MB, antialiasing off, you may well have to change this twice for both 3d graphics modes). Then make sure you have the latest verisions of you graphics drivers:

Nvidia website

Hope you can get it all working

Don't expect miracles but the game should be playable at least.

[Eastside Character]

Welcome to the Org. LegionOfSteel


Hey MonkeyMan, that monkey you've got in your signature is just hilarious.

[LegionOfSteel]

thanks

will changing these settings reduce my performance of warcraft or counterstrike?

[MonkeyMan]

Quote[/b] (LegionOfSteel @ Feb. 03 2004,11:48)]thanks

will changing these settings reduce my performance of warcraft or counterstrike?

Won't reduce your performance, but may make them sound/look less good, just take a note of the settings before you start, and see what works for your system, if you find your other games are unhappy, its just a few mouse clicks to put it right again.

[Alrowan]

it looks like a problem i had when i reinstalled everything on my PC

its to do with your video card, it is probably set to PCI mode when it should be on AGP. There is a thread in the Apocrathy that tells you how to identify and fix this. Im sure somoen can post a link, probably krae

[LegionOfSteel]

its definatly not my 3d card..

its a PCI card, its in the PCI slot and is set to PCI mode..i have all the latest drivers as well, all my other games run perfectly..

[LegionOfSteel]

id like to try the sound card hardware acceration though.. if anyone knows how to do that, i had a play around with it and couldnt get it to work.. :(

[*Ringo*]

Do you have on board sound or are you using a sound card? If you have both you should try disabling one of them and try the other. A process of elimination can see if the problem is actually your sound

Quote[/b] ]id like to try the sound card hardware acceration though.. if anyone knows how to do that, i had a play around with it and couldnt get it to work.. :(

In terms of hardware acceleration you should be able to adjust this setting under directX. Goto - Start - Run - type dxdiag - click ok - click sound tab (the setting should be half way down the panel, under directX features)

Good Luck,

*Ringo*

[scudknight]

MTW ran slow as molasses for me until I installed Direct X 9.0 beta on 3 side by side machines. Weird.