Lag: unit scale and graphic settings etc

[CBR]

Copied this from other thread in Colosseum:

Ok here is a replay of the battle that CrackedAxe and I was in. Its about 8800 men in total.

http://www.mizus.com/hosted/CBR/CBR_lag.rpy

I got about 5 fps most of the time (measured with Fraps) and even with my lowered settings it feels just like it was to play it.


CBR

[Dunhill]

I have played some 2v2 and 1v1 games online (postpatch) and the lag was aty times bad not as oppressive as the prepatch attempts. Obviously we won't be getting nearly the fluidity that we enjoyed in STW.

Can anyone provide a FAQ on the best option settings/internet settings (host upload download and graphics) that have resulted in games with framerates above 25 per sec (my gold standard for online play). Has anyone even seen framerates above 25 per sec?

I'd be interested to hear of the best framerates achieved in a 2v2 game (seemingly our max playable for MP at the moment).

Cheers,

[Puzz3D]

Has anyone even seen framerates above 25 per sec?

I can get 15 to 20 fps watching an MTW/VI v2.01 replay with 8 armies (about 8000 men). An RTW v1.1 replay with 6 armies (about 8000 men) gives me 5 to 6 fps. The best I do in RTW is 30+ fps with two units on the field (200 men). So much for the official claim that RTW is at least as fast as MTW. It's only about 1/3 as fast with 8000 men.

I have AMD xp2400+ (2.0 GHz) cpu, 256 MB pc133 SDRAM running at 266 MHz, ATI 9800 Pro 128 MB RAM, Win98se.

[cromwell]

Let me update my previous post. I 'm now experiencing some lag now as well. I guess I was just lucky before, mostly playing other vets, who know not to bog down their systems or whatever. I think the lag is 90% graphics related and 10% net congestions. The 10%, we have always had and dealt with before, it's no big deal. Run a tracert see where the ms times are high and there u have your bottleneck. The graphics problem we didn't have in previous TW offerings. Up until now the units were sprite based and most graphic cards have no problem rendering them, even in big 4v4 games. Now we have 3d polygon models and sprites( when you pull back with camera or units are far away it switches to sprites again) Now weak vid cards will have problems rendering large amounts of 3dunits, plus add the sprites to that equation and people systems will lag. I think this is one of the reasons for desync happening all the time. There needs to be a video setting for multi, or a utility that can simulate large battles and recommend what settings your video cards should have in order to play multi. In other words turn down the eye candy, if u cannot support it.

Anyways I could be talking out my A$$, just a few random thoughts.

Later, Cromwell

[CBR]

I really dont think its the graphic card that is the main problem. On :com we also talked a bit about it: http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...icID=352.topic

One posted:

Ive noticed that RTW is incredibly CPU intensive. I checked this by swapping my old AMD Athlon XP1800+ into my PC (using a 2800+ atm) and got barely half the FPS I had before. Even with a radeon x800 pro. Compare that to swapping the x800 for an 9600pro. barely a quarter decrease.

I have tried lowering my graphic settings to absolutely minimum and there was no real difference when watching the replay I posted here. So far I still believe CPU is the main problem.


CBR

[Puzz3D]

The 1/3 slower speed I'm seeing in RTW vs MTW isn't due to the graphics in my case. I pull the camera back so all the men are sprites. It's RTW sprites vs MTW sprites that I'm comparing, and RTW is much less efficient at it. There is no network or AI involved when watching a replay. I've put all graphics setting on minimum, and it barely makes any difference in fps from high graphic settings since I have a good video card. It suggests either the cpu or the i/o is the bottleneck. It's hard to think of a reason RTW should be less efficient than MTW under these conditions except inefficient programming. For example, sequencing through a multi-dimension data array in memory can be very efficient or very inefficient depending on the order of the array indecies used. It's very easy to make a mistake when programming and use an inefficient addressing method. Another example could be floating point calculations being done in double precision when you could get by with single precision or even using floating point variables when interger would be sufficent. I suppose there could be more parameters associated with each man in RTW that have to be updated, but I doubt is 3 times as many as in MTW.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

I have now played a few games....

I must be lucky; I host 2v2 games with large units, between 5000 to 10 000 denarii per army, and neither I nor my fellow opponent and allies faced any significant lag. At those denarri level, not all armies are fully manned (ie, with 20 units)
The only slow down is when I see flaming arrows. Also a lot of missile can be a problem (some slow down during a test with frobeastegg involving 20 archers units on each side ).
3v3 seems to be run OK too, although I have not tried a 3v3 10k large setting yet.

I got an Intel 3.0 Ghz, 1Gb RAM and a decent video card.

Louis,

[CBR]

And whats a decent graphics card to be more precise?

But you have a 3 ghz cpu and that might be whats needed to play without lag.


CBR