Now this is why I bought the game!

[IrishMike]

I was growing tired of the small little 40 man units, but I thought my computer couldn't handel anything larger due to its only 64 mb Nvidia g-force4. I was promised spectacular battles that would make your eyes pop out, but instead I was playing normal less than better than MTW battles. Finally I got tired of it, and threw away the advice that my computer counldn't handle the huge settings and play a real battle. Going to the custom battle, I played as the Juli, with 100,000 money, selected all early leginary first chorts, and prayed as I started the battle my computer wouldn't blow up.

I started the game and to my surprise, it ran perfect, and WOW what a battle. 16 minutes later I barely beat a valored up Chartharage army of Iberian Infantry. Now this is why I bought the game!

My first question is why does the game tell me I can't handle a battle I can. Sure the unit detail was low, but I don't play TW for the graphics, I play it for the battles.

My second question, How in the world do u handle that large of a roman army?

But my piece of advice, If your thinking about going to a larger size, and afraid to do so because of the games warnings. Just give it a try, and I saw no downgraded performance at all, even with flaming arrows in later test.

[mike007]

Dont take any notice of the minimum requirments. ive been running a geforce 4 mx 440 (peaice of shit) for ages, but it still runs al the games fine on low detail.

I agree about the larger battles, they are very fun! My only gripe is that large battles are far & few between with the campaign game. I dont like starting custom games because after the battle, its all over. i like being able to carry units over to the next batter, watch them get experience etc.

Personaly i miss MTWs battles, especaly the reifocrment option, when you beat the army, but then a stream of reainforcments will come & youve got another battle on your hands. I dont knwo how many times i was broken, only to regather with reinforcements & then go on to win the day by a thred!
I also miss the 'taking hostages' button, i loved collecting 1000's of hostages & just beofre the battle ended, Masacering them all> such a satifying sound as well!

[Byzantine Prince]

Yes i thought it would be a lot worse too before I baought. I said what the hell? Let's buy anyways and then upgrade. And yes it works. Not well but still I injoy it a lot.

[mike007]

I just upgraded to a geforce fx 5200 & the game loook amazing on high detail! i didnt realise how much better the game would be if it had better graphics, but i find it even improved the gameplay to some degree.

definantley upgrade so u can get high detail, its worth it!

[Byzantine Prince]

MY comp is 1.2 Ghz though. I don't know if i can upgrade it.

[Ar7]

I thought I'd have to upgrade my PC for Rome, new card, processor etc, but I didn't and it still runs perfectly. My thought here is that most of the work is done by the processor and the graphics cards kind of rests it's case and that's why the game runs so nicely.

[Oaty]

I can handle 10,000 men on my comp(no missile troops though) and only get minor lag. With missile troops the limit is up to 6,000. I've been tempted to try 15,000 men on the field.

This is with a 1.49 ghz processor and graphics at full settings and when the lag kicks in changing graphics settings does'nt do a thing so it's always at max detail with AA on

[HicRic]

Alas, I have a 2.53Ghz processor but Intel Extreme Graphics. URRRGH. I play on large units but with details fairly low...things slow down a bit in big battles or with flaming arrows (but then again, the fire effect takes up so much processing power...it's crazy...). I might try bumping the detail up, after reading this thread.

Just for fun, play a Huge unit battle with 20 peasant units on the opposing side, and 20 units of Armoured Elephants on your side...*evil laughter* That gave me slowdown. far too many people and elephants for my computer to cope with!

As for the question about managing the huge roman army, well, most of the time you won't be using First Cohorts (so your units are smaller). Also I find the game is better on Large rather than Huge, for SP campaign, at least. Huge units take up so much of the population, so it can make a big different to the way you and the AI play-you might enjoy it more on huge, though, so give both a go! You get used to having big units-I remember playing on the pathetic 'normal' and looking at the tiny units...the battles are much better on large/huge. I would hate to see 'small'...if it's half normal, you'd get 20 man roman units! Yuck! The battle would be over in about a second with current kill rates...

[TheDuck]

I was growing tired of the small little 40 man units, but I thought my computer couldn't handel anything larger due to its only 64 mb Nvidia g-force4. I was promised spectacular battles that would make your eyes pop out, but instead I was playing normal less than better than MTW battles. Finally I got tired of it, and threw away the advice that my computer counldn't handle the huge settings and play a real battle. Going to the custom battle, I played as the Juli, with 100,000 money, selected all early leginary first chorts, and prayed as I started the battle my computer wouldn't blow up.

I started the game and to my surprise, it ran perfect, and WOW what a battle. 16 minutes later I barely beat a valored up Chartharage army of Iberian Infantry. Now this is why I bought the game!

My first question is why does the game tell me I can't handle a battle I can. Sure the unit detail was low, but I don't play TW for the graphics, I play it for the battles.

My second question, How in the world do u handle that large of a roman army?

But my piece of advice, If your thinking about going to a larger size, and afraid to do so because of the games warnings. Just give it a try, and I saw no downgraded performance at all, even with flaming arrows in later test.

There are tons of variables that affect graphics performance on PCs.

Memory speed, speed of AGP settings, level/manufacturer of BIOS, graphics processor and graphics board memory amount/speed, main board CPU speed, chipset used by motherboard.. all these contribute in one way or another to whether something looks good or looks like a slideshow on your computer.

The best way to find out what settings work for you is to start out with 'best' settings and back them off until things look good/perform well for what you want.

Normally the 'readme' files for most games will give you the settings that most affect performance in cases where you want to start off as 'best looking' and back off features that give you more performance. Normally shadows, blending and filtering options take the most away in terms of performance.. but I find that I start out with them all on and then experiment until I get the trade off I like for looks vs. performance.
Just some thoughts, and hope this helps.

[Krusader]

A handy tip is NOT to increase your Refresh Rate. I increased it to 75 Hz, and the game got laggy.

I set the building detail to Medium or Low, so the siege battles wont be so slow.

[Rurik the Chieftain]

Yeah, they have to post very conservative requirements as a rule of thumb. It's like at disney world where they have some silly ride with a sign that says
"CAUTION THIS RIDE IS TERRIFYING"

[Ziu]

If your a little more adventurous you could always overclock your vid card and/or cpu/ram.

[Penguin]

I just got the game a couple days ago and it crashed at ever battle but actualy took the CA advice and upgraded my vid drivers and it looks great and the geforce 4 mx440 isnt too bad at least the 128meg version
try this site for help with video probs gru3d.com

[Mudshovel]

ye yea , the battles of this game are awesome! , jeje , do you remember the battles of age of empires I ? that was a pretty game , but this is the modern times with supergames and super armies .
well my question is , yea i have a intelpentium 4 2.0 , 512 ram and a old gforce ti 4600 128 , so , i can play huges battles with some lagg in low units details , my question is , why when i play in very low units details when i see the battlefield i see my units ,like 2D !!!!!!, why is this??? and how i can slow the refresh rate of my computer????
i doesnt like the pike foots of the soldiers in very low deatails....

[master of the puppets]

you guys probably know but have yet to agnoledge it but you CAN play campaign on huge units. just go to video options-then advanced options- switch unit size to small/normal/large/huge reenter the game and play.
like i said you probably know but just to clear that up.