settings

[Thorn Is]

i want to keep large unit sizes
just trying to set it up for best performance.
lagging a bit
computer is 2.5 ghz
600 mgbs...

[Garvanko]

Remove grass
set vegetation to low or medium
building detail medium
remove battlemap and campaign map shadows
unit shaders on
unit detail to high

[The Spartan (Returns)]

grass off
special effects highest
terrain detail highest
unit detail medium
vegetation detail high
building detail low
unit shaders on
battle shadows on
high quality shadows on
campaign shadows on
unit scale medium

1gb RAM
Intel Graphics 96 MB

[Thorn Is]

What about resolutions?
this sounds stupid, but how does resolutions work?

[Quillan]

Resolution is how many pixels are on the screen: width x height. 1024x768 is 1024 pixels wide by 768 high. The more pixels on the screen, the more detailed the image will be, but also the more work the video card has to do in order to render the image. The usual resolutions are 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1600x1200. There are a lot of others, but those are the common ones.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

res: 1024X768
1280X1024 really good graphics but really lags on my PC

[Kekvit Irae]

Unless you are going for screenshots or close up views, unit detail should be kept at low or medium. There isnt much of a difference when you are viewing from the "Eye In The Sky" cam view.
Building detail should also be kept as low as you can go, for city seiges.

Another improvement is to use ">>" fast forward time setting instead of ">>>". Unless you have a super uber computer, large battles are going to be hell to super fast forward. This is because the computer not only has to calculate every variable in the battle, it has to calculate every variable in the battle at x3 speed. x2 speed is much less stressful on your computer.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

that's true before with 512 RAM when i use triple speed and never stops if i want to stop using it. now with 1GB it stops much much faster.

[Garvanko]

Ive always wondered about unit detail settings. Thanks for the insight kekvitirae.

[Wingman]

I've found that on my system battle field shadows and grass have caused the most slowdown. Turning those off should yield a boost in performace. Also, though it's no problem for me, you may wish to consider turning off smoke/dust. That may boost performance as well.

[Razor1952]

I play on a 2-3 year old dell 8600 laptop, by far the most important thing I have done is put more ram in now have 1.25gigs. Before at 512megs huge was problematic with slowdowns etc, now huge runs smoothly.

The most important 2 things in the settings are no unit shaders and 16 bit color but turn down the others if u want, I try to leave units at medium as at low resolution troops have dodgy feet and hands , I don't think the other particularly matter that much aesthetically.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

grass is hell. its like having many mini-solidiers. though i want it.

[Garvanko]

Unit shaders don't affect performance.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

unit shaders those but hardly and desynching animations too i think.