Better graphics and still good performance

[Gawain of Orkeny]

i would either get a >4ghz single processor gaming computer with room for up to 4 gigs of memory at least.

otherwise i would hold off until the dual cores get up to near 3.0 ghz before i buy. that should happen sometime near this years end i think.

But the Core 2 Duos out perform those 4 ghz single core cpus already. You cant judge them 1 on 1 just by the ghz rating. Besides that I can crank my E6600 up to 4ghz np.

Someone mentioned Oblivion, where you could change almost any graphical variable, like the density of the flowers on a bush, etc, these commands went much futher than the options in the menu.

I just set it for highest graphics and set my 8800 to HDR

Neat graphics.

[MrsCabbage]

Many Thanks Xdeathfire!

I hadn't taken much notice of textures and had them low so I increased textures and lowered some others and WOW!

My little pixel combatants look better and move smoother.

So for me I gained a lot more from having higher textures and lowering others.

[Foz]

Regarding Foz's post on which things you should upgrade before everything else this is what I think.

1. Resolution. Playing a game at a lower resolution than what you computer screen is inately just sucks period. If you have played those older games that can't change resolutions or to very high ones and if you have a wide screen lcd, you will know.

2. Unit Size. I generally like to play M2TW on Large at least. Huge may be too much for some people, but most people don't have issues with Large. Anything smaller, and you are ruining the grandness of the game like by having full stacks that are less than 600 men.

3. Texture. This is all-encompassing and will basically affect everything making it pretty important to upgrade, but also remember that it will probably affect performance by alot.

4. Everything Else. All of the rest are smaller things suchs as aa, bloom, or shadows and do not make as much of an importance to gameplay as those listed above.

I think this is pretty reasonable. Obviously unit size is far from required - it's nice to have bigger units, but if you're trying to squeeze performance they could be set lower since it's fairly load-intensive to use the bigger units. I currently use normal size, and don't see a particular reason to change: the units feel large enough. AA and AF are probably the most important of the unmentioned "everything else" since they affect the look of the scene SO much, but I agree that textures and res belong before those things.

For those of you not really acquainted with video settings too well, perhaps a brief explanation is in order. Anti-aliasing (AA) is a method for smoothing the stepping that you can notice in diagonal lines in a scene. Without it, you can see that the lines seem to form steps like this:

_
 |_
   |_
     |_

For a good example of this, look at the edge of a wall without AA on - it appears jagged. AA smooths that defect and makes the line look more natural, i.e. straight. It does this by treating the scene like it is at a higher res than will actually be displayed. 2x AA typically treats the scene as twice the res in one of the directions (horizontal is typical I believe) while 4x is twice the res in both directions. This makes it an important setting, as much of the graininess we detect in the scene is due to aliasing (the stepped lines I mentioned). So the end result is a much cleaner look once AA is applied.

Anisotropic Filtering (AF), on the other hand, directly affects the textures in the scene. The main problem here is that textures, when viewed at angles and/or at a distance in a scene, become distorted, looking blurry and just bad in general. AF is a process that sharpens up that distortion through calculations, which I'll spare everyone from having to read. Again this is important because the scene will look bad if nothing is done to sharpen up those imperfections in the textures: your eye immediately notices that things appear out of focus and "off" somehow. Higher settings represent more involved calculations, and thus better results (i.e. more realistic textures when viewed on angles). This is especially noticeable on walls and buildings in M2TW, since you will so often be looking along them as opposed to directly at them, but the effect on units is noticeable as well.

So in general I'd recommend setting AA x2 and AF x8 if it's at all possible to do so - it makes a massive difference in the way the scene looks.

Someone also mentioned that shadows are really computationally intensive, but the game looks really wrong without them. I couldn't agree more. I too arrived at setting shadows to the lowest setting - it removes them for units, which I actually think was a plus (they look VERY poor for units on lower settings than highest, try it). However, lowest keeps the shadows of buildings. It's those wall and building shadows that look wrong when missing, so I too strongly endorse the lowest shadow setting as the best balance between performance and quality.

Other settings like bloom and reflections can make their own contribution, but I personally find them quite optional and frankly less than worthwhile. They simply don't make as big of an impact as the other settings... and if you're concerned at all with performance (which most people are, since few cards out right now just waltz through this game's graphical demands) then these things are almost certainly the first that should go.

[MrsCabbage]

Well well... I have read through pages of so called explanation of what all those oddly named special things graphics cards do and have to say I was none the wiser.

I read the post by Foz last night and when I came back today I could stll remember roughly what Anti-aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering actually refer to! The only amusing thing is if I try to explain it someone else I am likely to start by say

"You know when you are looking along the edge of a castle wall..."

he he - I should get out more!

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to explain these things.

[Quickening]

Okay so I can play Medieval 2 fine with a couple of losses in beauty here and there. But I don't want any loses. I want to play it in it's full glory and without performance loss. Time for an upgrade then.

My PCs specs are:

3.06 Ghz Intel Dual Core Processor
GeForce 7600 GT
1 Gigabyte of RAM
Windows XP

I want to stick with the Nvidia Geforce cards in an upgrade if possible. What upgrades should I be looking at to get M2TW running perfect?

[Foz]

Okay so I can play Medieval 2 fine with a couple of losses in beauty here and there. But I don't want any loses. I want to play it in it's full glory and without performance loss. Time for an upgrade then.

My PCs specs are:

3.06 Ghz Intel Dual Core Processor
GeForce 7600 GT
1 Gigabyte of RAM
Windows XP

I want to stick with the Nvidia Geforce cards in an upgrade if possible. What upgrades should I be looking at to get M2TW running perfect?

Well, it's likely your video card and your ram are both limiting factors at the moment. You'll likely want a GeForce 8800 card, and an additional GB of ram (fastest you can get your hands on). I haven't shopped for either one really recently though, so I can't comment further since I don't know if they have multiple 8800s out and what the differences would be, nor exactly what ram is best to go with right now.

Well well... I have read through pages of so called explanation of what all those oddly named special things graphics cards do and have to say I was none the wiser.

I read the post by Foz last night and when I came back today I could stll remember roughly what Anti-aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering actually refer to! The only amusing thing is if I try to explain it someone else I am likely to start by say

"You know when you are looking along the edge of a castle wall..."

he he - I should get out more!

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to explain these things.

Glad I could help