Terribly slow gameplay

**Praetorian Guard** · 02-03-2007, 15:47

My system(RAM:256, Sempron+2500, VGA:Radeon9550(128MB)) supports the original Rome:Total war and the game is playing without a hitch. When I installed the Europa Barbarorum mod it occured to be loading extremely slow(about 5 minutes!). As I start the imperial campaign the movement across the map is quite slow. When I try to view a settlement it takes about a minute to show it. I would appreciate some help

**Oleo** · 02-03-2007, 16:56

Unfortunately your systemram is on RTW's minimum requirement, while the rest isnt the best of the best either. EB is a mod that pushes RTW to its limits, it simply needs a lot more resources. The RTW process draws up to 750 MB of ram on my computer while I play EB.

512 MB is really needed for EB, 1 gig would be even better. If you are in the position to upgrade to 512 MB ram then that will probably help you quite a lot.

**Praetorian Guard** · 02-03-2007, 17:06

Originally Posted by Oleo

Unfortunately your systemram is on RTW's minimum requirement, while the rest isnt the best of the best either. EB is a mod that pushes RTW to its limits, it simply needs a lot more resources. The RTW process draws up to 750 MB of ram on my computer while I play EB.

512 MB is really needed for EB, 1 gig would be even better. If you are in the position to upgrade to 512 MB ram then that will probably help you quite a lot.

I see. I expected the requirements will be the same as RomeTW, but obviously they are not :) Thanks for the assistance! Apparently, I will try it on an improved system :)

**cultist** · 02-03-2007, 19:23

There must be a file to edit
from what i remembered you can edit the vegetation or something so that the game can run a bit better
and i think you can do that not only to vegetation
for low spec computer users,we are not interested in graphics but gameplay :D
anyway
EB UBER ALLES

**keravnos** · 02-03-2007, 20:06

Hi, when in battle, hit esc. then on the menu that appears go to video options then you will see some sliders. The one saying "grass" slide it down to zero. But this won't help you. You may gain 5 frames or 10 but each turn will be a nightmare. EB uses a lot of ram. If you have 768 MB you will be good to go. I know because this is what I have and I get by and have no problems. That and a defragged drive.

**amritochates** · 02-09-2007, 16:20

You have basically two choices at this point, either to go buy more RAM or try the following:
a.Increase your virtual RAM
b.knockdown all graphical preferences except the first two to low or lowest and the remaining to medium
c.play using large or lower unit sizes
d.play at 1024*768 resolution
e.before staring the game log off your internet provider and shut down all inessential programmes esp. antivirus and firewall.

Hope that helps. BTW feel your pain, truly!!
Athlon XP, Ati Radeon 9200 pro(128 mb) and 256 mb ram.

**pezhetairoi** · 02-09-2007, 16:25

play at 1024 by 768, hell. I am reduced to playing 800 by 600 on the battle map, and this on 512mb RAM. I want to cry. Really.

**Bava** · 02-09-2007, 16:59

Originally Posted by pezhetairoi

play at 1024 by 768, hell. I am reduced to playing 800 by 600 on the battle map, and this on 512mb RAM. I want to cry. Really.

Hm, what are your other specs? Im playing on athlon 3000+, 512 mb (400 mhz),
5900XT and i manage to get good frame rates on the BM (1024*800*16,all settings medium, except unit details: high)

**PantsToucher** · 02-09-2007, 20:43

Hmm, for some reason I can play on 1280x1024 and the details around medium or so with my four year old comp. I've only got 512 mb of ram as well, and I kind of got burned with that Rambus or Rombus or what ever that RD ram was called, as now it costs a ton and is hard to find. So no upgrades in future for me, unless I decide to get rid of my awesome geforce 4200.

Of course, I might just have more of a tolerance for lag, and used to do my reading for university during the ai turns. One thing that did help me a lot though was to deselect "follow ai movements". Turning off your unneeded processes helps as well. Other than that, you just have to get used to it I guess.

**Nath** · 03-05-2007, 17:50

I had the same problem on the world map. I think the problem is with the map.rwm file in the Data/World/maps (I think) folder. This needed to be deleted in Rome total realism as it uses a different map. EB also uses a different map so it may be trying to run two maps at the same time, the vanilla and EB versions which would slow the game down considerably. Try deleted/removing the map.rwm file, I did and it worked a treat.

**Foot** · 03-05-2007, 19:07

Originally Posted by Nath

I had the same problem on the world map. I think the problem is with the map.rwm file in the Data/World/maps (I think) folder. This needed to be deleted in Rome total realism as it uses a different map. EB also uses a different map so it may be trying to run two maps at the same time, the vanilla and EB versions which would slow the game down considerably. Try deleted/removing the map.rwm file, I did and it worked a treat.

That is without a doubt not the problem. The map.rwm does need to be deleted when you install directly over the vanilla data directory, for the old one holds information about the vanilla map files (all found in world/maps/base). map.rwm is read by RTW to create the campaign map, but it itself is created by the map files in the base folder. When the map files are changed (ie when you install a mod like RTR), RTW does not reference this unless you delete the old map.rwm, as the old one still holds information for the vanilla campaign map.

EB on the otherhand installs to an entirely new directory and, because of the shortcut we use, RTW only looks in the vanilla folder for data files if they do not appear in the eb folder. If it does not find a map.rwm in the eb folder it will create one from the map files for eb. The problem entirely lies with the computer that the system is run on. RAM is the key, but I also found that a better gfx card helps allowed.

Foot

**Nath** · 03-07-2007, 13:12

Originally Posted by Foot

That is without a doubt not the problem. The map.rwm does need to be deleted when you install directly over the vanilla data directory, for the old one holds information about the vanilla map files (all found in world/maps/base). map.rwm is read by RTW to create the campaign map, but it itself is created by the map files in the base folder. When the map files are changed (ie when you install a mod like RTR), RTW does not reference this unless you delete the old map.rwm, as the old one still holds information for the vanilla campaign map.

EB on the otherhand installs to an entirely new directory and, because of the shortcut we use, RTW only looks in the vanilla folder for data files if they do not appear in the eb folder. If it does not find a map.rwm in the eb folder it will create one from the map files for eb. The problem entirely lies with the computer that the system is run on. RAM is the key, but I also found that a better gfx card helps allowed.

Foot

Foot, you are most probably right so don't take this as a disagreement with what you said. The main point I have to make is that I had the same problem (very slow battle map and extremely long loading times). After I removed the map.rwn file there was a marked improvement in the speed, which had to be as a result of this file removal. So I think anyone who has this problem it would be worth a try, I am running EB on a DELL with a PCI graphics card (crap basically) and 1GB ram, and it does run quite smoothly on 1024X960X16 res.