Better graphics and still good performance

[Derfasciti]

I got this game on Christmas and after some lagginess on the Best graphics I decided to keep it at medium. Now, I'm trying to think of ways to maximize my efficiency and graphical ability without spending money to upgrade my computer. The computer I have is fairly new, not even a year old, and was bought in mind for playing games.

Is there something I can do?

[Poopflingr1]

well, first off: take off grass. it isnt cool anyways... u cant see the dead too well.

take off AA, and glints, and shadows.


u can then crank up textures and stuff.

also, keep unit size at normal unless u like BIG battles and dont mind having a lil slowdown if u have like 4 armies fighting at the same time.

[Forward Observer]

First of all, your post may belong in the forum hardware thread or even the hardware forum, but your question is basically unanswerable since you provide no system specs at all.

I am trying not to be rude, but It's kind of like asking the forum how good your gas mileage will be when you don't tell anyone what kind of vehicle you drive.

Cheers

[Derfasciti]

No offense Taken Forward Observer. The reason I didn't cite any specifics was because I asked a general question and I don't know much about this computer in all honesty. My graphics card is an Nvidia. I have an Athlon Dual Core processor.

[Foz]

I've found that you can disable shadows and gain a lot of performance with very little noticeable graphical change.

As for the specs, if he's not going to upgrade the system, why do they matter? The things that help performance do so generally no matter what system you are running, so I fail to see how his hardware is at all related to the topic of this thread. If he was going to upgrade then it would be helpful so we could suggest what was most in need of upgrade, but as he's not it seems entirely moot to me. To run with your analogy Forward Observer, it's less like asking what gas mileage you'll get w/o knowing the car - more like asking how to get better gas mileage without knowing the car, which is in fact substantially different and very answerable, where the other would not be.

[sapi]

@derfasciti - while you have a point the specs would still be useful, in particular what resolution you run the game on

@poopflinger - it's important to keep at least 2x aa on - it really improves the image quality. bloom can go though

[Derfasciti]

Errr I run the game on the only resolution available: Both battles and campaigns are run on 1024 x 768

[Foz]

@poopflinger - it's important to keep at least 2x aa on - it really improves the image quality. bloom can go though

I tend to agree that AA should be kept on... but for the sake of digging deeper, perhaps we can discuss which settings should be prioritized if you're trying to up them. For instance if you can run the game okay with 2x AA on, and okay with high textures on, but the performance suffers too much if both are on, then which setup should you prefer:

- 2x AA with Medium textures
- No AA with High textures

This of course leads to a more general discussion of which settings give you the best bang for your buck (i.e. provide most benefit with least performance hit) and which give lower benefits or greater performance hits and are therefore less important to upgrade. Maybe we can even devise a setting upgrade guide (priority order to bump up settings) to help maximize the way the game looks. You'd bump up a setting at a time until the game became intolerable, then back off the last change and use the resulting config.

So what settings are the most important to get the best look out of this game given limited resources... and which ones are better choices to bump up for those who are trying to squeeze out a little more quality?