Kingdoms - dual core support?

[Katana]

i'm planning on picking up kingdoms tomorrow. the wikipedia entry says that it will add dual core processor support to m2tw, but seeing as it's, you know, a wikipedia entry, i thought i would ask for some citation. does anyone know if kingdoms will support dual core procs?

i'm pretty sure vanilla m2tw doesn't - i have a fairly beefy dual core system, and i've found performance a little underwhelming. (to have it be playable with two full stacks goin' at it, i have to play on normal unit size.)

for the curious, my system specs:
intel core 2 duo 6600 @ 2.15 ghz
nvidia 8800 gts w/640 mb of ram
2gb of ddr2 corsair ram @ 800mhz

[MStumm]

Dual core would be really nice. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything using google. The only thing pointing to that direction was a post totalwar.com saying that they began adding dual-core support in 1.2.

[Ars Moriendi]

I sense the problem here is your definition of "playable". My system is worse than yours, and I can play just fine with max details and large units... Care to share your average framerate ?

[FactionHeir]

I'm not sure whether it truly supports dual core.

Armies that my old single core laptop would display (i.e. 1 full stack on either side plus one fullstack enemy reinforcements) are refused on my new dual core one, saying how my hardware is not good enough (although its really double as good as before, not only in processing power but also graphics etc)

So no, I don't think 1.2 has proper dual core support. As for Kingdoms, the readme posted on the forum does not state anything about dual core support.

[Katana]

IRT Ars Moriendi
well, playable for me is above 24fps around 90 or 95% of the time. i don't have fraps so i can't give you specifics, but i'm certain during large battles with everything turned up it's way below that.

just fyi, i like to play with most video settings on high, including AA and AF - 4x on each usually; more if i can afford it. i also play at 1440x900. do you think i should turn down the resolution and bump up AA? would that let me play on huge unit size with no fear of a slideshow?

IRT FactionHeir
that's interesting, and also kinda disappointing. most recent games are optimized for single core procs (like F.E.A.R. and, apparently, M2TW), while a few rare ones more or less require two cores (i'm thinking mostly of Supreme Commander here). what's a gamer to do? i can't afford two computers! it would be great if the industry would just switch over to dualies right away, but, realistically, by the time they do that it will be time to upgrade anyways.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

@Katana.

I have a computer with the same specs as yours. I run the game at a slightly lower resolution (1280*1024) with 4*AA and AF. I had only some lag in sieges were the enemy had several stacks (huge units).

I have Kingdoms. There is no mention in the manual or in the readme of Kingdoms of support of dual core. I think we have to wait for empire for support of dual cores.

[GFX707]

Katana,

at 1280x1024 on my Iiyama I barely notice the difference between AA on and off...maybe you've been so used to having it on for years you haven't noticed....maybe you could knock that down to 2x and see how that affects things.

[Husar]

Well, with a GeForce 8 series card, AA shouldn't affect performance as much and if it's a CPU optimisation problem then AA shouldn't affect it at all.
I've also got an E6600 and the perfomance seems to be a bit lacking here as well once I get above two full stacks, but I think I noticed it's a little bit better in 1.2. Some proper dual Core support would definitely be nice, but I doubt we'll get it before Empires.

[Ars Moriendi]

playable for me is above 24fps around 90 or 95% of the time. i don't have fraps so i can't give you specifics, but i'm certain during large battles with everything turned up it's way below that.

just fyi, i like to play with most video settings on high, including AA and AF - 4x on each usually; more if i can afford it. i also play at 1440x900. do you think i should turn down the resolution and bump up AA? would that let me play on huge unit size with no fear of a slideshow?

Your standards are a bit higher than mine. I'm at 1280x1024 with all details at max except shadows (high, not extreme) and aniso (x4). I get along with ~20fps about 90% of the time, with drops at ~10fps for the remaining 10%. It's not glorious, but it's good enough for me.

About the AA /resolution trade-off : as you can see I'm exactly at the same settings (4xAA + 1.3Mpixels) and I think it's quite the sweetspot.

What I find a little surprising - I would expect a system like yours with a 8800 to give somewhat better results. Are you sure you have the latest drivers ? and no other problems, like for example overheating due to poor airflow inside the case, causing downthrottling of the GPU ? Or something else causing your graphics card to run slower than it should ?

About the dual core issue : this kind of CPUs only got into a significant portion of the market in the last 12-18 months. The M2TW engine was in development way before that, so I doubt there's any optimization in it. Any patch won't cut it for the moment, we probably won't get any dualcore benefits until the next engine revision - as is the situation with most software nowadays.


EDIT:
@Monsieur Alphonse : "I run the game at a slightly lower resolution (1280*1024)"
Not really important, but 1280x1024 is actually higher than 1440x900

[Katana]

thanks for your replies everybody. i'm still trying to track down a copy of kingdoms (it seems to have shipped a little later in canada), but while i wait i'm going to tinker with my settings a bit.

@ ars
i'm fairly sure my gpu is operating at capacity. according to my case, it's usually around 39 degrees celsius when it's working really hard. it can get a little higher if i turn the fans down or accidentally block one of the intakes, but that seldom happens.

[Ars Moriendi]

39 Celsius - that would be the temperature inside the case (motherboard sensor). The current GPUs are much hotter usually. I have no experience with the 8800, but my 7950GT stays at 50-60 C when idle, goes to 90-100 at full load (makes a lot of noise too when it gets there) and has the slowdown threshold at 130C - factory preset. You might want to check the operating temperature and the alarm/slowdown values. The nvidia control panel will usually provide some info, and there's small utilities that come with the card installation disks that provide various services in that regard.

[Katana]

i'll check it out, but i'd be really, really surprised if it's approaching the slowdown threshold. i believe the 8 series cards run quite hot, but are designed to, so it's ok as long as you can keep the rest of your case cool. also, i'm running the bioshock beta drivers for my card, though that game is still giving me some visual problems - some of the shaders don't seem to be working properly.

anyways, i got kingdoms today, and so far i've been very impressed. i loaded up a few generic custom battles in the teutonic campaign (each one is a separate executable, which is kinda lame) on huge unit size with 2x AA and 4x AF at 1440x900, and it ran pretty well. there were a few choppy moments, but slowing things down - you can control time incrementally in kingdoms, and slow it down past real-time - seemed to help. this seems perfect to me, as i've always felt like i was juggling a million different things in really large battles, and dropping most of them. slow motion seems to be a bit easier on the ol' computer, so going down to 70 or 60% of realtime in a large battle not only makes it easier to orchestrate just the way i'd like it but also play a little smoother. thumbs up all around.

anyways, i'm about to start my first campaign as the english, so i'll be off. cheers!