Quad/Triple Core CPUs..Will Empire be optimised?

[Marius Dynamite]

I don't think more units on the field is necessary for this game. I would imagine armies set out in very long lines. It will make them seem a lot bigger even though they may be the same number as in M2. Consequently the Battlemap size will have to be a lot bigger.

The downside of this is if Sprites are not done very well the games could end up looking awful as I felt M2TW did. Zoomed in the game looked brilliant, zoom out a little and all the white horses turn brown. I can already see myself looking down the line of musketeers and seeing a 3D guy beside a 2D Guy :(

[hellenes]

I don't think more units on the field is necessary for this game. I would imagine armies set out in very long lines. It will make them seem a lot bigger even though they may be the same number as in M2. Consequently the Battlemap size will have to be a lot bigger.

The downside of this is if Sprites are not done very well the games could end up looking awful as I felt M2TW did. Zoomed in the game looked brilliant, zoom out a little and all the white horses turn brown. I can already see myself looking down the line of musketeers and seeing a 3D guy beside a 2D Guy :(

Sadly only few people dont care about graphics....

[JeromeGrasdyke]

You will definitely see good benefits from triple / quad core CPU's, and also from SLI dual-GPU machines.

But as people have mentioned above this is a scaling problem... ETW does need to run as well as possible on the low-spec machines, and that means that the core game model - the part of the code that moves the men, picks animations, does collision, does the rules calculations, ai and so on - has to work within those limits. It's one main reason why we made the decision not to move the 10k man 'goal'.

The other big reason is that we wanted to do more with the men, and actually lay the groundwork for men as more complicated entities in the world. In RTW, the men were -in code terms- pretty dumb and unsophisticated objects. It was very efficient, but getting individual men to do complicated things such as dismounting, or handling interruptions while loading a catapult, was cumbersome and time-consuming for programmers. In ETW, men are more complex, more agent-like and so can display a much greater range of behaviours.

It was a choice we made, spending some more CPU power here to give us something we can work with and extend more easily in the long run, so we can give you not just more soldiers, but better and more realistic soldiers... I'm confident it was the right decision ;)

[rajpoot]

You will definitely see good benefits from triple / quad core CPU's, and also from SLI dual-GPU machines.

But as people have mentioned above this is a scaling problem... ETW does need to run as well as possible on the low-spec machines, and that means that the core game model - the part of the code that moves the men, picks animations, does collision, does the rules calculations, ai and so on - has to work within those limits. It's one main reason why we made the decision not to move the 10k man 'goal'.

The other big reason is that we wanted to do more with the men, and actually lay the groundwork for men as more complicated entities in the world. In RTW, the men were -in code terms- pretty dumb and unsophisticated objects. It was very efficient, but getting individual men to do complicated things such as dismounting, or handling interruptions while loading a catapult, was cumbersome and time-consuming for programmers. In ETW, men are more complex, more agent-like and so can display a much greater range of behaviours.

It was a choice we made, spending some more CPU power here to give us something we can work with and extend more easily in the long run, so we can give you not just more soldiers, but better and more realistic soldiers... I'm confident it was the right decision ;)

All right, that sounds pretty promising Thank you.

[Martok]

You will definitely see good benefits from triple / quad core CPU's, and also from SLI dual-GPU machines.

But as people have mentioned above this is a scaling problem... ETW does need to run as well as possible on the low-spec machines, and that means that the core game model - the part of the code that moves the men, picks animations, does collision, does the rules calculations, ai and so on - has to work within those limits. It's one main reason why we made the decision not to move the 10k man 'goal'.

The other big reason is that we wanted to do more with the men, and actually lay the groundwork for men as more complicated entities in the world. In RTW, the men were -in code terms- pretty dumb and unsophisticated objects. It was very efficient, but getting individual men to do complicated things such as dismounting, or handling interruptions while loading a catapult, was cumbersome and time-consuming for programmers. In ETW, men are more complex, more agent-like and so can display a much greater range of behaviours.

It was a choice we made, spending some more CPU power here to give us something we can work with and extend more easily in the long run, so we can give you not just more soldiers, but better and more realistic soldiers... I'm confident it was the right decision ;)

Good to know Jerome. Thanks!

I myself have an AMD dual-core (2.2 Ghz), so I'm guessing I probably won't be affected much either way?

[hellenes]

You will definitely see good benefits from triple / quad core CPU's, and also from SLI dual-GPU machines.

But as people have mentioned above this is a scaling problem... ETW does need to run as well as possible on the low-spec machines, and that means that the core game model - the part of the code that moves the men, picks animations, does collision, does the rules calculations, ai and so on - has to work within those limits. It's one main reason why we made the decision not to move the 10k man 'goal'.

The other big reason is that we wanted to do more with the men, and actually lay the groundwork for men as more complicated entities in the world. In RTW, the men were -in code terms- pretty dumb and unsophisticated objects. It was very efficient, but getting individual men to do complicated things such as dismounting, or handling interruptions while loading a catapult, was cumbersome and time-consuming for programmers. In ETW, men are more complex, more agent-like and so can display a much greater range of behaviours.

It was a choice we made, spending some more CPU power here to give us something we can work with and extend more easily in the long run, so we can give you not just more soldiers, but better and more realistic soldiers... I'm confident it was the right decision ;)

Oh I see....
I just have a final question: Is the core engine limited and overflows the CPU no matter how strong it is over 10k men? I mean lets say a 8400C2D can operate 10k men. Now will a €1000 Quad Extreme be able to operate 40k? (Cause roughly thats the power scale) Or will the engine code eat CPU cycles for dinner?

[rajpoot]

I don't think you'll be able to get past the 10k limit even if you have the new experimental CPU Intel people are working on..........having a better, like a quad, (atleast by what I've understood) will give you better performance, not more men.

I myself have an AMD dual-core (2.2 Ghz)

Same here, and I love that thing, when I was buying it, I wasn't so sure, it was the Intel Core2 Duo or AMD Dual Core, and I sure am glad I chose the latter.

[Belgolas]

I don't think you'll be able to get past the 10k limit even if you have the new experimental CPU Intel people are working on..........having a better, like a quad, (atleast by what I've understood) will give you better performance, not more men.



Same here, and I love that thing, when I was buying it, I wasn't so sure, it was the Intel Core2 Duo or AMD Dual Core, and I sure am glad I chose the latter.

First off having play many many battles in M2TW with over 10K men WITH playable frame rate proves that wrong.

Second C2D is WAY faster at gaming then any product AMD has right now. Intel has the best bang for your buck right now. And I sadly don't think AMD will have much to compete against Core i7 either. AMD needs to get into the game again so we can get cheaper CPU's and better CPU's out faster.

[hellenes]

First off having play many many battles in M2TW with over 10K men WITH playable frame rate proves that wrong.

Second C2D is WAY faster at gaming then any product AMD has right now. Intel has the best bang for your buck right now. And I sadly don't think AMD will have much to compete against Core i7 either. AMD needs to get into the game again so we can get cheaper CPU's and better CPU's out faster.

Amd quads cost as much as C2D line...so bang for your buck is still AMD...Intel was/is and always will be horribly overpriced....

[Derfasciti]

Wait... 10,000? My games in MTW2 and whatnot seem to allow battles of at tops 2,000 vs 2,000 and that's with unit size on huge.

[Belgolas]

Amd quads cost as much as C2D line...so bang for your buck is still AMD...Intel was/is and always will be horribly overpriced....

Well look at this the the AMD X4 Q9550 Black edition 2.66GHZ is around 219.99 while the C2D E8500 3.26ghz is 219.99 at ncix.com So those are the exact same price and for gamming you can get a hell of a lot more performance with the E8500 at stock and when you overclock it because it is easy to reach OC of 4.0ghz on air you decide on what to get! And if you want to get a quad when then for just a bit more you can get the Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33 Ghz and it overclock it like crazy. The E8500 overclock to 4.3ghz is twice as fast as the X4 9600! The Q9200 overclock to 3.5ghz (which is easy a noob who has never overclocked could do this) is almost twice as fast as the 9600 is gaming!

So again take your pick. This is why I restate that AMD needs to get back or we might see 300 bucks for a low end CPU by intel :(.

[rajpoot]

First off having play many many battles in M2TW with over 10K men WITH playable frame rate proves that wrong.

Keeping the CPU debate aside, I still don't get how you managed over 10000 men. The custom battles have what, 8 armies in all, on huge scale, with full stacks..........I had done some math, I could just reach to 10000 in theory. Perhaps you could elaborate more?

[Belgolas]

Keeping the CPU debate aside, I still don't get how you managed over 10000 men. The custom battles have what, 8 armies in all, on huge scale, with full stacks..........I had done some math, I could just reach to 10000 in theory. Perhaps you could elaborate more?

Well in custom battles with 8 armies with huge unit scale and having the maximum soldiers (150 per unit) and each is full you can have up to 24 000 men on one battle. Now that is to many troops for current PC(mine gets like less then 5 FPS with that many troops). Now to prove that I can have more then 10 000 troops I just played a battle with 12 000 peasants (for a quick battle) and it was pretty smooth. So I could probably do more. Going to try to see the max I can run with out it being a slide show.

[Joker II]

The other big reason is that we wanted to do more with the men, and actually lay the groundwork for men as more complicated entities in the world.

I wonder if we'll ever see some more units then just the graphical improvements you gentlemen make ?

Seems everything is/has been revolutionized except the amount of units one can/could control !

Such a pitty !

[Martok]

I have to admit that I don't really understand some folks' desire to field ever-increasing amounts of troops. Sure it'd be more realistic, but as a practical matter I don't see how one could adequately control & manage them all -- 10,000 men is already bordering on unwieldy IMHO.

[Pinxit]

I have to admit that I don't really understand some folks' desire to field ever-increasing amounts of troops. Sure it'd be more realistic, but as a practical matter I don't see how one could adequately control & manage them all -- 10,000 men is already bordering on unwieldy IMHO.

In Total War games without gunpowder I would say that there is no real problem handling say... 50,000 troops. Although, with gunpowder and artillery mixed with cavalry I dare say that 10,000 might be reasonable. Personally I dont care to much how the battle look when zoomed in and generally I prefer lots of troops rather than details that lacks real purpose. Sure, its fun the first week, but in the long run all I want is hundreds of thousands of soldiers killing each other in the name of... me

[Pinxit]

I have to admit that I don't really understand some folks' desire to field ever-increasing amounts of troops. Sure it'd be more realistic, but as a practical matter I don't see how one could adequately control & manage them all -- 10,000 men is already bordering on unwieldy IMHO.

Great. If I ever meet someone named Martok online in Empire: Total War I will know your weakness. I shall scramble all my troops in a very disorganized fashion and use loose formation so that they cover a large area and you will be greatly confused