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

[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

[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.

[Pinxit]

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.

I do 14,000 troops as a maximum playable limit. Everything over that is to laggy. I play on a:

AMD Dual Core 64 - 3 GHZ
Geforce 8800 GTS 640 MB
4 GB RAM

[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 :(.

[Belgolas]

I do 14,000 troops as a maximum playable limit. Everything over that is to laggy. I play on a:

AMD Dual Core 64 - 3 GHZ
Geforce 8800 GTS 640 MB
4 GB RAM

That is actually far better then I though you could get. That is cool.

I just tried 3 more battles.

First at 15,000 peasants lol. That battle had fairly smooth gameplay.

I then tried another battle with 18,000 troops and that was playable but had some lag.

And lastly I play with 24,000 troops and that is to laggy but I can control the units and all as it is still a few frames per second.

Mind you all games I play are at these settings of....

1920 x 1200

Shader 2, 8xAA, 16 X AF, Effects and unit detail at very high, Shadows at Extreme, everything else is at high (the highest possible).

I really got to say Extreme shadows are so much better then very high shadows.

Anyways my system spec is...

Intel core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 3.6ghz
4 GB of DDR2 @ 1066 mhz
4870 X2
Windows XP.

[hellenes]

That is actually far better then I though you could get. That is cool.

I just tried 3 more battles.

First at 15,000 peasants lol. That battle had fairly smooth gameplay.

I then tried another battle with 18,000 troops and that was playable but had some lag.

And lastly I play with 24,000 troops and that is to laggy but I can control the units and all as it is still a few frames per second.

Mind you all games I play are at these settings of....

1920 x 1200

Shader 2, 8xAA, 16 X AF, Effects and unit detail at very high, Shadows at Extreme, everything else is at high (the highest possible).

I really got to say Extreme shadows are so much better then very high shadows.

Anyways my system spec is...

Intel core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 3.6ghz
4 GB of DDR2 @ 1066 mhz
4870 X2
Windows XP.

that card of yours and the CPU are 2008 monsters and they struggle to max out a 2006 game....
Heh and people still believe that Crysis is the most demanding game on the planet....

[Pinxit]

that card of yours and the CPU are 2008 monsters and they struggle to max out a 2006 game....
Heh and people still believe that Crysis is the most demanding game on the planet....

Yes, but that is quite unfair :: Crysis is more demanding in its own way. I mean, I am certain that Crysis would be unplayable if you were to fill the screen with 20,000 enemy soldiers, as would most games. Especially Crysis, I might add.

[Pinxit]

Yes, but that is quite unfair :: Crysis is more demanding in its own way. I mean, I am certain that Crysis would be unplayable if you were to fill the screen with 20,000 enemy soldiers, as would most games. Especially Crysis, I might add.

You make perfect sense. Although, I must add, it is still very remarkable that a game that was launched in 2006 cant be played fully even with todays best consumer hardware. Total War designed for the future? Maybe in 2012 I will be able to play Empire Total War without being limited by numbers.

[hellenes]

Yes, but that is quite unfair :: Crysis is more demanding in its own way. I mean, I am certain that Crysis would be unplayable if you were to fill the screen with 20,000 enemy soldiers, as would most games. Especially Crysis, I might add.

Crysis in its original form (no mods) and M2TW in its original form...M2TW is FAAAR MORE DEMANDING....
Custom battles
8 armies of 20x150 units each= 24000
Now kingdoms which is essentially the same game:
8 armies of 20x250 units each= 40000
MAYBE an 8 core CPU with 4 Dual core GPUs will run that at 30fps....Crysis cant even touch the level of hardware demand of TW series....

[Pinxit]

Crysis in its original form (no mods) and M2TW in its original form...M2TW is FAAAR MORE DEMANDING....
Custom battles
8 armies of 20x150 units each= 24000
Now kingdoms which is essentially the same game:
8 armies of 20x250 units each= 40000
MAYBE an 8 core CPU with 4 Dual core GPUs will run that at 30fps....Crysis cant even touch the level of hardware demand of TW series....

Well, yes, Im not arguing that it is not. Im simply making the point that when people say that Crysis is the most demanding game ever, they are refering to its demanding visuals, which far surpasses the visuals in any Total War game. My point being that even a 20 year old strategy game would be more demanding than Crysis if you allow enough units on the screen at the same time.

[Megas Methuselah]

Well, Caesar 2 is almost twenty years old. If you fought on the battle screen and used up to 100'000 men(you can't, but hypothetically speaking), I could still easily run it. It's a great game, btw...

[Pinxit]

Well, Caesar 2 is almost twenty years old. If you fought on the battle screen and used up to 100'000 men(you can't, but hypothetically speaking), I could still easily run it. It's a great game, btw...

If you cant test it than how do you know that you could easily run it with those settings?

Anyway, it doesnt matter since all that would prove is that 100,000 isnt "enough".

[Megas Methuselah]

I know, I'm just poking fun at you. But for an old game, those cheap low-end battles are extremely fun.

[Pinxit]

I know, I'm just poking fun at you. But for an old game, those cheap low-end battles are extremely fun.

THAT is something we can agree on

[hellenes]

Well, yes, Im not arguing that it is not. Im simply making the point that when people say that Crysis is the most demanding game ever, they are refering to its demanding visuals, which far surpasses the visuals in any Total War game. My point being that even a 20 year old strategy game would be more demanding than Crysis if you allow enough units on the screen at the same time.

that was my point out of the box M2TW is more demanding than crysis and has another kind of impressive visuals....more of an awe and epic effect...

[Belgolas]

Well funny how RTW I can't have as meny troops then M2TW and I still can't max out STW with out lag.

I can max Crysis on my rig but I can't max M2TW. BUT in M2TW campaing you never get 8 army battles anyway.