Helluu & Vistaquestion.

[spdfrk]

Hi there!
I just got Medieval II and it runs quite well on Vista 64bit for those who cares.

I also ordered the Eras pack (I just recently got into these great games). Will tell you how and if the games run on Vista.


A question though. The graphics drivers aren't really that optimized for Vista as of now. Anyone with a similar system running Medieval II on Windows XP?

AMD 64 3500+
Geforce 7800GTX 256Mb
2GB DDR 3200

I run the game in 1024x768, 2xAA, 4xAS and V-sync off. Everything else on high/highest but the bloom effect really hogs the game as of now. In XP I could run games with HDR or Bloom without any performance hit.

Sooo, do you guys think this is because of Vista? If anything is a bottleneck it should be my CPU and I thought Bloom were pushing the GPU only.

Thanks for any help...

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi spdfrk,
Although I do not have Vista, considering it's system statistics, I believe that the OS itself takes plenty out of your PC's RAM and GPU power, especially with that Aero interface, causing nasty performance negatives in games such as M2:TW. Hope this helps you, cheers and welcome!

[spdfrk]

Hi Omanes!

The Aero interface actually turns itself off when playing games to save resources.
Vista uses memory a lot different from XP, applications you use often gets buffered in the RAM but released when starting memory intensive apps... like games. But I still get the feeling I should be able to run this on XP with higher settings and with only 1GB ram, which I had at that time anyway, playing games like FEAR maxed out.

RAM really isn't the issue here, because Medieval II never uses all of it. I believe it's either the CPU or the GFX driver.

Waiting eagerly for someone on a similar system on XP. :-D

[sbroadbent]

As mentioned the problem here is the graphics drivers that are not optimized for Vista. ATI has released their catalyst drivers which improves the performance, while Nvidia has yet to release anything better optimized. In fact, Nvidia has yet to release a driver to run cards in SLI in Vista, unless you are running their newest 8800's.

The primary reason for Vista's Aero desktop running in 3d is so that the OS doesn't need to switch between a 2d and 3d mode. You would notice a smoother transition if you were to Alt-Tab between a 3d game and the desktop.

I'm pretty sure with better optimized drivers for Vista, that you'll see as good or better performance with games than in XP. Unfortunately you'll need to wait for Nvidia to get around to that.

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, spdfrk.

For questions about compatability with Vista (and other hardware/software-related questions), I recommend you post here.

[sapi]

I think it is the driver optimisation issue.

I would say that you should take bloom off though, as i've never noticed its visual effect, but it does entail a significant performance hit.

[spdfrk]

Thanks for the replies guys, and sorry for posting in the wrong forum.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Thanks for the replies guys, and sorry for posting in the wrong forum.

Don't worry about it spdfrk! I beleive that this forum is sort of a multi-purpose "talk about anything randomly in a fuzzier type of new member's environment" place, try saying that on one breath, so don't fear, you didn't do anything wrong!

[spdfrk]

Ok, thanks for that!

For those who cares, Every game from the Eras pack runs quite well on Vista 64bit. There's some small graphicglitches in the battlemaps for Shogun & Medieval but that should be driver issues.