ATI Card Problems

[$harpy06]

Anyone with an ATI 58xx series card is screwed.

If you're on a 58xx series card, every time a cannonball hits the ground, your frames will drop to about 1-5FPS. If you're on a 47xx or 48xx series card, you can revert to 9.2 drivers and the issue goes away. If you're on a 58xx series card, you cannot take the 9.2 series drivers and you're pretty much out of luck. If you have 7/Vista you can download the 10.3 leaked beta drivers, although I doubt they'll help.

I've just been reading a topic about problems with certain graphics cards and a low fps with cannon balls. This guy above says the 58xx series has this problem, but ive been told by loads of people that the 5870 card is was one of the best to play N:TW with and i've just gone and bought one..... could anyone advise. Thanks

[Totalheadache]

no major issues with the 5870 and etw or ntw for me. runs around 70fps on average. ok there is some slow slow down when u zoom into melee and smoke but only to 45fps...that might get better with drivers.

when changing from nvidia to ati i did a complete format fresh install of os. if you dont want to do that at the start at least use driver sweeper and drivercleaner.

but you will need to keep an up to date version of physx as some games still need it on your system even though an ati card using a different architecture

http://downloads.guru3d.com/nVIDIA-P...load-2442.html

(physx)

http://downloads.guru3d.com/MSI-Afte...load-2471.html

(overvolting and overclocking 5870. around 1.25v for 950 core. go easy on the memory (1225-1250). u might need less vcore my cards a bit of a lemon. fan speed around 35-40 is plenty.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=315901

using these 10.3 drivers.

when upgrading to newer drivers use the uninstall from driver package. then goto device manage and right click the 5870 and uninstall. reboot and install new drivers. shouldnt need to use driver sweeper. up until now always used it when changing any driver but had some issues awhile back and it recognised now by many users that devicemanager and the driver package is enough to clean the old ones out. but driver sweeper is necessary when changing from nvidia to ati. or vice versa.

i still say format is the fail safe way to go. if you have an external hd whack your stuff on there...and savegames you can store from your steam folder. not sure on this but there is a way.

[Astaroth]

Moved to the Technical Help forum.

[$harpy06]

Cheers totalheadache, i've done a fresh install of Win 7 anyway. So will be starting new with the ATI Card.

[InferiorBeing]

I've just upgraded to the Radeon HD 5870, but has had no improvement, unfortunately.

[karamazovmm]

have you done what totalheadache said?

[Cameraman]

I just got a 5870. Upgraded from SLI nvidia 8800s and the game runs great. So much better than before. No framerate issues for me when the cannonballs hit the ground.

[karamazovmm]

I played the demo, and yes no cannonball stuttering for me (HD 4670m). (quit the battle btw, but was a tough fight that ligny)

[Chevalier IX]

seems the aforementioned are not the only cards from ATI with issues,for my 5770 has the same problem.I have run numerous tests of other hardware and trace it only to the card and this game.My rig devours other games,including all other titles in the total war series,but yet for some reason I hover around 20fps on Napoleon with Ultra settings!!My current build is 8GB DD2 RAM,Phenom II quad Black Edition 3.0GHZ,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5,Black Widow 850 Watt power supply...this really should not be occuring...or should it??some insight??I am assuming this has to do with the card and drivers,currently running 10.2 Windows 7 64 bit

[Totalheadache]

seems the aforementioned are not the only cards from ATI with issues,for my 5770 has the same problem.I have run numerous tests of other hardware and trace it only to the card and this game.My rig devours other games,including all other titles in the total war series,but yet for some reason I hover around 20fps on Napoleon with Ultra settings!!My current build is 8GB DD2 RAM,Phenom II quad Black Edition 3.0GHZ,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5,Black Widow 850 Watt power supply...this really should not be occuring...or should it??some insight??I am assuming this has to do with the card and drivers,currently running 10.2 Windows 7 64 bit

what type of aa have u enabled? stick to normal msaa for now. also turn off volumetric effects and ssao. i bet a lot of people are using these and are suffering a fps hit when they dont work/dont add much to the game.

also at what resolution are you gaming at? a 5770 @1920x1200 or 1920x1080 isnt enough i think. esp for some games. etw and ntw are graphics hogs. the medievals i could run over 100fps these 2 am lucky if i break 100...

[$harpy06]

I have to thank Totalheadache, as it was for him that i changed from a GTX 295 Card to a HD 5870 and played N:TW for the first time last nite with the new card and it worked really well. The Max FPS is not as high as on the GTX 295 card, but im running on 4xAA 16xAF everything on ultra with no fog and even Med Shadows and im getting between 70 and 40 fps. But its the stability of the card with the FPS that the GTX 295 lacked. It would drop into the low 20's and high teen's with settings simliar to the one's im using now with the HD 5870 (but didn't have shadows on then either!). Highly Recommend it this card!

One Question for Totalheadache though, im trying to O/C the card with the app u kindly posted, and was wondering how u adjust the shader clock as it doesn't seem to allow me on the app.

[Leoben]

what type of aa have u enabled? stick to normal msaa for now. also turn off volumetric effects and ssao. i bet a lot of people are using these and are suffering a fps hit when they dont work/dont add much to the game.

also at what resolution are you gaming at? a 5770 @1920x1200 or 1920x1080 isnt enough i think. esp for some games. etw and ntw are graphics hogs. the medievals i could run over 100fps these 2 am lucky if i break 100...

I have a 5770 too and I was surprised by a test yesterday: it seems that the game was smoother when I used 1920x1080 as a resolution rather than 1680x1050. Maybe it's linked to my monitor as 1920x1080 is its native resolution.

I then played a 4on4 game with the AI and treasury set to high to try and push the game to the limit. The units animations weren't fluid but the game kept on running, only freezing once when I went right into the melee of several thousands men at the centre of the map. After several units routed or were killed, the game was fluid again.

Everything was either ultra or high (except trees, grasses and shadows which were medium), AAx2, no ticked options.

[Totalheadache]

I have to thank Totalheadache, as it was for him that i changed from a GTX 295 Card to a HD 5870 and played N:TW for the first time last nite with the new card and it worked really well. The Max FPS is not as high as on the GTX 295 card, but im running on 4xAA 16xAF everything on ultra with no fog and even Med Shadows and im getting between 70 and 40 fps. But its the stability of the card with the FPS that the GTX 295 lacked. It would drop into the low 20's and high teen's with settings simliar to the one's im using now with the HD 5870 (but didn't have shadows on then either!). Highly Recommend it this card!

One Question for Totalheadache though, im trying to O/C the card with the app u kindly posted, and was wondering how u adjust the shader clock as it doesn't seem to allow me on the app.

with afterburner you cant change the shader. but your fps will go up with increasing the core. i found 950 and 1.25v and fan speed around 35-40 percent works for me. dont think my card is a great overclocker but it's very stable so far.

go easy with overclocking. you might need less volts than me. best way to test is to load a game thats quick to load and try your overclocks. if you get a "driver not responding" and then a brown screen/black screen or game stops that means you probably need some more voltage.

if you want to see how much diff an overclock makes res evil 5 benchmark is pretty good. i think going from 850-950 is maybe 5fps or a bit more.

if your cpu is at stock then you will be losing at least 10 i reckon. around 3.8ghz is ideal. mines at 4ghz and i think my fps are slighty higher than yours. i would say 55-60 low to 90's.

p.s dont go to high on memory. doesnt affect fps anyways. around 1250, although have seen some people push 1300. highest oc i have seen is around 1050 and 1300. but for that u need very good cooling or a very loud fan/water/and lots of volts...

[Totalheadache]

I have a 5770 too and I was surprised by a test yesterday: it seems that the game was smoother when I used 1920x1080 as a resolution rather than 1680x1050. Maybe it's linked to my monitor as 1920x1080 is its native resolution.

I then played a 4on4 game with the AI and treasury set to high to try and push the game to the limit. The units animations weren't fluid but the game kept on running, only freezing once when I went right into the melee of several thousands men at the centre of the map. After several units routed or were killed, the game was fluid again.

Everything was either ultra or high (except trees, grasses and shadows which were medium), AAx2, no ticked options.

always run a monitor at it's native res

[karamazovmm]

@sharpe DON'T OVERCLOCK THE CARD! the game has serious issues when you oc it.

Guys you have to remember to let the game control the AA in the Catalyst CC, and don't enable AAA in there also

[Leoben]

Is it better to "disable Catalyst AI" or better leave it?

[Cameraman]

I have a suggestion if you switched from an nvidia card and you are having performance issues. Go to your User\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Napoleon folder and delete fx_cache and ui_cache. The game will generate them again and it will take a little bit longer to load the game for the first time. I had a crash when I loaded the game before I deleted the folders because I believe these contain the shader files that the game generates and they are specific to ATI/nvidia graphic cards.

[$harpy06]

I've already o/c the HD 5870 card and seen no probs in the game yet at all - seems very stable as does totalheadache by the sounds of things.

Is there a step up in performance from the 10.2 drivers to the 10.3 drivers?

[Leoben]

I have a suggestion if you switched from an nvidia card and you are having performance issues. Go to your User\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Napoleon folder and delete fx_cache and ui_cache. The game will generate them again and it will take a little bit longer to load the game for the first time. I had a crash when I loaded the game before I deleted the folders because I believe these contain the shader files that the game generates and they are specific to ATI/nvidia graphic cards.

Having switched from a Nvidia card to an ATI one, I've just changed the names of those folders and got a "Impossible to connect to Steam" message. When I gave them their normal names, it worked again. It seems like the game wasn't generating them at all. I'm going to try again by deleting the files in those folders this time (and still keeping the original ones just in case, of course).

Edit: worked this time, I have nothing in ui_cache but it did create all the fx_cache files again. Will see if it makes a difference, thanks for the tip anyway.

[karamazovmm]

@sharpe good for you, we have fixed numerous cases of ctds due to oc the gpu