Optimal Launcher and Video options for RS II 2.2? And the HW to play them...

[Ye Olde Fahrt]

EDIT: Updated Feb 28th I will record the current consensus of optimal settings into this post.

Inspiration - the awesome pictures of the 2.2 update as found in this thread:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=460441

While waiting for the mod team to churn out the last bugs out of the 2.2 update, now's the perfect time to tune your (and mine!) system to get the most out of RS II! The RS II Download thread provides us with basis: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=386559.

Let us next share our experiences for that perfect setup, and the hw to make it possible...

What is the optimal RS II VIDEO setup to get that 95% enjoyment out of the game engine?

...as the last 5% are always the expensive ones, requiring that Uber PC most of us don't have... For comparison, I have listed my current options so you can compare them to the HW I've got.


Game launcher options:

Vegetation: MEDIUM <- There was a clear warning this is the ultimate resource hog, and HIGH is for Uber PCs only. I use MEDIUM.

Special bloom: ON <- LIGHT? DARK? A matter of what you like? I have it at DARK at the moment.

High-res units: ON <- Yep.


Video options:

Anti-aliasing OFF <- It is recommended the Graphics card is configured to handle the Anti Alias stuff.

That's what I did for my ATI card, I set it for Medium, ie. to middle of Speed vs Quality. There was some additional capabilites as well, I set them all in a manner to not ask application for any information for graphics performance. The ATI card is now responsible for all settings.

Terrain details HIGH<- I have it on HIGH

Building details HIGH <- HIGH will do, see DVK's comments below. I have it on HIGH.

Grass HIGH<- I have it now on HIGH, up from MEDIUM. With a 24" display MEDIUM does not visually cut it, the grass stops appearing too soon.

Unit scale HUGE <- HUGE !!!! <- I thought I could not do it? Was LARGE and I thought I was stuck with it.

Unit Detail HIGH<- This is the optimal setup, and it is what I use

Effects detail HIGHEST? <- I have them on HIGH. Not quite sure whether HIGHEST makes a difference?

Vegetation detail HIGH<- HIGH it is. Was: MEDIUM.

Oh yes, and all those tick boxes (Smoke, Glint, Shades, ...) ticked ON

What is the minimum HW required to support the above?

What is the set up for reaching (but not going beyond) the optimum game enjoyment :

CPU: 2.9 - 3.0 MHz ? <- See the posts below. I would at the moment hazard a comment my 2.6MHz almost but not quite cuts it. Just to repeat the obvious; the game engine does not support multi-core process at all, it will use one of the CPU cores only. Only Megahertz matter here.

Memory: 2GB XP / 4 GB W7 <- Rarely a problem nowadays.
Graphics Card: 512Mt (Really? Maybe, it seems now that if you can turn the Anti-alias on and configure the Graphics card to take control, there's a remarkable difference.)
It was recommended in the download thread the amount of memory is what counts. I have 1Gb, should it be 2Gb?

Disk: SSD <- Let us assume it will do no harm for getting the load times between battle and campaign maps faster! A 32 Gb SSD should not break the bank either...

I will not comment on the display size. Bigger the better of course

My setup...

Just for comparison, this is what I've got vs the options I am using:

- A basic HP P2660 SC W7 64 bit <- Your basic all-around home PC that I found at a bargain bin a couple of years ago
- AMD Athlon II X4 620 2,6 MHz <- obviously not fast enough, but still learning whether a top graphics card could compensate for a slower but not sluggish CPU?
- ATI Radeon HD 4650 1 GB <- Now configured to take care of the Anti-aliasing as recommended. Adjustable (?) Anti-alias also ticked on, with emphasis on quality vs speed.
- 4 GB memory <- OK, I know this is enough
- 24" LG 1920x1080 HD Monitor

I will continue to test my setup to see if I can somehow max out into HUGE units in addition to options I am using... And seems it worked:

BEFORE: "In short, playing with LARGE units instead of HUGE would almost seem to allow my current setup to run with the optimal option setup... Not having HUGE units is a major downer though. "

AFTER: "Confused but happy! All settings on HIGH, units on HUGE, and it seems to work? What happened here... Was it really as simple as turning Anti-alias OFF; and tweaking the graphics card settings to do the job? "

The RS II DOWNLOAD thread does make the point for disabling anti-alias, that's what I did, and now it seems I can enjoy high level graphics and huge units. It seems Anti alias ON uses CPU for graphics, which ended up being too much for my system. I only had time to test with two full stacks with some minor reinforcements, so definitively need to test it in a larger battle. But I was not able to do even that previously...

[Ybbon]

You're best bet is to ask this in the basement - there are some guys there who will know more than you could possibly want answered about your rig

[Ye Olde Fahrt]

Thanks, will do that for my Part 2 and Part 3 questions!

Anyhow, for Part 1, I reread some of the instructions and got at least Anti-aliasing sorted out Now need to figure out the rest of the Video options and also to really understand what Bloom effects is all about...

[ur-Lord Tedric]

The PC I now have just for RTW - and specifically RSII-2.5 testing - is now:

An Intel chip running at 3 GHz (this was the last change I made - Athlon 3500+ at 2.2GHz was 'orrible).

The 512Mb 8x AGP card is fine (PCI will be better as will faster bus-speeds, but that's because most of the graphics grunt is being done by the main processor)

Win XP SP3 with 2GB is fine too.

[Ybbon]

Well first off, I'm not sure you need vegetation and grass on the highest settings anyway, unless you have a high resolution and large monitor you probably will not notice any difference. If Brusilov happens along I think he uses a big monitor at high res so he could speak better of that, but for most people, med/high will be fine. The lagginess will come with these 2 in particular too high as it means many more sprites.

So in answer to what is best, as you may have seen, multi-core CPU's will actually perform worse in many cases than a single core lower speed processor. RTW does not split the process between cores because it is an old game so it takes no advantage of the multi-core architectures.

The bigger the graphics the better (sort of), but really ask this in the basement as they will know loads of details on specific graphics chips and motherboards, but bear in mind as well the bigger the more heat, the more power used etc.

SSD will make a difference if you only had the game on that but they are expensive just for that. I have a 64GB crucial SSD but I use it as a dual boot drive to speed the boot process up. RAM, the usual applies, the more the merrier but if you are not using a 64-bit OS there is no point having more than 4GB(?) as it can't be addressed anyway. I use 8GB with 64-bit Win7.

This works for me:

AMD 635 (quad 2.9GHz)
8GB RAM
ASUS M4A87TD
Radeon 5670 1GB
1 1.5TB Samsung spinmaster, 1 crucial 64GB SSD

on Win7 64-bit. Usual kind of peripherals, DVD etc.

[Ye Olde Fahrt]

Thanks guys! I will continue to update the OP with information you give me. I will also run a couple of tests with my setup to learn the limits of it.

EDIT: Go figure, it seems I actually can use HUGE units while on HIGH graphical settings... More testing required though.

[dvk901]

What I noticed when working on the buildings in RTW and re-texturing many of them was that the same textures were used no matter what setting you had building details on. There were a few textures for a very few buildings that would reduce the load on your card, but really, I don't know that they are worth it. I would set building detail as high as it can go, and then work down a notch if it's troublesome.

I also have to say that my experience with video cards has convinced me that newer ATI cards perform better overall, and with less trouble, than Nvidia cards. I was a long time Nvidia champion, but at one point I got a couple cards from them that were buggy, and one just plain burned to a crisp for little reason. I started buying ATI cards, and was much impressed with how much better they performed.

[Ye Olde Fahrt]

Thanks dvk, updated my OP. I will test the Anti-alias stuff again this weekend, to get an idea how much of an role it's got for making things smooth and fast...

By the way, I am also interested what are the settings you guys are using?

Here's a template to copy your answers, which would be highly appreciated of course!

Launcher:
Vegetation: [LOW/DEFAULT/MEDIUM]
Special bloom: [OFF/LIGHT/DARK/CUSTOM]
High-res units: [OFF/ON]

Video options:
Anti-aliasing: [OFF/LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH]
Terrain details: [LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH]
Building details: [HIGH]
Grass: [LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH]
Unit scale: [SMALL/MEDIUM/LARGE/ HUGE]
Unit Detail: [LOW/MEDIUM/ HIGH/HIGHEST]
Effects detail: [LOW/MEDIUM/ HIGH/HIGHEST]
Vegetation detail: [LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH]

And pls share your HW info together with comments if any lag noticed etc...