They are not going to optimize CPU usage past low-end!

[Lord-Fisher]

Thank you to those who asked the question at the San fran event. The question being about PC performance, and how they will optimize it. Apparently, they won't.

The CPU/GPU usage will be more efficient to a degree on the low end, but on the high end things will be pretty similar to Shogun 2 in terms of CPU/GPU usage.

This is awful. Truly awful. The 'high end' (and even mid) side of things was pretty terrible in terms of CPU usage. Barely more than one core was used. This means potential performance is being completely wasted, and with a game as graphically intense as we all know Rome II is going to be, we truly need multi-core optimization.

I really can't emphasize enough how bad this is! It means that people who can't rely on the graphics card doing a lot of the work are royally stuffed.

I have an i5 3570k 4.4ghz. Safe to say, this is more powerful than my graphics card: MSI 6950. Obviously with this graphics card, I know I won't be able to play on the highest settings, but without multi-core optimization, I will likely struggle to play at medium. Please CA, please put some work into increasing CPU multi-core usage!

[daniu]

This is awful. Truly awful. The 'high end' (and even mid) side of things was pretty terrible in terms of CPU usage. Barely more than one core was used.

No, it's not awful.
Even though load was on one core at about 90%, that didn't have any performance impact; game runs smoothly except when zooming in very closely, and that's not a CPU issue.
People seem to not want to realize that performance efficiency is not measured by how much the cores are under load, but by how well the game plays with what it uses.

[Lord-Fisher]

No, it's not awful.
Even though load was on one core at about 90%, that didn't have any performance impact; game runs smoothly except when zooming in very closely, and that's not a CPU issue.
People seem to not want to realize that performance efficiency is not measured by how much the cores are under load, but by how well the game plays with what it uses.

I agree. But if the CPU was burdened with more load across more cores, game play would be smoother. My game isn't always smooth when zoomed out, and I'm sure it would be if there was more room in the CPU (over cores) for burden.

[koovie]

I somehow feel that TW games could never make full use of a processors capability.

[HigoChumbo]

I am under the impression that the technical advances in the graphics apartment in the last years have not been particularly ground-breaking.

So they have to leave the high-end not optimized in order to keep people buying new hardware. In my opinion, if a 580gtx can't run it, its not because its too demanding, its because the game is just not optimized. Just notice how after a development of 3, 4, 5 years... games suddenly run a lot better with patched by a month or two after release... they have to release a hardware-demanding so hyped people buy new computers, even when they don't need them (raise your hand if you bought a pc for Battlefield 3 thinking it would be the next big thing... )

They are trying to convince us that they invent a new wonderfulous technology every year that surprisingly improves the old generation performance by exactly 10-15%...

Most games are multiplatform, so i would not expect a big graphics jump until the next generation (and still, based on what they have showed so far, it does not look very impressive anyways).



This is just my personal opinion, of course. And that said, Shogun 2 had a quite good performane in old graphic cards if i recall correctly.

[Philllx]

I've just spend about 4 hours on Overclockers looking at a new PC, now I don't know what to get

[HigoChumbo]

I've just spend about 4 hours on Overclockers looking at a new PC, now I don't know what to get

Don't crack your head now, wait till the end of summer or fall. Most big games come then and the market migth change (new hardware releases, price drops).


I also spend days reading hardware sites when i am about to buy a pc and i know it is a pain in the ass. So spare yourself the trouble and wait some more months.



Right now i am ****ed, i bought a new pc on november 2011 for Battlefield 3, bought everything but the graphic card, and now i don't know if it will be better to keep my almost 2 years old pc (when rome comes out) and buy a new gpu which may get bottlenecked by the cp (althought i doubt it, i have a i5 2500k) or just sell this one and buy a completelly new one (the problem here is that no one is going to buy it, with the crisis and all, and if they do im gonna get trifle for it.

[A Barbarian]

game runs smoothly except when zooming in very closely, and that's not a CPU issue.

Yes, it is a CPU issue. Just look at the CPU and GPU utilization in that situation. CPU 100% (1 core as usual) GPU 60%. Not using much more than a single core in 2013 is a shame really. If true, using a AMD CPU for Rome 2 will be pointless if you want great performance.

[AtheistDane]

Right now i am ****ed, i bought a new pc on november 2011 for Battlefield 3, bought everything but the graphic card, and now i don't know if it will be better to keep my almost 2 years old pc (when rome comes out) and buy a new gpu which may get bottlenecked by the cp (althought i doubt it, i have a i5 2500k) or just sell this one and buy a completelly new one (the problem here is that no one is going to buy it, with the crisis and all, and if they do im gonna get trifle for it.

I know what you are getting at. I have an i5 2500K aswell + a gtx 580.

Looking at the new processsors and the i5 3570K in particular, I don't think there is much sense in replacing an i5 2500K. Even Haswell, which is scheduled for june of this year, does not seem to be enough of a step forward to justify an upgrade.

Its the same with graphics cards, however I do expect to upgrade my gtx 580 to a 780 in Q4 2013 or whenever Nvidia feels ready to release its next series. I just hope Nvidia don't pull the same kind of stunt as they did with the 600-series and label and price what was originally meant to be a mid-range card as a high-end card - and then a year later release the actual high-end card as a super expensive beast card i.e. the Titan.

[stradar1]

Thank you to those who asked the question at the San fran event. The question being about PC performance, and how they will optimize it. Apparently, they won't.



This is awful. Truly awful. The 'high end' (and even mid) side of things was pretty terrible in terms of CPU usage. Barely more than one core was used. This means potential performance is being completely wasted, and with a game as graphically intense as we all know Rome II is going to be, we truly need multi-core optimization.

I really can't emphasize enough how bad this is! It means that people who can't rely on the graphics card doing a lot of the work are royally stuffed.

I have an i5 3570k 4.4ghz. Safe to say, this is more powerful than my graphics card: MSI 6950. Obviously with this graphics card, I know I won't be able to play on the highest settings, but without multi-core optimization, I will likely struggle to play at medium. Please CA, please put some work into increasing CPU multi-core usage!

Well I have a 8 core CPU and 8 gigs of ram NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 Twin Frozer I would think im pretty set to playing this game on maxed settings Im sorry to hear you cant do that upgrade your pc bro.

[Sean951]

So long as they don't force me to play in that freaking fog, I am OK with this. I have a GTX 660 TI and i-5 3570k with 8 GB of RAM and when I load up Shogun II on max settings, it covers the campaign map in fog. COVERS it. I use those same settings to do a 8000 on 8000 skirmish and it doesn't even bat an eyelash. But no. The freaking campaign map was deemed to taxing for my system.

[DaciaJC]

This is disappointing to hear. But so that I get something straight, is the Shogun II demo on Steam relatively unoptimized compared to the (patched) full game? Because if that sort of performance is what I have to look forward to in Rome II ... ho boy.

[UU_od]

While I can see why this would suck for high-end users, I'm happy. They are also optimizing new features of the next intel processor (Haswell), which is awesome for me because I'm going to be buying a Haswell ultrabook.

[BigDogDavis]

Don't crack your head now, wait till the end of summer or fall. Most big games come then and the market migth change (new hardware releases, price drops).


I also spend days reading hardware sites when i am about to buy a pc and i know it is a pain in the ass. So spare yourself the trouble and wait some more months.



Right now i am ****ed, i bought a new pc on november 2011 for Battlefield 3, bought everything but the graphic card, and now i don't know if it will be better to keep my almost 2 years old pc (when rome comes out) and buy a new gpu which may get bottlenecked by the cp (althought i doubt it, i have a i5 2500k) or just sell this one and buy a completelly new one (the problem here is that no one is going to buy it, with the crisis and all, and if they do im gonna get trifle for it.

I game on a laptop (sadly, I wish I could afford a rig), I can run XCom: Enemy Unknown on close to highest settings yet I can't run War of the Roses on lowest settings with lowest resolution. On lowest War of the Roses looks like a source engine game. I don't understand why companies don't put effort into optimizing their games. You can sell more copies of your game if more PC's can run it.

[Rijul.J.Ballal]

this is why i have my golden rule of never buying a game until it is 5 years old,It is a given that your new system can handle it with ease...

[stradar1]

Give me a break Laptops pfft waste of money and time to be honest. Sorry I have a laptop but I only used it for when I was not at home. Laptops are just for business to be honest there not for gaming. Id rather Gaming!! Rigs get more love for games but it seems CA falls short in that regard. Sadly they want to reach out to laptopers Lmao. I use my Monster tower gaming rig for the real games!!

[SonOfCrusader76]

this is why i have my golden rule of never buying a game until it is 5 years old,It is a given that your new system can handle it with ease...

Five years old - seriously? What's the point of that? Sure they run better, but that's generally because they look like crap compared to games that have just been released...

[Dewy]

I have an i5 3570k 4.4ghz. Safe to say, this is more powerful than my graphics card: MSI 6950. Obviously with this graphics card, I know I won't be able to play on the highest settings, but without multi-core optimization, I will likely struggle to play at medium. Please CA, please put some work into increasing CPU multi-core usage!

More powerful how? Your cpu is definietly not anywhere near as good at rasterisation as your GPU is. I'm not a hardware guy but it wouldn't surprise me if your GPU also has more flops. If you can't play on medium with that graphics card you clearly have a hardware malfunction. Or someone has taken your 6950 and put in a 5770.

I am under the impression that the technical advances in the graphics apartment in the last years have not been particularly ground-breaking.

So they have to leave the high-end not optimized in order to keep people buying new hardware. In my opinion, if a 580gtx can't run it, its not because its too demanding, its because the game is just not optimized. Just notice how after a development of 3, 4, 5 years... games suddenly run a lot better with patched by a month or two after release... they have to release a hardware-demanding so hyped people buy new computers, even when they don't need them (raise your hand if you bought a pc for Battlefield 3 thinking it would be the next big thing... )

They are trying to convince us that they invent a new wonderfulous technology every year that surprisingly improves the old generation performance by exactly 10-15%...

Most games are multiplatform, so i would not expect a big graphics jump until the next generation (and still, based on what they have showed so far, it does not look very impressive anyways).



This is just my personal opinion, of course. And that said, Shogun 2 had a quite good performane in old graphic cards if i recall correctly.

Yeah that doesn't make any sense.

I game on a laptop (sadly, I wish I could afford a rig), I can run XCom: Enemy Unknown on close to highest settings yet I can't run War of the Roses on lowest settings with lowest resolution. On lowest War of the Roses looks like a source engine game. I don't understand why companies don't put effort into optimizing their games. You can sell more copies of your game if more PC's can run it.

That's not how game engines work. Don't worry a lot gamers don't yet they still insist on talking about it like they're an expert.

[koovie]

Give me a break Laptops pfft waste of money and time to be honest. Sorry I have a laptop but I only used it for when I was not at home. Laptops are just for business to be honest there not for gaming. Id rather Gaming!! Rigs get more love for games but it seems CA falls short in that regard. Sadly they want to reach out to laptopers Lmao. I use my Monster tower gaming rig for the real games!!

Many like me need laptops for mobility and many of these people dont have the money to buy both, laptops and normal PCs.

Thankfully CA is reaching their hands towards us laptop users

[HigoChumbo]

Yeah that doesn't make any sense.

Life would be utterly boring if i didn't bring my monthly absurd conspiratory theory on the table.