Battles too slow

[La Muerte]

Hi, first off congrats for the mod it looks great
But battles are unplayable on my poor computer, I believe the reason is that there are no LOD or sprites something like that. That is because I did something wrong in the installation or there aren't really sprites? If there arent sprites yet, can you make a patch that puts RTW or BI sprites on the units while the full mod isnt done? The mod really looks cool but i just cant play battles...

PS: I installed the mod and tha patch

[Antagonist]

I thought this thread was going to be about unit speeds Sorry about that. Sprites are done I think, hopefully they should be added soon. Possibly LoDs also.

Antagonist

[Gavmundo]

Get a better comp

The battles are perfect on mine. Don't think you can really blame the creators of the mod for that

[Greek Fire 19]

There are several things you can do. One is to go to your Rome Total War/BI folder and open the descr mod battle.txt document and remove the semicolon in front of the sprite for each unit (sprites are there but have been disabled, I think cus the team havent finished working on them)

The other, simpler thing you can do is simply lower the unit size in the options menu. I lowered it to normal unit size and now have no problems, and Im running on a laptop. Armies during the dark ages period were pretty small anyway, probably less than 1000 men usually, so it isnt that historically inaccurate.

You could also turn off grass. I find that slows down my computer a lot.

[King Arthur]

Yep as Greek Fire 19 mentioned you should re activate the sprites & turn off grass, the battles will then run really smooth. I had the same problem at first (I have a powerful machine) where I had to hit the P hard about 4 times before the battle would pause, it also 'stuttered' when I moved my cursor across the battle field, but not anymore!

[swabian]

could you tell me more about your machine? I do have an above avarege one too, but its not uber. The lags are no problem with full grass & w/o sprites.

[King Arthur]

Hey Swabian - I have a Pentium 4 2.8GHz processor. 512MB DDR. 120GB Hard Drive. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB Video Memory. Runs on XP. I can run RTW & it's mods & also vanilla BI with no 3D battle probs.

[Agraes]

This is a priority for the next updates. Sprites are disabled, because they haven't been tested extensively, so may causes battle CTDs.

[swabian]

Hey Swabian - I have a Pentium 4 2.8GHz processor. 512MB DDR. 120GB Hard Drive. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB Video Memory. Runs on XP. I can run RTW & it's mods & also vanilla BI with no 3D battle probs.

ok my computer and graphic card are better. however our graphic artists are working on sprites (they are allready there but bugged) and there is a good chance (i think) that we will also include LOD's. Have you tried to terminate unnecessary programs running in the background (such as virus protection) and to set the priority level of RTW to high using the task manager? maybe you should also turn of grass, shadows and dust and use minimum UI (can be found in the preferences, just search for 'UI').

cheers

[Eird-Way]

WHOA! No LOD's and no sprites? That's a BIG problem! I was about to download this, but now I'm going to wait. I've got 3ghz and a gig of ram (but an fx 5200), and am used to silky-smoothe Darthmod, with the dmb modded to reduce the LOD until the game runs like butter.

This is a big issue that keeps me (and I'm sure a lot of others) from really exploring the world of mods. So many modders seem to just do everything in their power to ruin game performance. I'm glad it wasn't a team member who said "get a better comp", because the natural reaction is, "um, no, I'll just play something else." SPQR in particular is never going to touch my HD. Of course, lt has an uber-machine and mods only for himself. But if you guys want a larger fanbase, you really need to make this a priority.

Glad to see you're working on it. Make a big announcement when you have a version that will be playable "for the rest of us".

[Publius]

Wll, of course this is a priority, but you have a better computer (or one about comprable) to mine, and it runs relatively smoothly. The only way you know is to try it, I suppose.

And wont it be easier if you have everything already installed when the sprites package is released?

[Agraes]

Its planned, but well, it wasn't a priority for a long time simply sprites don't make the mod. Lods requires even lot of extra work, and it's so hard to find modelers...

[La Muerte]

I did what Greek Fire 19 suggested, and now the game is playable Some units appears as only a shadow at distance but at least i can play the game in any battle. However, every 2 battles it causes a CTD, any idea on how to fix this?

[Eird-Way]

Of course, of course. I was really amazed at what a variety of new models you've produced, given that most mods stick to the RTW theme and their custom models are something along the line of "hastati with slightly different plume".

If you at least publish the sprites, then people without a great video card can mod the DMB so that sprites always show except for when the units are very close (within 30 meters or so). Then close melees look great, with the blurry dudes in the background seeming like "extras". Then zooming out to command looks like MTW, and runs like silk.

If it doesn't look like LODS will be forthcoming, you might want to take a serious look at tweaking the DMB.

[jamiegr]

I've got a good comp and battles are rele slow from far away but when i get rele close up it works betta. on original it runs fine. ive got everything on lowest possible but its stil slow. on the original, the settings are high all arround.

[Agraes]

Well, lods take lot of time.

For sprites, like it have been suggested you just have to remove the comma in the dmb, but this may cause CTD every 2 battles because of some bugged sprites...

[Ciaran S]

If you at least publish the sprites, then people without a great video card can mod the DMB so that sprites always show except for when the units are very close (within 30 meters or so). Then close melees look great, with the blurry dudes in the background seeming like "extras". Then zooming out to command looks like MTW, and runs like silk.

I wonder, how would the dmb entry look like, then? I have an idea how to handle LODs, but I´m not sure how to get sprites appearing at lower distances. Don´t you need at least four LOD levels (even if you actually only use two different LODs, say high and low detail)?
And isn´t sprite generation an automated, inbuilt process in the RTW engine?

[Agraes]

Sprites can be made via an editor inside RTW, but the process isn't automatic.

I take an entry for exemple:

type marchomawr2
skeleton fs_hc_spearman, fs_hc_swordsman
indiv_range 40
texture empire_west, bi/data/models_unit/textures/ATW_marchomawr2_2.tga
texture slavs, bi/data/models_unit/textures/ATW_marchomawr2.tga
texture roxolani, bi/data/models_unit/textures/ATW_marchomawr2_3.tga
texture romano_british, bi/data/models_unit/textures/ATW_marchomawr2_4.tga
texture slave, bi/data/models_unit/textures/ATW_marchomawr2_5.tga
model_flexi bi/data/models_unit/ATW_marchomawr2.cas, 15
model_flexi bi/data/models_unit/ATW_marchomawr2.cas, 30
model_flexi bi/data/models_unit/ATW_marchomawr2.cas, 40
model_flexi bi/data/models_unit/ATW_marchomawr2.cas, max
;;model_sprite empire_west, 60.0, bi/data/sprites/empire_west_marchomawr2_sprite.spr
;model_sprite slavs, 60.0, bi/data/sprites/slavs_marchomawr2_sprite.spr
;model_sprite roxolani, 60.0, bi/data/sprites/roxolani_marchomawr2_sprite.spr
;model_sprite romano_british, 60.0, bi/data/sprites/romano_british_marchomawr2_sprite.spr
;model_sprite slave, 60.0, bi/data/sprites/slave_marchomawr2_sprite.spr
model_tri 400, 0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f

By removing the ";" before model_sprite, the corresponding sprite will be enabled. However, some are still bugged so if possible, avoid do this.

[mrjesushat]

How do you "turn off" grass, exactly? My preferences.txt says something like, "grass distance 20". Do I set it to 0, or what?

Also, any idea how long before debugged sprites will be done?

[Ciaran S]

Sprites can be made via an editor inside RTW, but the process isn't automatic.

Well, you have to use that command line, at least to the best of my knowledge, but you don´t have to paint the sprites manually, that´s what I meant with automatized.

By removing the ";" before model_sprite, the corresponding sprite will be enabled. However, some are still bugged so if possible, avoid do this.

But that´ll still show sprites at a distance of 60 meters at the earliest, and you still use the maximum detail model for anything below that. I understood your previous post in a way that you use the model only to a distance up to say 30 and after that the models get switched to sprites. The entry would have to read (theoretically!)

model_flexi bi/data/models_unit/ATW_marchomawr2.cas, max
model_sprite empire_west, 30.0, bi/data/sprites/empire_west_marchomawr2_sprite.spr

Or do you need to have the four LOD levels?