Hello all,
I have been seeing a lot of complaints and suggestions about the graphics issues and running the game. Initially when I started the game on my laptop, I got like a 5fps benchmark with the forest video saying,
"V..V..Varius, g..g..give b..b..back m..m..my l..l..legions..."
Funny yes, but this simply was not done. I asked around and got the answer that my laptop wasn't meant for gaming, nuff' said. But then I could not afford buying a gaming laptop, so I had two choices - come here and moan or do something about it. And I did some research and finally tweaked the laptop to be able to play in medium-high settings without any lag at all. All that without spending a single pound (or dollar or euro).
Knowing your Laptop
The first step is know your laptop. Mine was a media laptop, which is somewhere between work and gaming laptops. Typing "Can I play in Rome 2" in google showed that my laptop measured between minimum and recommended settings. Follow the below steps to know more.
Type dxdiag in the search box for the DirectX Diagnostic tool. Click on the Display tab for the graphics information. You don't need to read through all that. The important stuff you are looking for is only few among the data. I've provided mine for reference.
Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics
Chip type: Intel(R) HD Graphics (Core i5)
Display Memory: 1696 MB
Current Mode: 1366 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
This shows how graphics is managed in your laptop. But if your laptop is showing something like this, it means you are suffering from something that is referred as Intel switchable graphics. In a nutshell, this means that your laptop is using nothing but its integrated graphics which is not at all apt for running a cool TW title. Now for the next part.
Power settings
Most people don't look into this, but battery settings does affect game performance. The laptop holds back much of its power to save power. Most probably, the default setting for this in your laptop would be either Balanced or Power saver. But this won't play the game. For a game to work, change this to High performance just before starting the game. You can of course change it back when not playing. And this will soon become a routine to you.
NVIDA Graphics Settings
Type Device Manager in the search bar and to open up the settings for your devices. Here you just need to check if your laptop has the necessary stuff for running high end games. See the screenshot for reference. Your card can be either NVIDIA or any other ones too.
If it only shows intel, then unfortunately your is a work laptop.
Your card should be mostly Nvidia which is standard for Dell and HP laptops. Next right click on your desktop to got to the graphics control panel. This step is the most important one to override the intel switchable graphics setting.
In the control panel, got to Manage 3D settings.
It is best to leave the Global settings as it is and click on program settings. Here, you can assign graphics settings program wise.
Follow the below steps to change the options to run Rome 2 properly. I have listed what I did to get it run smooth and that doesn't mean that you cannot explore the options and experiment.
- Add "rome2.exe" as program to customize.
- In the preferred graphics processor, the default option is integrated. Change it to the Nvidia High Performance one.
- The in the list for specify the settings, you can modify if you want the integrated or performance settings. Here, tweak it to your needs. I have simply enabled performance for textures and power management. You can also tweak the AA settings if you wish.
- Save the changes.
Now your laptop is ready to play the game.
Last minute tweaks
Now the last minute tweak is fairly simple.
- Got to task manager.
- Click on processes.
- End all process that are not system or do not contribute to playing the game.
- This includes stuff like Spotify apps, bluetooth apps, smartphone software.
- Don't touch any system processes.
Play the game now. You should be able to play the game on medium-high settings. I selected medium and then made the unit, building, and textures high. And works smooth as butter.
Concluding, I hope this guide was helpful to you. Please feel free to post feedback or any doubts.