Questions concerning graphics settings

**pokeytrev** · December 31, 2013, 02:09 PM

Hello,

I haven't played in some time, and I am looking forward to playing this great mod once again after some time away, being busy and all.

I just have a few questions concerning settings:

1. Why are there two different areas to configure settings: one in the in-game menu and one in the launcher? Do I need to set both or set one and forget about the other one?

2. What is the recommended graphics settings for the best possible aesthetics? I seem to recall that someone on these forums said that I should set the unit details to high instead of highest because they were better that way for this mod, for some reason. Is this true?

3. Should AA be enabled? Does it work?

**pokeytrev** · January 02, 2014, 03:10 PM

Anyone?

**the man, the myth, the legend** · January 02, 2014, 03:20 PM

umm. everything on high if your computer can handle it, if it starts to lag, start take some things down. Start with AA, it works but isn't worth the FPS, imo. Vegetation and grass probably takes up the most resources everything else pretty much cost very little in the way of performance. All computer configs are different, you just have to experiment and find out what works best for your machine. You can use Fraps (its free) to see your FPS and for in-game pics, I recommend. Good luck.

**pokeytrev** · January 02, 2014, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by the man, the myth, the legend

umm. everything on high if your computer can handle it, if it starts to lag, start take some things down. Start with AA, it works but isn't worth the FPS, imo. Vegetation and grass probably takes up the most resources everything else pretty much cost very little in the way of performance. All computer configs are different, you just have to experiment and find out what works best for your machine. You can use Fraps (its free) to see your FPS and for in-game pics, I recommend. Good luck.

Thanks for the reply.

I realize that setting everything to maximum should, in theory, make the game look its best; that is the case with most every game. However, I recall reading somewhere in these forums that setting unit detail to high in this particular gives the same exact result as highest. I was just wondering if that was common knowledge and if it is true or not.

Also, I don't understand why the launcher asks you to set graphics options when you are still able to edit them from the main in-game menu?

**trenktas** · January 03, 2014, 02:47 AM

it doesn't matter where u will edit graphics. it's just editing in launcher is better. if u edit settings in game, next time u go to settings in launcher, it will change to what u have setup there.

**neep** · January 05, 2014, 12:11 AM

Originally Posted by the man, the myth, the legend

umm. everything on high if your computer can handle it, if it starts to lag, start take some things down. Start with AA, it works but isn't worth the FPS, imo. Vegetation and grass probably takes up the most resources everything else pretty much cost very little in the way of performance. All computer configs are different, you just have to experiment and find out what works best for your machine. You can use Fraps (its free) to see your FPS and for in-game pics, I recommend. Good luck.

In older posts, and in some excellent background material from the developers, it was explained that the unit and vegetation details are the same between 'high' and 'highest'. So you don't get better looking objects displayed.

There is 'trick' where, after a certain distance from your viewpoint, the 3D models are replaced by 2d models. You don't really notice the difference and it reduces the graphics load on your machine.

What the 'highest' option does is tell the program to use 3D models for all distances. This won't give you a better looking picture and it will just overload your GPU - unless you're using NASA's mainframe to play the game.
Recommendation - Use 'HIGH'

Ant-Aliasing - again I saw this when playing archeologist in the forums. Switch off in the application and have your GPU manage this, ignoring the application settings.

I have an ATI Radeon HD 5700 with 1GB, that runs everything on 'High' and hardware anti-aliasing.
It runs at 95-99% utilization for the battles and the temperature never gets above 55 degrees C

**SD_Man** · January 05, 2014, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by neep

In older posts, and in some excellent background material from the developers, it was explained that the unit and vegetation details are the same between 'high' and 'highest'. So you don't get better looking objects displayed.

There is 'trick' where, after a certain distance from your viewpoint, the 3D models are replaced by 2d models. You don't really notice the difference and it reduces the graphics load on your machine.

What the 'highest' option does is tell the program to use 3D models for all distances. This won't give you a better looking picture and it will just overload your GPU - unless you're using NASA's mainframe to play the game.
Recommendation - Use 'HIGH'

Ant-Aliasing - again I saw this when playing archeologist in the forums. Switch off in the application and have your GPU manage this, ignoring the application settings.

I have an ATI Radeon HD 5700 with 1GB, that runs everything on 'High' and hardware anti-aliasing.
It runs at 95-99% utilization for the battles and the temperature never gets above 55 degrees C

Everything? Even vegetation, shadows, and bloom? I doubt it, unless of course you have a monster CPU.

**LoGaL** · January 06, 2014, 12:10 AM

Look, i used to run everything almost on high on my old computer with a pentium 4 3,2 ghz, 2 gb ram and a geforce 270( 1 gb )
The only thing that matters is processor speed, as everyone else said
Of course i didn't set bloom, nor vegetation models/unit models to high resolution
I tried high resolution vegetation( the one you can set from the launcher) on my new laptop, but it couldn't handle it, even with an i7 3,4 ghz
It can handle high resolution units
Still got to try bloom
One of the things i've alwais found to be cutting significantly the performance( you can appreciate the difference without fps program) are the shadows

**pokeytrev** · January 06, 2014, 04:30 PM

Originally Posted by neep

In older posts, and in some excellent background material from the developers, it was explained that the unit and vegetation details are the same between 'high' and 'highest'. So you don't get better looking objects displayed.

There is 'trick' where, after a certain distance from your viewpoint, the 3D models are replaced by 2d models. You don't really notice the difference and it reduces the graphics load on your machine.

What the 'highest' option does is tell the program to use 3D models for all distances. This won't give you a better looking picture and it will just overload your GPU - unless you're using NASA's mainframe to play the game.
Recommendation - Use 'HIGH'

Ant-Aliasing - again I saw this when playing archeologist in the forums. Switch off in the application and have your GPU manage this, ignoring the application settings.

I have an ATI Radeon HD 5700 with 1GB, that runs everything on 'High' and hardware anti-aliasing.
It runs at 95-99% utilization for the battles and the temperature never gets above 55 degrees C

Yeah, I knew there was an older post somewhere; I just couldn't find it.
So, there you have it: high will work just as well with this mod.