Patch 9 discussion thread

[GussieFinkNottle]

Now the patch is out and everyone is playing the final version, I'm creating this thread to fill the same role that this one did for the Beta.
What do we make of it? Points, praise, criticisms?

Full patch notes: http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War_ROME_II:_Patch_9 including hotfixes

[KarlVytautas]

I'm curious why they decided to change the armor for the foot companions of Macedon. They now wear leather/studded armor instead of a metal cuirass.

[tungri_centurio]

i did not see any statement that the torches are out of the game,but anyway i can't go back to vanilla after playing with mods

[Jester]

woooot, this time they actually managed to improve the performance, specially when armies clash. there're still some serious framerate drops, which make it hard to control when a unit is stuck on my cursor.
i want to be fair though, it is a huge improvement from the slide show i had before in battles

[alQamar]

Performance in Patch 9 is horrible across all preset compared to earlier presets. It is not the slowest state of the game since release for all presets but there no improvements that are visible in the benchmarking condition.
The improvements CA called out in the patch notes should be more visible in real game conditions. The last bar represents patch 9 final. The game in its scripted testing conditions is gettings slower with every patch.
The ridicilous thing with that development is, that this VARIES across different graphics preset, so while "high" presets got boosts, the upper presets will show penalties.

I would like to note that in opposite of CA I am meanwhile able to tell this is not a problem of my computer as I have tested the last 2 patch states with similar results on other machines with a 670 GTX. I am very sad that there is a clear difference between those facts communicated by the patch logs and the reality shown in their own measure called ingame benchmark.

[Jester]

@ alQamar. i dont use presets. i have my own mix of extreme, ultra and high settings and this patch 9 has by far the best performance for me. also, i m not using the ingame benchmark, i m just playing the same 3 custom battles to check the performance after each patch

[alQamar]

Well I understand you point Jester and most people do use own settings however we cannot make conclusions out of that settings as they are not comparable to each other. Whenever I convinced other people to do reproducible tests on the games performance they, some kind unfortunately, confirmed my own experience.

The game is not getting faster. For me that's a fact. Unit clash is an important event in the game, but the most important part is the overall performance the engine delivers, which seems to decrease a lot as shown above.

You'd better run the benchmark at least once to see the point why I insist on this method.
Playing battles on a massive map is another method but it is not reproducible enough. Aslong the replays are not confirmed to be fixed we probably have no other chance than using the benchmark to achieve this, even if we are all aware it is not the best benchmark ever made from technical aspects

[Jester]

yea, i see, and i think it's cool that you put so much effort into this whole technical performance checking and data collection. however, in the moment i'm just happy that the battles are not a total slide show for me anymore

[alQamar]

here is another discussion thread for that.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...cussion-thread

[GoTW Kubee]

Again, some of the changes they're making are definitely steps in the right direction, but they can't fix the core of what's wrong with this game without redoing half of it.

[stevehoos]

This one is gonna be a good one, I promise!

[Hoplite of Ilis]

If patch 9 is the best patch of them all......... leave SEGA make all the pre orders they need, next time. How many patches left? Two? Three? If each one is about 2-3 GB of change, then maaaaaaaaaaaybe.

[alQamar]

What are you willing to spent me if I can prove some opposites

[GussieFinkNottle]

Other than performance, do you guys like the patch 9 changes? I know I find the improved formation fighting to be a big relief, particularly the decrease in wheeling units.

[Musteline]

Dont use the benchmark it doesnt works and never worked.
how big is the update? 256kbps here.

[Butan]

Dont use the benchmark it doesnt works and never worked.
how big is the update? 256kbps here.

The beta was 600mo if I remember correctly, the final version must be around that. Good luck.

[crzyrndm]

The game is not getting faster. For me that's a fact. Unit clash is an important event in the game, but the most important part is the overall performance the engine delivers, which seems to decrease a lot as shown above.

CPU bound performance right now for me is on par with Shogun 2, if not slightly better (usage of secondary cores is much higher). GPU bound performance (the entire benchmark in my case ) is equivalent on the very high R2 preset.

Both of these are compared to the data submitted for your benchmark thread prior to release, and while I have no previous data to back it up, I'd be very confident in stating that the CPU bound performance has improved quite significantly since launch for me. Given the settings changes I was able to make with Patch 9 (most notably, texture quality medium -> high, and a whole lot of other settings up to medium (shadows, particles, terrain/water...)) I saw a marked improvement this time as well.

Basically, you data isn't matching what I'm seeing. That really is terrible, because I'm seeing some really significant improvements.

[jamreal18]

I recommend you read this constructive post:

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...l-wrong-or-not

[craziii]

I recommend you read this constructive post:

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...l-wrong-or-not

just the first part, already half of his points are completely wrong. stopped reading.

[DarrenTotalWar]

Performance in Patch 9 is horrible across all preset compared to earlier presets. It is not the slowest state of the game since release for all presets but there no improvements that are visible in the benchmarking condition.
The improvements CA called out in the patch notes should be more visible in real game conditions. The last bar represents patch 9 final. The game in its scripted testing conditions is gettings slower with every patch.
The ridicilous thing with that development is, that this VARIES across different graphics preset, so while "high" presets got boosts, the upper presets will show penalties.

I would like to note that in opposite of CA I am meanwhile able to tell this is not a problem of my computer as I have tested the last 2 patch states with similar results on other machines with a 670 GTX. I am very sad that there is a clear difference between those facts communicated by the patch logs and the reality shown in their own measure called ingame benchmark.

Are there any AMD benchmarks?