PC not good enough?

[verena xeventus]

Hi peoples of total war

I'm starting to wonder whats wrong with my PC after reading several posts about other people maxing settings on ME2TW and having decent frame rates with only shadows turned off.

My problem is that I'm playing with most options on low - medium and still getting lock ups, slowdowns and lag - especially during seiges. So can anyone explain why my computer doesn't like running this game? here's my specs and settings.

AMD 64 4000, 2 GIG RAM, ATI X1800XT 512 MB graphics 19" monitor.

The settings im running the game on...

Resolution - 1100 something (tried running at 1280 and it just couldnt handle it causing it to really slow down - yet some people run it at 1600 and don't have a prob)
AA X 4
AF - Trilinear
Effects detail - Low
Unit detail - highest
Vegetation detail - highest
Texture detail - high/highest
shadows - none
grass detail - low
building detail - low
V-sync off
Bloom off
reflections on

Army/unit size - large not huge.

When using Fraps...

I get between 12 - 25 during a seige, between 20 - 60 during open battle (no seige equipment) and between 15 - 25 during open battle with seige equipment.

I even tried shader 1 instead of shader 2 and that still gave me problems in a seige. Anyone have any idea why I am getting problems?

[dearmad]

sounds right. your vertex limitations on that graphics card would indicate playing at normal unit size.

[verena xeventus]

For the amount of money I paid for the bloody thing I have to say it wasn't worth it. I could play rome maxed at everything minus detailed shadows, I even edited the game so that I could field more troops... and then ME2TW comes along and screws everything up. Bloody computers. They always need upgrading and before you know it there out of date even when you pay top dollar for the damn things. I'm through with computers, though I might consider one final new graphics card that will actually run me2tw properly.

Just curious, what do you mean by vertex limitations? and what card would you recommend.

Games are expensive these days... game = £25.00 and hardware required to run them = £350.00... are games really worth shedding out this sort of money for?

[freekyjason]

Games are expensive these days... game = £25.00 and hardware required to run them = £350.00... are games really worth shedding out this sort of money for?

absolutely!!

not sure about your card, dont know much about ati myself, i prefer nvidia.

vertex is something to do with... umm vertexes? not sure heh, but i think it is how much it can draw on the screen at one time?

[ProudNerd]

For the amount of money I paid for the bloody thing I have to say it wasn't worth it. I could play rome maxed at everything minus detailed shadows, I even edited the game so that I could field more troops... and then ME2TW comes along and screws everything up. Bloody computers. They always need upgrading and before you know it there out of date even when you pay top dollar for the damn things. I'm through with computers, though I might consider one final new graphics card that will actually run me2tw properly.

Just curious, what do you mean by vertex limitations? and what card would you recommend.

Games are expensive these days... game = £25.00 and hardware required to run them = £350.00... are games really worth shedding out this sort of money for?

Did you build that rig yourself? If not for your next make sure you do. You get ripped off totaly if you get a pre built brand name syste,

absolutely!!

not sure about your card, dont know much about ati myself, i prefer nvidia.

vertex is something to do with... umm vertexes? not sure heh, but i think it is how much it can draw on the screen at one time?

Yes they truly are.

[henry v1]

try turning the aax4 totally off or on the lowest setting that is always a performance hog and put the af at x8 you should get a mojor performance increase

[Griwild]

I think your grafic card is cool!

I´ve got the slight feeling that it is your AMD 4000, that's too slow

I've got a X2 4200 and a ATI 1900 XT 512, and my grafic card isn't impressed by anything that I change be it AA, resolution, or details!

But it's my CPU that gets really hot by all those hundrets of people fighting and all those shadows!;

Since I have an AM2 motherboard I won't change to Intel; the faster AMD X2 processors are really expansive, so I'll wait till they lower the prices (maybe when they bring out the Quad core duo ( FX 70...))

[verena xeventus]

Thank you all for the reply guys. I would have replied sooner but there was something wrong with my connection.

ProudNerd... No m8 I didn't build it myself but it was custom built to my specification by a local retailer, you wouldn't believe the amount of problems ive had with this rig when it was first built... was shutting down for no apparent reason, even if i pressed the eject button on my dvd rom, then I had a faulty graphics card which needed to be replaced etc...

Freakyjason thank you for telling me what vertexes are and it makes sence

As for ati VS Nvidia theres a new card I want only this time its from Nvidia not ATI, called the G80 or something which is built for DX10 and it is suppose to be twice as fast as what I have now, so I think when I get the money I will give it a go... providing its compatible with the rest of my system... its an nvidia motherboard so Im hoping it will be.

It just really angers me, as Im sure it does others that to run a game these days you need to buy a top notch computer and quite frankly I think its getting rediculous. I recently bought the new splintercell game and it gives me FPS of 25 which isnt good and that crashes often too, just as ME2TW does. Just seems I cant win.

As regards chips... Im not a fan of duel core because Ive had problems with them in the past, unfortunately thats the way things are going for PC's now so I guess if I do buy another rig I will go back to pentium bases systems, I find them a lot more stable.

I am going to try knocking the AA down to see if that affects the game any. Any more info is welcome... thanks fellas.

PS forgive the bad grammar Im having problems sleeping and Im a fast typer.