Unlock graphic settings

[kazarang]

The demo in current state very depend of VRAM. I have 2 rigs - first gtx260 with 890 Mb and 4Gb ram, second - 4850 with 512 Mb and 4 Gb ram. I can choise all option to Ultra on both rigs, BUT ultra texture on 512 Vram not working, you may choise High textrure and don`t see difference, I monitoring Vram usage by RivaTuner - on 1280x1024 4AA its 330Mb . On 260 gtx with 890 Vram Ultra texture working and i see it. I monitoring Vram usage by RivaTuner - on 1680x1050 4AA its 780Mb.

[Maizel]

The demo in current state very depend of VRAM. I have 2 rigs - first gtx260 with 890 Mb and 4Gb ram, second - 4850 with 512 Mb and 4 Gb ram. I can choise all option to Ultra on both rigs, BUT ultra texture on 512 Vram not working, you may choise High textrure and don`t see difference, I monitoring Vram usage by RivaTuner - on 1280x1024 4AA its 330Mb . On 260 gtx with 890 Vram Ultra texture working and i see it. I monitoring Vram usage by RivaTuner - on 1680x1050 4AA its 780Mb.

It doesn't depend on VRAM.

I have an 8800GTS with 512MBs of RAM and I can select ultra on whatever I want.


I think it depends on every individual card.

[Ightenhill]

I dont think thats what kazarang is saying.. He can choose ultra on the 512mb card but its no different to the high setting in displayed quality..

What we need is a series of screenshots going from high to ultra on a 1mb card compared with a 512 card...

[Ondaderthad]

Maybe it's also about the bus size of 128 or 256 bits as well as Vram.
The 8600GT has 128 bit bus and the 8800 has 256 bit bus.

Also someone mentioned before that with 320 Vram they can run on High but not Ultra. (320 is more than the 256 limit for medium)

I really want to know before I upgrade my card. (current ATI 1550 with 256mb vram)

All I can afford now is either a 8600 with 1G or a 8800 with 512mb. So.. what's better the bus size of the Vram?

[Ightenhill]

No idea..Im waiting to try a POV GTX295 but the 8800GT I use now allows full Ultra at av 30fps.. But now Im not sure if its true ultra..



Though this shows it un clocked

[kazarang]

I dont think thats what kazarang is saying.. He can choose ultra on the 512mb card but its no different to the high setting in displayed quality..

What we need is a series of screenshots going from high to ultra on a 1mb card compared with a 512 card...

Yes you right, if your Vram 512 you can choise Ultra Texture but it identical High Texture. I post screen from game later from both my rigs on Ultra seting and everyone can see difference.



screen from gtx260

[Fenon]

Ok I bought Dawn of War 2 the other day which is also a Steam game and also has the graphics locking, so I think it's a Steam thing rather than Empire (But shame on CA for using Steam anyway). I found the configuration file for that and altered the settings, and got the game to run much faster and look much better (See most of us know what our computers can do and can make better choices for ourselves), anyway the point is I can change all of the settings and they work ingame but when I quit the game most of them revert to the locked settings (Except texture quality thank goodness). So if the problem is Steam related then it should be the same with Empire.

[Fenon]

Ok if you change the file to Read Only it doesn't reset.

[Motekiore]

Ok guys, I don't seem to believe it too at first but now it has happened to me.

And I think I know who the culprit is (Maybe).

MY PREVIOUS SPECS:
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz
2GB DDR2 800 RAM
Nvidia 8600GT 256MB (dxdiag detects 512mb)
500GB HDD
Windows XP SP3

With these specs I first downloaded the demo the day it was released, and I was able to select everything to Ultra, I click the auto detect and everything went to ultra as in AAx4 Antrisopticx8, though ofcourse that made the game run a frikish 15fps, So I decided to tone it down, keep the unit/building/particles textures and details to ultra, turning off the shadows; trees/water/sky to medium; removing AA. so my FPS moved from 15fps to a great 25-40fps.

I was planning to upgrade my memory and add 4gb more to the system, but 32bit won't read all that memory so I went to upgrade my OS too, so I formatted everything, done a clean install of Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit, and plug in my new memory, and reinstalled the demo, run the demo and bam, it all happened, I can't select any settings higher than medium, the other settings were greyed out, I clicked auto detect and yes they are still at medium. I'm waiting for my full game of Empire to finish downloading, but this happened and it's really bugging me, I hope I can tweak the settings to increase my texture and sacrifice the other details, but it won't let me anymore. Does the Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit caused the issue? coz it's the only time where I was limited with the medium settings.

New SPEC:
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz
6GB DDR2 800 RAM
Nvidia 8600GT 256MB DDR3 (dxdiag detects 2288mb)
500GB HDD
Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit.

My other RIG (This rig was able to select ultra too, and used auto detect and set to ultra too, I was able to play with 20-25fps with the lowest setting possible, but I was able to set it to ultra at my whim too.)
Intel Dual Core 1.8Ghz
1GB DDR2800 RAM
Nvidia 8400GS 256MB DDR2 (dxdiag detects as 512mb)
Windows XP SP3.

Hope anyone from CA can answer this, or anyone who has the problem before and has the full game installed already on their rig still has the problem or has it been fixed in the full game?

[Indian-Fox]

I noticed that the Very High setting on the graphics setting has been shaded out, I was wonderering what exactly I'm missing out on. The reason I ask is that most of the setting that I can get are already on High.
Also can I adjust these on the custom setting to become Very High settings?

[fdf]

Guys. The speed of the game is not always dependant on the memory bit(256, 512, etc). It depends largely on these factors:

Clock Speed
Stream Processors
Shader Speed ans Shaders
Pixel Fillrate

It does not need these factors below to be fast

Tons of memory, 512 MB will do fine, UNLESS, you run at I high resolution, such as 1920x1200, in which case it is best to have at least 896MB(GTX260) of VRAM of more.

Memory bit does not matter. While having 512bits seems like it would be better, it means alot more space and cooling on the card, which means a more expensive manufacure process. An example of this memory interface would be the 9800GTX.

ATI 4870 is a perfect example of why a graphics card does not have to be 512bit. It is only 256bit, yet it is one of the strongest graphics card made to date. Not having a huge memory interface on it, means it has more room for hardware that matters, such as stream processors, which is one of the most essential parts of a graphics card.

[PrimeDirector]

If the ultra graphics require shader 3.0, then if your card doesn't support it, then it's impossible to get those.

That being said, the person with the ATI 3870 supports shader 4.1.... which then I assume would be a bug.

My 8800GT SLI gave me no problems for choosing shader 3 and all the ultra settings... just FYI.

I've got a ati 3870 myself; I am able to use shader 3.0 as well as settings higher than medium; although I get CTD/blue screen after about 15 minutes of play

[von Batzenberg]

Guys. The speed of the game is not always dependant on the memory bit(256, 512, etc). It depends largely on these factors:

Clock Speed
Stream Processors
Shader Speed ans Shaders
Pixel Fillrate

It does not need these factors below to be fast

Tons of memory, 512 MB will do fine, UNLESS, you run at I high resolution, such as 1920x1200, in which case it is best to have at least 896MB(GTX260) of VRAM of more.

Memory bit does not matter. While having 512bits seems like it would be better, it means alot more space and cooling on the card, which means a more expensive manufacure process. An example of this memory interface would be the 9800GTX.

ATI 4870 is a perfect example of why a graphics card does not have to be 512bit. It is only 256bit, yet it is one of the strongest graphics card made to date. Not having a huge memory interface on it, means it has more room for hardware that matters, such as stream processors, which is one of the most essential parts of a graphics card.

Hi fdf,
I've actually got a GTX260 and experience some problems, which I already wrote in another thread:

"Hi Guys,
I've got a completely new system with the following specifications:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition Box, Sockel AM2+
GPU: EVGA e-Geforce GTX 260 SC "Superclocked" 55nm, 896MB, PCI-Express
RAM: 4096MB-Kit OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Reaper, CL4
OS: Vista 64-Bit

I actually expected Empire should run with everything maxed out and on Ultra with a resolution of 1680*1050 (The GPU is overclocked ex works by EVGA and according to independent benchmarks even outperforms the standard Geforce-280). But especially in siege battles with fortifications I get some serious lags. Otherwise I have around 35-50 FPS.
After I switched off AA and reduced the resolution to 1440*900 the problem is mostly gone.
Can you give me any hints on how to further tweak my system? Maybe better graphic drivers or tweaks for VISTA 64-Bit since I installed it for the first time.
Thank you in advance."

[SingeDebile]

i have an 8800gts but the 320mb version and im curious as to what it will let me do... with the shader at 3.0 I was only able to select "Ultra" for the unit size (in the demo), everything else the highest I could go was "Very High".

[fdf]

Hi fdf,
I've actually got a GTX260 and experience some problems, which I already wrote in another thread:

"Hi Guys,
I've got a completely new system with the following specifications:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition Box, Sockel AM2+
GPU: EVGA e-Geforce GTX 260 SC "Superclocked" 55nm, 896MB, PCI-Express
RAM: 4096MB-Kit OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Reaper, CL4
OS: Vista 64-Bit

I actually expected Empire should run with everything maxed out and on Ultra with a resolution of 1680*1050 (The GPU is overclocked ex works by EVGA and according to independent benchmarks even outperforms the standard Geforce-280). But especially in siege battles with fortifications I get some serious lags. Otherwise I have around 35-50 FPS.
After I switched off AA and reduced the resolution to 1440*900 the problem is mostly gone.
Can you give me any hints on how to further tweak my system? Maybe better graphic drivers or tweaks for VISTA 64-Bit since I installed it for the first time.
Thank you in advance."

Hi. I have the exact same graphics card as you with vista-64 and a phenom, and I have a bit of lag. All settings at ultra, shadows at medium, 8xAA, 16xAF, 1440x900. With siege battles, there are much more textures to render so it will run kinda slow with settings that high.

[Motekiore]

Guys. The speed of the game is not always dependant on the memory bit(256, 512, etc). It depends largely on these factors:

Clock Speed
Stream Processors
Shader Speed ans Shaders
Pixel Fillrate

It does not need these factors below to be fast

Tons of memory, 512 MB will do fine, UNLESS, you run at I high resolution, such as 1920x1200, in which case it is best to have at least 896MB(GTX260) of VRAM of more.

Memory bit does not matter. While having 512bits seems like it would be better, it means alot more space and cooling on the card, which means a more expensive manufacure process. An example of this memory interface would be the 9800GTX.

ATI 4870 is a perfect example of why a graphics card does not have to be 512bit. It is only 256bit, yet it is one of the strongest graphics card made to date. Not having a huge memory interface on it, means it has more room for hardware that matters, such as stream processors, which is one of the most essential parts of a graphics card.

Then let me ask you this, why did my previous rig was able to run it with all settings option not locked, and my other rig too, that's what I'm getting at, and some previous poster even have a Quad Core 3.0ghz+ and 8800 but still unlocked for them, if its because of those factors then can you explain this phenomenon.

[SingeDebile]

Then let me ask you this, why did my previous rig was able to run it with all settings option not locked, and my other rig too, that's what I'm getting at, and some previous poster even have a Quad Core 3.0ghz+ and 8800 but still unlocked for them, if its because of those factors then can you explain this phenomenon.

maybe it needs 512... and the other person with a 8800 doesnt have 512? I know in the demo ultra settings are grey'd out even though I have an 8800gts but I only have 320mb

[Motekiore]

maybe it needs 512... and the other person with a 8800 doesnt have 512? I know in the demo ultra settings are grey'd out even though I have an 8800gts but I only have 320mb

Then why did my 8400GS 256mb is currently running it and 8600GT256mb run it on ultra when it was using windows XP. That's why I'm confused, so if it needs 512, then does the direct x has something to do with it, dx9 has abled my system to set things beyond medium, but now I'm using 64 bit, dx9 can't do a proper diagnostic which maybe linked to the system lock in the game, which may also mean, the game doesn't fully support 64bit systems? Or the dx9 maybe giving a wrong info that may make it look like your system has 512? I really hope CA can give us the option to tweak it ourselves, because we know our systems best, and tweaking it till it feels good to play is the best thing.

[darthmalak]

is strange in the demo i could put things in high

And i was able to activate: hdr, depth of field, volumetric effects, and 1 more option

Now, when i put the shaders on high, and apply the hdr, depth of field, and 2 others options go off by it self

And i cant put nothing on high, only on medium

Something is screw it up

We need some tweaks ..

[drwizardphd]

HOW TO UNLOCK GRAPHICS SETTINGS:

1. Locate the Empire: Total War preferences file. Not sure about Vista, but on XP its default location is C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts

2. Open up the file and find the line:

gfx_video_memory 0; # gfx_video_memory <int>, Override available video memory (bytes) #

3. Change the value "0" to something bigger. I think it uses bits, but I'm not sure. I set this value to 536870912, which is 512 mb converted to bits. You can find a converter on the internet and set this to whatever value you like, not sure what will work, but that number worked for me.

I have a 256mb HD radeon 2600xt AGP and I can run the game on high/ultra settings with no problems and very playable fps, lowest it gets is around the 20's. I have honestly no idea why they decided to limit it in such a way but this method should provide a permanent workaround.

Good luck!