The Campaign map

[Jingle_Bombs]

Hello,

I have a problem with the campaign map, being in that it lags out my old PC big time. I believe this is because (for some strange reason) the tree models. Experimenting with it, I've managed to revert to the old campaign map textures (as bad as they do look) to boost performance, but when I try to get the vanilla tree models, I only succeed in eradicating all trees on the map except for palm trees :hmmm:...

Can anyone tell me how to get the vanilla tree models back?

edit: LOL I has a 1337 post count!

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

I have an idea, but since I know that it is wrong I wouldn't bother suggesting it...

Good luck!

[Javierfv1212]

I have also suffered lower performance on the campaign map, in fact i have seen alot of complaints about this, perhaps you should release a patch that reverts to the old campmap Would help alot of us with weak computers.

[Jingle_Bombs]

If only I could work out how its done...

[Elphir]

I have a problem with the campaign map, being in that it lags out my old PC big time. I believe this is because (for some strange reason) the tree models. Experimenting with it, I've managed to revert to the old campaign map textures (as bad as they do look) to boost performance, but when I try to get the vanilla tree models, I only succeed in eradicating all trees on the map except for palm trees

Apparently, the tree models do indeed lag the worst.

[Foot]

As far as I'm aware we didn't change the tree models. Have you tried turning of the camp map shadows, that tends to boost performance.

Foot

[bossheada]

Actually the problems in lag in EB are easy peasy to fix.
They mainly come from XPrime, a genius artist who has a much better PC than most of us. His units, uncluding 2 at least on the campaign map, use massive texture files and as the game progresses and more of them are deployed on the map, it grinds it all to a halt and increases needless crashes.

The fix is, have someone who can make an installer and do the posting of a fix email me so I can send it or, do it yourself as I did.

I use GIMP which is free online. You take the texture file(s) and open them. XPrime's are around ten times larger than they need to be. You open it in GIMP, you choose LAYER, resize it by PERCENTAGE -- choose 50% reduction. That'll take it down to about 84MB from the 512 or 1 KB...

Secondly, ENHANCE it. I reccomend +25% as this crisps the image without any graining. There is some blurring with the standards officers but everything else come sout looking EXACTLY the same yet it makes the game speed jump ten-fold.

Lastly, SAVE as COMPRESSED, that makes it 64.1, or about 1/10th the previous texture file size, taking a HUGE amount of demand for RAM off the table, and zooooom you got game with speed!

In the battle maps the same holds true, especially with the PALM texture models and the OPPIDA textures. Same problem, same solution: shrink them 50%, enhance 25%, save as compressed and
adios to the lag!

Additional solutions to campaign lag come from the AI spamming agents, i.e. Spies, Diplomats, Assassins. Solve this through reduction, namely, edit the Export_Desc_Building and make them recruitable only in the Capitals. Makes more sense and slashes the Agents spamming, making the campaign map much faster/smoother.

(I removered Epic Walls and only Capitals have Huge Walls, a personal preference, and it is from Huge Walls, only in capitals, that I permit Agents recruiting; thus, otherwise, you must also edit additional files to introduce Hidden_Resources to retrict Agents recruiting.) The point is, you have to limit the recruitability of agents if you want to make the campaign map better; it makes a very big difference in how much RAM is tied up doing end-of-turn. And really, how many zillions of spies & diplomats are adding to the game's realism & enjoyability?

Hope it makes sense. Again, anyone who makes installers and can post fixes, please email me, I will foreward all the the necessary files, shrunken, clarified, compressed and looking FABULOUS.

Finally, a word on battle map lags: cut your dust in Desc_Particle from 8000 down to 500. Looks far better and unzips lotsa RAM, slahses lag. Similar fixes for the grass but longer to detail, however, you get the idea.

Not a criticism of XPRime, love his work, it's just too BIG and can lag or crash the game, especially on the campaign map (it was 2 map generals if I recall).

Regards,
Bossheada

[dutch81]

If you have done this ... please release this I think alot of people would appreciate a faster EB.

[bossheada]

Yes, I'd be thrilled to contribute but I don't know how to post the files. Can a Moderator or seasoned poster aid me in putting it into a simple .zip file? And posting it? The work is done but I don't really know how to share it.

Anyone?

[Javierfv1212]

It shouldn't be that hard, just download winzip and upload it on megaupload, or any other file hosting site

[V.T. Marvin]

I would recommend to upload your .zip file coatining all changes you have made to several upload servers (i.e. www.megaupload.com, www.axifile.com, www.uploaded.to) because some people have problems with some of these mirrors and then start a new thread in the "Unofficial Modding Projects" subforums where you would just post links to the uploaded files. It is fairly easy in fact and lot of people will much appreciate it! Good job!!!

[bossheada]

OK great, I am going to try it myself, making the installer, but if anybody -- enny-boddy!! Has done this before I'd rather just email the files.

If no one steps up I will do it this weekend. I am still finding things, too. Like the skies, which are fabulous, are texture file size 1,333 KB. I reduced and clarified them and they look **better** in the reduced format, and only 257 MB (about 80% less memory drain!).

Still open to simply emailing the file to anyone who knows how to make the installer & upload...

[mcantu]

i'd be concerned that much of the detail is being lost when reducing the file size. what do you mean by "clarifying" the textures?

[florin80]

I presume he did something like eb did to Prom`s grass textures. They originally were of a 512x512 format and quite heavy to process, but they`ve been resized in eb to be 256x256, the size of the vanilla grass textures.

[bossheada]

Originally Posted by mcantu

i'd be concerned that much of the detail is being lost when reducing the file size. what do you mean by "clarifying" the textures?

By clarifying I mean, after I reduce the texture file, I select "Filter", then "Enhance", and choose "Percent" -- 25%.

This amplifies the pixels. Makes it sharper. But if you use a setting greater than 25% it tends to get increasingly grainy and brightens it. At 25% you just get improved clarity.

I can tell you that there is a slight blur to the Hellenic Officers but they are not my faves (personally) so I may replace. Otherwise, everthing looks exactly the same or much better. The skies startled me. They were cut by 80% and came out sharper and better than ever, a nice bonus!

All of the units look excellent, for some reaosn the only ones that caught a bit of blur were the Hellenic Officers and some of the horses but all of them still look better than "Laaaaaag.... " and much nicer than "CRASH!!" Elsewise, all the same or better.

The agents spamming can be easily edited in a variety of ways but I am experimenting with some things in Desc_Strat, like giving Kydonia to the Greeks and turfing the rebels there, and it keeps the Greeks in the game and makes Attica a 3 or 4 way punch-fest indefinitely, so far. Final determination then for the agents is ongoing testing.

Also muddling with the rebels, cutting down their bonuses so the factions can expand a bit sooner. Got rid of spawn rebels entirely (nuisance), cut campaign map movement (more field battles & ambushes)... so u see, it's personalised, & I will likely only release the Reductions and minor edits for RAM boost.

One final note: I've started layering the Warhammer (& other) horns into the charge yells. Not as dramatic without the Louder Volume but still a nice enhancement. So now the Barbs shout in Gaellic but I spliced horns or drums into the pre-existing sound file so you get both: "Oogalah-Boogalah,TootTOOT!" lol.

U can get Audacity onine as freeware and have fun with it yourself. The sound files are unpacked in EB, some in EB Data and some in the Vanilla Data folder. Just copy & paste to desktop, edit with Audacity so you can keep the Latin/Gallic/Germani voices and include additional sounds of your own chooseing and then save, drag & drop so the sound files over-write and viola!

Maybe I'll post those too but it's a slooooow process, I'm weeks away from finishing fiddling with the sound files.

blah, blah, so sorry...

And yes, the reduce, clarify & save of textures is just like what EB did with the Prometheus grass textures; for some reason though they threw in a cacophony of random Gargantuan textures in almost every file and imo, there's your trouble & your fix.

Reducing the particles is just sensible. Nicer looking and huge performance improvement. Here, cut & paste into Desc_Particle:
;
; This is the setup file for the various particle systems the game uses. The entries in
; this file are here mostly for ease-of-editing the art content; the game requires all
; of them to be present, because various pieces of code add particles to the systems
; generated from these descriptions - ie the units push dust particles into the dust
; system
;
; ; denotes a comment ...
;
; type identifier of the particle system type
;
; action there can be up to 8 of these, and they are applied in the order in which
; they are specified - particle actions are the things which move, age and
; kill particles in the world... not all particle types need an action list
;
; advance []
; age_to_limit [float: maximum age in seconds]
; expand [expansion rate in meters/second]
; max_particles [integer : maximum number of particles in game]
; accel_simple [float : in_x, in_y, in_z]
; colour_shift [val to 255: red,green,blue start colour, red,green,blue end colour][float: transition time from particle birth]
;
; these can appear in any order, and the order in which they are given is
; the order in which it is applied
;
; renderer what type of particle renderer to use for these particles; this must be
; one of the following, and note that each entry requires slightly different
; parameters, all seperated by comma's:
;
; tri
; no parameters
;
; quad
; no parameters
;
; quad_fade
; fade_in: fraction of particle lifetime after birth spent fading in
; fade_out: fraction of particle lifetime before death spent fading out
; alpha_key: 0-255 number which gives alpha draw threshold
;
; fade_in_time + fade_out_time must be less than 1
;
; renderer_class class of rendering that the particle system falls into - this must be
; one of normal,blended,far
;
; anim this should be followed by three fields, as follows
;
; <number of frames> more than 1 means an animated particle,
; 0 is illegal
; <frames per second> number of animation frames per second, if
; not animated set to 0
; loop, do_not_loop wether to loop the animation or hold on the
; final frame
;
; random the number of random texture frame tracks which are present... this allows you
; to set up a particle with an appearance chosen from several random alternates;
; if there is animation present, the different alternate tracks all have to be the
; same number of frames, and the uv's should be specified as follows:
;
; (frame1) {alt1,alt2,altt3} , (frame2) {alt1,alt2,alt3} and so on
;
; texture texture to use for this particle type
;
; texture_frame there can be many of these, as each specifies a single frame of uv coordinates
; for the particle type; each statement should provide either 3 (if using the tri
; renderer) or 4 (quad renderers) sets of uv coordinates on the line following
;
; animated types will need as many frames as are stated in the 'anim' statement
; random-choice particles will need as many sets per animation frame as specified
; in the random statement above
;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;


type dust
action advance
action age_to_limit
action expand, 0.9
action colour_shift, 190,170,133,180, 190,170,133,180, 0.6
action max_particles, 100
renderer quad_fade, 0.3, 0.65, 0
renderer_class blended
anim 1, 0, do_not_loop
texture data/battlefield/cloud_sprite.tga
texture_frame 0,1, 1,1, 1,0, 0,0

type fiery_smoke
action advance
action age_to_limit
action expand, 0.45
action colour_shift, 240,160,120,110, 60,60,60,110, 0.23 ;0.045
action max_particles, 800
renderer quad_fade, 0, 0.7, 1
renderer_class blended
anim 1, 0, do_not_loop
random 4
texture data/battlefield/cloud_3.tga
texture_frame 0, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0, 0,0
texture_frame 0.5, 0.5, 1.0, 0.5, 1.0, 0, 0.5,0
texture_frame 0, 1.0, 0.5, 1.0, 0.5, 0.5, 0,0.5
texture_frame 0.5, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.5, 0.5,0.5

type fiery_streaks
action advance
action age_to_limit
action colour_shift, 255,255,255,180, 160,160,160,180, 0.6
action max_particles, 2000
renderer quad_fade_align, 0, 0.4, 10
renderer_class blended
anim 6, 12, loop
texture data/textures/#sparks.tga
texture_frame 0.93, 0.146, 0.072, 0.146, 0.072, 0.018, 0.93, 0.018
texture_frame 0.93, 0.328, 0.072, 0.328, 0.072, 0.168, 0.93, 0.168
texture_frame 0.93, 0.496, 0.072, 0.496, 0.072, 0.332, 0.93, 0.332
texture_frame 0.93, 0.645, 0.072, 0.645, 0.072, 0.51, 0.93, 0.51
texture_frame 0.93, 0.824, 0.072, 0.824, 0.072, 0.658, 0.93, 0.658
texture_frame 0.93, 0.973, 0.072, 0.973, 0.072, 0.844, 0.93, 0.844

type debris
action advance
action age_to_limit
action accel_simple, 0, -9.81, 0
action max_particles, 800
renderer quad_fade, 0, 0.9, 1
renderer_class blended
anim 1, 0, do_not_loop
texture data/battlefield/cloud_sprite2.tga
texture_frame 0,1, 1,1, 1,0, 0,0

type volcano_smoke
action advance
action age_to_limit
action expand, 100.0
action max_particles, 800
renderer quad_fade, 0.15, 0.7, 1
renderer_class far
anim 1, 0, do_not_loop
texture data/battlefield/cloud_sprite2.tga
texture_frame 0,1, 1,1, 1,0, 0,0

type blood
action advance
action age_to_limit
action expand, 0.5
action accel_simple, 0, -9.81, 0
action max_particles, 500
renderer quad_fade, 0, 0.9, 1
renderer_class blended
anim 1, 0, do_not_loop
texture data/battlefield/#blood.tga
texture_frame 0,1, 1,1, 1,0, 0,0


type oil
action advance
action age_to_limit
action expand, 0.15
action accel_simple, 0, -9.81, 0
action max_particles, 500
renderer quad_fade, 0, 0.9, 1
renderer_class blended
anim 1, 0, do_not_loop
texture data/battlefield/oil_sprite.tga
texture_frame 0,1, 1,1, 1,0, 0,0



I gave this to LT a few years back and it helped more people play on his preferred Huge settings. 100% save game compatible.


To date with all of the ongoing edits I am getting no crashes & constantly increasing my frame rates as the RAM demand is pared and pared. MY campaign is fun, beautiful to behold and soon, I will rule you all...

[mcantu]

Originally Posted by bossheada

By clarifying I mean, after I reduce the texture file, I select "Filter", then "Enhance", and choose "Percent" -- 25%.

do you know what the equivalent commands would be in photoshop?

as for unit texture size, IIRC regular units are 256x256 and officers are 512x512. is having only the officers with this texture size enough to cause noticeable lag?

[bossheada]

Originally Posted by mcantu

do you know what the equivalent commands would be in photoshop?

as for unit texture size, IIRC regular units are 256x256 and officers are 512x512. is having only the officers with this texture size enough to cause noticeable lag?

Very sorry, but I am not at all familiar with photoshop.

I am taking them down to 64 MBs, so u r still needlessly high imo. Detail remains excellent as noted previously, although in a very, very few instances, mainly the occasional shield that doesn't adjust to the reduction well, you may choose to specificly edit a portion of the texture to get something sharper. The skies were Better, the walls the same imo, and the palm trees etc all pretty much the same. The campaign map generals are too tiny to make all that RAM overload justifiable even if they were stickmen imo.

I can say that after reducing & enhancing, I save them as compressed .DDS files. Does that help?

I sent you a PM with my private mail address. Put "MCANTU EB" in the headline & I'll flip you some samples.

[mcantu]

64 MB unit skins? in my install the 256x256 ones are 86 KB and the 512x512 ones are 342 KB...

[bossheada]

Originally Posted by mcantu

64 MB unit skins? in my install the 256x256 ones are 86 KB and the 512x512 ones are 342 KB...

OK great, u r on the right track! 84 is the reduced size; 64 is simply the compressed size. Obviously even at 84 you make a mammoth leap in frame rates, but it is the accumulative resizing of oversized textures that brings final relief. For instance, a town square has 2 dozen or so miniflags, and they can't be reduced (too small and it looks nasty) but they can be compressed and in the aggregate, it all helps. Naturally the huge files hurt the most and should be sought and corrected first. Etc. It's labourious but it gradually adds up to a fluid speed increase.

I tried to figure out megaupload but it simply frustrated me; I don't have the time or compulsion to figure it out. I did send u a PM via TWC here, please check your inbox, top right. Have so much done, if u'd post it I'd be glad. I'll throw in some skins & sound files as a thank you.

BTW, it's not enough to just do the skies, the Oppida walls and lots of other textures r needlessly ginormous too. I am almost at vanilla frame rates so I am still missing something but I am close...

Another note, by giving each city size expansion a -1 income penalty, I am getting a great experience as the campaign progresses. And it motivates you to do all that you can to max out the income boosting constructions.

It's true that Rome proper was a money sink that required a continuously expanding empire to financially underpin it's rapacious cash burn. Daniel P. Mannix gives some amazing figures for the endlessly expanding costs of the games, for instance.

Thus cities (throughout history) cost more as they grow. Notice that big cites in our own time are commericial successes yet they are expensive, underserviced, slum-ridden, have the highest taxes etc.

So for each city size upgrade I've added a -1 cumulative trade income penalty and it is keeping money tight all the way into the heart of the campaign. No more bonanza of unlimited funds after 50 turns and 10 cities; you are continuously challenged to choose between gladiuses and pickeld emu beaks. Simple edit, superb gameplay consequences.

Any chance I could get someone to help me transfer all of this? I like to mod but I am not interested in deciphering zipping and posting etc. I just want to mod, somebody else can do the posting and claim credit.

[mcantu]

you were saying MB; i was saying KB...

i havent received a PM. i did receive an email from you via TWC and i replied to it...