M2TW - Made for NVidia graphic cards?

[Tokus*Maximus]

Hail DLVers!

When the game loads we all get the NVidia intro. Does this mean NVidia cards are Creative Assembly's choice platform for their 3D engine?

My IT engineer foolishly thought he was doing me a good turn when he put in an expensive ATI card (into a fast modern PC). However, I still have to switch a lot off the battle graphics and even shadows on the strat map makes the interface laggy. Does this mean Tokus*Maximus has bought into a lesser brand, or at least one not best suited to my favourite game?

Have you got an Nvidia? Which gives the luxury of everything on maximum, extra armies, castles and no lag?

Comments welcome please gentlemen (and ladies) ...

[Wirapuru]

Well lucky me I'll reply before the graphics huge dragons arise, at least it's less humiliation I mean, my pc is now more than 2 years old so I really have only "enough" to run M2TW in medium settings.. before telling how it goes here the relevant specs:

-Athlon64@2.2Ghz
-1GB DDR@410
-Geforce 6600 TurboForce@500/1040 (oh yeah I make my eggs on this babe)

I have Shader 2 enabled, Normal Size armies, no AA, Anisotropic 2x, High everything detail (except Medium Vegetation), and no Shadows at all ( ;~( it really brings everything to underworld FPS here..).

If the battle has at max 3500-4000 soldiers there's no lag (maybe a bit) but after that the thing really lags up, almost impossible (I can see some smoke coming from the case ) to play.. but I suppose this isn't only because the GPU, but the absurd AI processing =]

well, now I won't be shamed if you show your Trigahertz GPUs!


@Tokus

About your ATI what model is it? I had a wonderful ATI on my last pc, but it really improved/decreased the performance between drivers, you should try testing older/newer ones =]

[bandicoot]

I have a similar system (OK, maybe only very marginally faster Dell XPS) with an nVidia card and have large units, all graphics settings set to high with shadows, antialiasing, flea testicle detail all turned on.

My system doesn't bog down much until I get about 4000 troops as Sir W mentions AND all the troops are in one tightly packed area (e.g. castle gate). I have found the shutting down background applications and changing process priorities went a long way though to reduce the time in the festering bog.

All that blathering by me and to summarize: I have no idea whether the fact that it's nVidia versus anything else makes a difference unless there are some unique characteristics regarding resource allocation that one does better over the other.

[Windtalker]

in my case the hardware is like this:
- CPU: AMD Athlon64 3500+ [2.2 GHz]
- RAM: 1GB, single channel, 557 MHz
- video: NVidia GeForce 7300 GT 256MB [GPU: 400 MHz, memory: 800 MHz]

I'm playing MTW II with these parameters:
- resolution 1024x768 both battle maps and campaign
- high details for all + shadows
- aa x 2

slide shows happen only when more than 2 armies are fighting around castle or city (as a finish of a siege). except this, no problem at all, I can enjoy the victories or cry for the loses

[Alatar98]

i always figured that just ment the company took money from nivida to put the logo there.

they proably did do some optimizing for navida but there should be no reason for it not to work just as well on an ati card.

im just using an x700 and can play with most of the settings on high without any big problems.

[missu]

i have a geforce 6800 xt, 1gig ram and a p4 2.66 ghz processor.

large unit sizes work as long as i don't play sieges, therefor i changed back to normal. everything is on high detail, but i turned the campaign shadows off.

[bonko]

i have a nvidia 8800gtx on a intel duo e6600, and i run MTWII all maxed out, i suppose the devs did optimize this game for Nvidia hardware, dunno, but then again, it is a very expensive setup.
As with any graphical card, you need to optimize its performance for this game, finding the correct settings, and as you have an ATI card, i'd suggest you use latest detonator drivers and possibly get Ati toolshttp://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=725 not to overclock it but to tweak the GPU.

[Fyorax]

I am Running a AMD Athlon 62 x 2 Dual core processor 5200+
NVIDIA Geforce 8800GTX

I can run everything for maximum settings with large units. I lag when units are clumped together but other than that smooth sailing.

[Wirapuru]

I am Running a AMD Athlon 62 x 2 Dual core processor 5200+
NVIDIA Geforce 8800GTX

I can run everything for maximum settings with large units. I lag when units are clumped together but other than that smooth sailing.

OMG if the game has any possibility to lag on your machine then it's really inevitable! Wa great pc

[missu]

excuse me bonko, could you tell me how to optimize my card for m2tw?

[Demokritos]

I have experimented with the video settings and found out that I can play with no apparent problems if settings are maxed on everything, including anti-alias and anisotropic filtering, except resolution (1024 x 768) and unit size (large), as long as I don't have v-sync on (if I put this on, I have to turn most settings down a lot or I will get a CTD directly). Looks very nice

[Furin]

The logo is a commercial, as said before you get money for putting this into your games. Actually the display of vegetation shadows still does not work properly, or at all, with the gforce8x series.

[Swiss Halberdier]

I'm using this hardware:
- CPU: Intel Core2DUO [2.6 GHz]
- RAM: 2GB Kingston 667 Mhz
- video: NVidia 8800GTS 640MB (a little bit overclocked by Software)
What is also important for performance?
- newest Intel Chipset Driver + Mainboard Driver
- newest Nvidia Driver

I can run the game with every effect maxed out full! But I don't play with shadows. Antialiasing 4x / AF 8x

No lags also with great armies between 4000-7000 soldiers.

[Lumberjack]

Which card do you have tokus?

I really dont think they tailor games to certain brands, its programed as a dx9 application so it would depend on how each card handles dx9, and from what I hear ATI has better driver support.

My laptop has a 7900GS overclocked like a mother ****er. aprox 10,000 points in 3dmark05 (default settings)

It runs M2tw at 1920x1200, normal unit size, everything on high (medium veg), no AA, 4xAF, no shadows, no bloom (looks like **** imo), and typically seinfeld or duckman playing on the 2nd monitor (to appease my painfully short attention span)

Big battles my fps drops to about 20-25 depending on how crazy things are, typical 2000 soldier battles are smooth as tits.

[Tokus*Maximus]

What card do I have Pinko? It's an ATI RX850XT Platinum MSI card.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name SHUTTLE
System Manufacturer XPC___
System Model ST61
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~3192 Mhz
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~3192 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date XPC - 42302e31, )Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG, oC(Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG, 27/10/2004
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United Kingdom
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name SHUTTLE\Jamie
Time Zone GMT Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 1,022.48 MB
Available Physical Memory 703.27 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 2.41 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

And the above are my Pc's specs. Updating drivers is a headache - I'm not a techie - just an artist and reallly struggle with computers. I only use them because of my job and because I like playing/modding DLV.

[Aszrayel]

What card do I have Pinko? It's an ATI RX850XT Platinum MSI card.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name SHUTTLE
System Manufacturer XPC___
System Model ST61
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~3192 Mhz
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~3192 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date XPC - 42302e31, )Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG, oC(Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG, 27/10/2004
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United Kingdom
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name SHUTTLE\Jamie
Time Zone GMT Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 1,022.48 MB
Available Physical Memory 703.27 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 2.41 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

And the above are my Pc's specs. Updating drivers is a headache - I'm not a techie - just an artist and reallly struggle with computers. I only use them because of my job and because I like playing/modding DLV.

The ATI Radeon 850XT isn't a bad card but it is getting outdated for today's games. You can run M2TW with it but won't be able to with much of the eye candy that is possible with the game. Personally I would upgrade it but that is just me though (I like to have best but not the best where it burns a hole in my pocket ). Check out this link (hope it works) to see some latest VGA charts:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

[JANOSIK007]

I have a request from all you tech freaks :

What is a good (the best) site for graphic card comparison (but for all the cards including the laptop, a friend is buyin it and I'd like to help - the choice is between 7400 go and 8600m)? I found a great one few months back which had a side-by-side comparison of numeric values on all the specs. Can't find it now so I turn to you.

Thanks

[Aszrayel]

Like others have said the Nvidia logo is there because Nvidia paid to have it there. They might have also done some optimization for Nvidia cards but you should be able to run it with any card. Right now Nvidia is king of the high end video cards while ATI's cards are focused in the middle. I used to use ATI cards but now am currently using Nvidia since I waited 6 more months for ATI's newest cards to come only to be extremely disappointed (didn't even come close to outperforming the 8800gtx and came out 6 months later?!). Anyways here are my specs:

CPU: Core2Duo @ 2.4Ghz
Memory: 4Gb of Patriot Ram (dual channel) - for some reason XP is only reading 3Gb though
Video Card: Nvidia 8800GTX
Motherboard: Asus Striker Extreme w/680i SLI Nvidia chipset

Right now I'm running at 1600x900 resolution with everything turned to high w/ no AA and AFx4 with no lag at all as of yet. I'm running everything stock cooled at the moment but should be able to start overclocking stuff once I get better cooling. Oh yeah...I play with huge units.

[druivenpitje]

BOHOE, crappy
I'm playing also on ATI, a disasterous X550 or something (my laptop crashed before the examns so I had to buy real low budget pc I could assemble, bought the cheapest graph card, I think not even 40euro)
even though: a Asus M2R32-MVP motherboard as staying core, but the graphic card I will buy a new after my summerjobs around october.
1024MB 800Mhz DDR2 (a second module also on the way) think that is also a real problem because Vista is eating almost the half of it!
motherboard is crossfire, processor is a AMD Athlon64 X2 3600+, a mere 1.9Ghz
I play with almost evrything on low or medium, no shadows but with dust and stuff, no gloomy things. But unit on large, so lots of puppets on the field
I thought it was the memory that causes the lag but lots of people have only 1GB so it is the stupid graph card I quess

my one cent

[Lumberjack]

P.s.

if, like me, you cant stand the nvidia and creative ads at the start disable them.
open C:\Program Files\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\data\fmv\faction
and delete/rename game_intro.bik and prologue_intro.bik