Questions about hardware?

[removeduser_040219]

I know allot of us have some sick gaming rigs however i was wondering how new rigs will measure up in Roma Surrectum specifically. For my own selfish purposes i would like to know how my new rig will do:
E6600 Quad Core
Two gigabyte 8800 GT OC
3 GB DDR 2 Ram
10000 RPM 160 GB Raptor
Windows XP SP2
Evga 780 SLI Motherboard
Soundblaster Champion Audio card

But mostly i had a few questions that will benefit all of us:
1. Can RS utilize an SLI setup (like the one mentioned) above, if so how much?
2. Will RS benefit from a quad or even dual core processor?
3. Can RS use EAX 5.0?
4. What is the most RAM RS can utilize effectively on a 32 bit system?
5. What anti aliasing setting looks and performs best (16X, 16XQ)
6.How can RS be optimized for these hardware upgrades?

I couldn't find anything besides (Kinda old article)
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...0u-sli_28.html

Many Thanks
Bloodhart

[Africanvs]

1. Yes, with two video cards running in SLI mode you'll see less than 2x the performance of one card according to nvidia, however, there may be little to no performance gains. (I haven't personally tested it)

2. Rome total war has problems with dual and quad core processors, resulting in issues with animations. You'll need to set your exe to run on one core to avoid issues.

3. Not sure.

4. As much as your OS supports probably. 2 gigs with xp is more than enough, 3 gigs should be great.

5. The higher you're system can handle the better. (experiment and see what you like)

6. You should be able to handle max settings with large unit sizes with your hardware. Going up to huge will probably cause lag, and you'll have to start dropping some settings.

6.

[Nick was already in use]

2. Rome total war has problems with dual and quad core processors, resulting in issues with animations. You'll need to set your exe to run on one core to avoid issues.

I will own my first quad core processor in a few days, so how exactly can i tell the .exe, to use only one core?

The Nvidia 8600 GT should have now problems with Rome (and RS in special), i hope... I don´t need to play with high details, but i need large till huge armys!

[removeduser_040219]

Thanks Africanvs

In general SLI is less then 2x the performance however we're talking Rome specifically if anyone has any experiences, links or such

[HMonk]

I use EAX 5 and have no problems.

[dvk901]

My understanding, and the experimentation of some friends has shown that SLI offers very minimal benefits given the cost involved. I personally wouldn't bother. One GREAT video card with a crapload of onboard memory is better, IMHO. Windows XP cannot address any more than 2GB of ram without special switches in boot.ini, and even then only certain programs are specifically written to address it. Most other things...including RTW, cannot and will not use anything above 2GB. So don't waste the money on it.

So, your 2gb 8800 ought to kick RS to death

[century x]

Since you guys are talking about performance. How much virtual memory should I have? I gave 2 gigs of ram and I remember DVk saying if you have 1 gig of ram you should have 1 gig of virtual memory.

[removeduser_040219]

thats what i was looking for, thanks DVK

[Nick was already in use]

I´m still having trouble with my quad core. How can i make Rome to use only one processor? Can anybody help?

[cherryfunk]

I´m still having trouble with my quad core. How can i make Rome to use only one processor? Can anybody help?

Open up your Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DELETE, click on Task Manager). Launch the game. Right click on the RTW.exe in the task manager and select 'Affinity' -- both processors will be checked (or all 4 in your case). Un-check all but one, and the game will run fine when it's loaded. I think you have to set the affinity before the RTW engine is fully loaded but I'm not sure on that point.

[florin80]

I´m still having trouble with my quad core. How can i make Rome to use only one processor? Can anybody help?

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...77&postcount=7

[HMonk]

Trouble with all this new high tech ie: quad core CPUs and above is that the end user can't get software that uses it properly yet.

[Africanvs]

I use force core to run my cpu on one core for individual applications. Can be found here:

http://www.kalme.de/index.php?option...d=44&Itemid=35

Otherwise you have to set it everytime you load the game.

I have an 8800 GTX factory overclocked. I play RS with large unit sizes, max graphics, and unlimited men on the battlefield. You can have several thousand men on screen at a time this way with smoth play. Going up to huge unit sizes, I see major loss in frame rate with any more than about two full armies on screen, even on lower settings. The problem with older games such as RTW is that you're cpu is relied upon heavily as well as your gpu, so getting a monster graphics card will not necessarilly give you unlimited performance. You need a strong cpu too, but since dual core is useless, the potential of the cpu is limited.

The fact is, the 8800 GTX is a monster card, and while some setups may see better performance than I get due to some other components in their system (better cpu, better RAM, etc.) I know the card has some power this game isn't utilizing- Point is, I doubt adding a second card would change much for this application.

My opinion about SLI is that you're better off with one really good card than two mediocre cards, but if you can afford two top of the line cards, well, on some applications, you are going to have uncanny performance. But again, as far as Rome Total War is concerned, even with the best graphics cards on the market running in SLI, other parts of your system are going to hold you back, mainly the CPU.

I tried to find some benchmarks of various systems on RTW, but all I could find are hardware setups that are a few years old. I'll run some test on a couple of different configurations and post my results.

[Nick was already in use]

I tried out force core and it works fine for me. Can play Rome with huge units without slowdowns...(only some details not on high)

[Blackshamrock.]

I use Alienware and I8 have no problums, aldought I do need a new grvicks card.