Slowness and Laginess on High End Computers

[mp84]

Hey Everyone,

This is not really about CTDs or anything like that.

First my specs:
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme 3.2 GHz 8MB Cache
GeForce GTX 295 , 1,792 MB
12GB gigs of Ram
X-58 Motherboard- Socket 1366 Core i7 Ready, Dual Triple Channel DDR3 Memory
Vista Ultimate 64 Bit
600GB (2 x 300GB) Velociraptor SATA 3.0Gb/s 10,000RPM 2 x 16MB Cache

To me with those specs, I should be able to run everything on max settings with AA, and have no problems.

Yet I get some very noticeable slowness and laginess on the campaign map. Battles it runs a little better, but sometimes I notice chugs here and there (If I have 3,000-3500 on screen at once) which annoys me too lol.

So in the end, I have to tone down the settings to no AA and Water Effects, Trees, Grass, and Sky on high instead of Ultra. Yet I still get slowness-lag issues on the campaign map.

Therefore the couple of questions I got, Is this just poor optimization on ETW's part?

Is there anything I can really do on my end?

I am going to try the memory leak fix, eventhough I don't have it. I've also tried setting the options for the settings outside the game through the Nvidia control panel, but I still get that slowness-lag and I have updated to the latest Nvidia Drivers the 182.08.

Any thoughts or ideas would be great.

thanks,

MP

[Stoferr]

Use an older driver, such as the 181.22 or 185.20. the new nvidia driver kinda sucks in empire

[mp84]

Use an older driver, such as the 181.22 or 185.20. the new nvidia driver kinda sucks in empire

Alright I'll try the new beta driver from the Guru's website when I get home.

Any other suggestions or comments, by all means I'm listening

thanks,

MP

[arnel98]

Mine is quite a bit slower than yours...
Q6600 4GB vista 32 320GB first generation sata
nvidia 182.06 (empire recommended driver)
at 1920x1200, 2xAA, everything ultra, and every checkbox checked except for SSAO, i get about 31-37fps avg on campaign map...
no problem with battle map...

if I turn off AA, it jumps to about 51-57fps but campaign lag is still there...
I dont know if there's any PC that can handle ultra settings with AA without campaign lag on 1920x1200 and above...

I tried bumping down the texture to LOW and that eliminated the campaign lag for me (no AA, everything else ultra) but it doesnt look pretty

[Stoferr]

Arnel; what gfx do you have? I got a Q6600 too (3,0Ghz) and 4 ggis of ram, nevertheless i have problems running Empire on high settings, at a resolution of 1280*1024

[arnel98]

oops, i forgot to mention...
i have nvidia gt260 (not overclocked)

[Muhammad.R1]

Mine is quite a bit slower than yours...
Q6600 4GB vista 32 320GB first generation sata
nvidia 182.06 (empire recommended driver)
at 1920x1200, 2xAA, everything ultra, and every checkbox checked except for SSAO, i get about 31-37fps avg on campaign map...
no problem with battle map...

if I turn off AA, it jumps to about 51-57fps but campaign lag is still there...
I dont know if there's any PC that can handle ultra settings with AA without campaign lag on 1920x1200 and above...

I tried bumping down the texture to LOW and that eliminated the campaign lag for me (no AA, everything else ultra) but it doesnt look pretty

OMG i have the EXACT same specs except the drivers! Amazing anyway i also have this problem and mine also genearly lags for quite a bit and crashes to windows. I have nvidia drivers 175 somethng something and patch 1.2

[mp84]

Mine is quite a bit slower than yours...
Q6600 4GB vista 32 320GB first generation sata
nvidia 182.06 (empire recommended driver)
at 1920x1200, 2xAA, everything ultra, and every checkbox checked except for SSAO, i get about 31-37fps avg on campaign map...
no problem with battle map...

if I turn off AA, it jumps to about 51-57fps but campaign lag is still there...
I dont know if there's any PC that can handle ultra settings with AA without campaign lag on 1920x1200 and above...

I tried bumping down the texture to LOW and that eliminated the campaign lag for me (no AA, everything else ultra) but it doesnt look pretty

Hmm I may try a lower resolution then too as i am running on 1900x1200 too.

[TestudoAubreii]

I feel your pain, as I am experiencing the same problems and I just bought a new rig, very similar to yours.
I've searched high and low trying to find a fix. For two days straight, after I got my computer, and tweaked the settings to try and find the perfect combination, and still I get a weaker performance than what I was expected. Neddless to say, it is very annoying and disapponting.

morrisonicus

[hamzta09]

Use an older driver, such as the 181.22 or 185.20. the new nvidia driver kinda sucks in empire

I dont notice ANY Difference in E:TW when using 185.20, 181.22 or any of those other drives..

What cause everything for me is the Processor as the game only use one core (I got 4) and games that only use one core at 100% means it will stutter/slowdown, yet you guys whine about gpu drivers.. its sick tbh!

[Darklife]

Same problem as you, the campaign map lags noticably. E8400, 4GB and GTX280

[Turbo]

don't complain about the lag, at least it runs for you. Plenty of people can't even launch the game.

[TestudoAubreii]

don't complain about the lag, at least it runs for you. Plenty of people can't even launch the game.

Hey, you know what, I worked really hard to get a computer that I can finally play total war games on their highest settings. I'm sorry some people can't play, but I've earned my right to complain, vent and let off some steam.

morrisonicus

[hamzta09]

Thing is, the game uses 1 core.
If one core chokes the game WILL stutter. In multiplecore supported games (when one core is heavily used the others are there to assist!) So its not your Graphics cards. Try getting a Logitech G15 keyboard and watch the CPU Usage on the little display. Mines at 25% or less.

[mp84]

Thing is, the game uses 1 core.
If one core chokes the game WILL stutter. In multiplecore supported games (when one core is heavily used the others are there to assist!) So its not your Graphics cards. Try getting a Logitech G15 keyboard and watch the CPU Usage on the little display. Mines at 25% or less.

I have the Logitech G15 keyboard actually, I'll have to look for that command.

thanks,

MP

[daawgees]

For those of you who are running the game at 1920 x 1200...is the text in game impossibly small to read? Is there a way to make that and the other menus/interfaces larger?

[arcticfireuk]

Thing is, the game uses 1 core.
If one core chokes the game WILL stutter. In multiplecore supported games (when one core is heavily used the others are there to assist!) So its not your Graphics cards. Try getting a Logitech G15 keyboard and watch the CPU Usage on the little display. Mines at 25% or less.

Never knew that! I would have thought these days with Dual and Quad cores being the norm that all new games would support all the processors. I'm the same with just 25% being used, what a waste and wondering how much performance I'm losing? Do you reckon it would be difficult for them to patch this or would it be a massive job?

EDIT: Just did some testing using the Nvidia monitors and all my processors are being used it seems. At first I thought it was just jumping between processors but not actually using multiple ones at the same time but there were times were I had over 80% usage on one and over 30% usage on another. Never kicked into three or more processors though, didn't seem to need to.

[hamzta09]

Never knew that! I would have thought these days with Dual and Quad cores being the norm that all new games would support all the processors. I'm the same with just 25% being used, what a waste and wondering how much performance I'm losing? Do you reckon it would be difficult for them to patch this or would it be a massive job?

EDIT: Just did some testing using the Nvidia monitors and all my processors are being used it seems. At first I thought it was just jumping between processors but not actually using multiple ones at the same time but there were times were I had over 80% usage on one and over 30% usage on another. Never kicked into three or more processors though, didn't seem to need to.

Its not too hard, but they said itll be out in summer...

And my cpu usage never go over 30, and its using Core 0 all the time, the rest is for background applications.

[Pent uP Rage]

I have a 9800GTX+ and was having pretty bad problems with the latest Nvidia drivers. The 180.xx series drivers have served me much better. Almost no CTD's...almost. But certainly far less than I was getting with the 182.xx drivers. The 182.06 drivers were released on 3/3/09, so CA didn't really have time to test those drivers.

CA recommends the 178.xx series drivers for the time being though.

[Freeman]

well im running mine on an old pentium D 2.8ghz ,4mb ram ,gtx 260 sli stock driver 182.06. the game runs fine except for the 'normal' bugs and glitches that youve come to expect from this game but the rig runs it fine on high (no bullcrap!). however, would upgrading my chip to a quad give a significant boost to the performance of the game in general? since i read here that the game only uses one core.