For everyone struggling with poor performance.

**paleeagle** · April 28, 2009, 05:35 AM

Hello all.

It seems many of you stuggle with Empire Total War on your "normal" computer. I would say that by todays standards I dont have anywhere near a good computer but I am playing this game, with pretty decent graphics settings and very minimal lag.

This could be down to the fact the since installing Empire total war I have followed the setting advice in the tech forums and it appears to be helping loads.

My computer is
AMD Athlon Duo core 4600+
Nvidia 8500GT Graphics card
2 gig of RAM

My current setting running Darth Mod, with normal unit mod, and with the blood mod are.

Shader Option =2 I can play option 3 on custom battles fine but as soon as it is a campaign battle there is massive lag. So my setting is 2
Anti Aliasing = None see comment and link.
Texture Filtering = Trilinear
Texture Quality = Ultra
Particle effects = Medium
Building detail = Ultra
Ship Detail = High
Shadows = off
Unit size =Ultra
Trees = High
Grass = off
Water = High
Sky = Medium. (I had this set to high but had a little lag)

All the boxes at the bottom of the options are turned off. I have heard though that ticking "Hardware shadows" actually helps game play due to shadows being drawn by your graphics card and not the processer. However I have shadows turned off so there is no point in this for me.

Now I am no expert and I am sure many people will commment on this and disagree, which is great. But this is meant to be helping people gain more from their game, so if you are going to critisize please please please do it in a constructive way and also add your own adivce.

Sorry I cant comment on Frames per second as I have no idea how to find this out. I can play with the settings above with little or no visual lag. I get some lag on larger battles say 5000 men plus but that is easily overcome by just adjusting your settings for that single battle. I personally would start with Trees and Shadows being lowered then probably move onto unit detail etc. But that is just my personal opinion. Everyone must experiment with what they like to gain the look and feel of the game that is good for them.

The advice I followed can be found in the tech forums stickied but here are the links.

Graphics settings

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=233186 This link will take you to the thread explaining the different settings. It is very helpful and shows screen shots to help you make your decision on settings.

Anti Aliasing

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=233186&page=3 Comment 42 This link will take you to a little post about Anti Aliasing. I have searched for the more detailed instructions I followed to no avail so I apologise. But it sets it out basically. I followed this advice and it made my game look fantastic. Basically it explains how if you disable Anti Aliasing in game, but instead go to your graphics card settings and force it to be on all the time it helps.

Script Modding

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=233252 Comment 9
Once again sorry as I cant find the original post due to lack or searching time. I have only just attempted this as it involves messing with the script which I am not confident with. It appears to work as my current setting at the top show. (Before most things were set to medium or high. It would be great if someone with a little more understanding could comment on this particular thread/post as I dont want people blaming me if it all goes horribly wrong.

Download file to change unit files back to original number.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=256067 This thread is in the Darthmod submods section.

I hope some of this helps as it has made the game a very enjoyable experience compared to when I first installed it and thought the graphics that my computer could run were pretty appalling.

EDIT, I have now set my Shadows to "OFF" I originally had them set to medium when I tried the "Script Modding" Trick (still not sure if this has made any difference, hopefully someone will comment on the script modding thread). However I found that with them on I am getting lag sooner than before. So I have reverted back to my old setting. I dont really miss them though.

EDIT EDIT, I have reverted back to the "normal unit size" mod. Since installing the new ETW patch my grahics took a hit. I am still playing with the stated settings about though so hope that the links of this page are of some help to those trying to tweak their system to run well.

**GuiltyBoomerang** · April 28, 2009, 06:35 AM

Great post, will work wonders for many people.

Maybe I'll go try these when the patch comes out.

EDIT-Tried stressing the lowest FPS you can with 10-20k troops?

**paleeagle** · April 28, 2009, 06:39 AM

Originally Posted by GuiltyBoomerang

Great post, will work wonders for many people.

Maybe I'll go try these when the patch comes out.

EDIT-Tried stressing the lowest FPS you can with 10-20k troops?

lol with 10-20K troops my FPS with these settings will probably be minus 86.

Seriously though how do I get the FPS so i can edit the post with it in?

EDIT I have just tried a custom battle with these settings. 8000 Militia against 8000 militia 16000 in total. As I expected the frame rate was appalling, I lowered pretty much all the settings I could (from the in battle menu) which brought the game up to a "playable" level. dont get me wrong there was still massive lag. but is was very much playable. However the frame rate came back up quite quickly to a pretty smooth running (admittedly still with the reduced graphics) once the numbers started to be reduced by deaths.

What I ask though is how often do these epic battles happen in the campaign? I have yet to get more than one or two so far since installing commander edition, and even then the total units was only around 8000, and with the reduced graphics this would run at a slow, but playable level.

What is everyone elses experience with this?

**VINDIC** · April 28, 2009, 08:03 AM

Really good post, also I'll try when CA will release the patch ('til that day I'll play TATW)...+rep for you 'mate

**Syntax** · April 28, 2009, 08:13 AM

For the frames: google for "fraps download", that's a small program which shows u the frames per second, the basic version is free, don't worry its real a small routine!

**paleeagle** · April 28, 2009, 01:37 PM

Ok so I have tried the FPS thing and have to say I am a little confused.

No matter how many units are on screen, and no matter what settings I use ultra down to low (even ones that cause lag). it is saying that I am running at 15FPS never changes. This doesnt even change when the game lags.

I must be doing something wrong, but to me this doesnt matter as I am aiming to get the game playing and looking good. And my game plays with nice looking graphics and "VISUALLY" nice and smooth with no lag, except on the epic battles, 5000+ as stated before.

**sandman2575** · April 28, 2009, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by paleeagle

Anti Aliasing

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=233186&page=3 Comment 42 This link will take you to a little post about Anti Aliasing. I have searched for the more detailed instructions I followed to no avail so I apologise. But it sets it out basically. I followed this advice and it made my game look fantastic. Basically it explains how if you disable Anti Aliasing in game, but instead go to your graphics card settings and force it to be on all the time it helps.

@paleeagle - thanks for this helpful post.

i think my computer has similar specs to yours (see sig.) -- but even using similar settings, i definitely can't play Darthmod commander ed. with unit size on ultra without serious lag, especially when melees ensue.

I cannot figure out this AntiAliasing trick. I play with the ingame setting on "None" because even 2x creates noticeable framerate lag for me.

But whenever I try to set the AA from my graphics card control panel, it doesn't do anything.

This is how i've tried setting my nVidia 8600M GT card for AA:

"Antialiasing - Mode: Override any application settings"
"Antialiasing - Setting: mine goes up to "16x" and "16xQ" (no idea what the Q means - 'quality'?)
"Antialiasing - Transparency: Supersampling (have also tried Multisampling)"

Basically no matter what I set these to, it seems to have no effect on in game graphics quality. I've tried setting these as "Global Settings" and also as "Program Settings" specifically for the Empire.exe. It seems like I can only control the AA through the ETW graphics panel, which for me goes from "None" to "8x."

Don't know if you can help but figured I'd ask

**paleeagle** · April 29, 2009, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by sandman2575

@paleeagle - thanks for this helpful post.

i think my computer has similar specs to yours (see sig.) -- but even using similar settings, i definitely can't play Darthmod commander ed. with unit size on ultra without serious lag, especially when melees ensue.

I cannot figure out this AntiAliasing trick. I play with the ingame setting on "None" because even 2x creates noticeable framerate lag for me.

But whenever I try to set the AA from my graphics card control panel, it doesn't do anything.

This is how i've tried setting my nVidia 8600M GT card for AA:

"Antialiasing - Mode: Override any application settings"
"Antialiasing - Setting: mine goes up to "16x" and "16xQ" (no idea what the Q means - 'quality'?)
"Antialiasing - Transparency: Supersampling (have also tried Multisampling)"

Basically no matter what I set these to, it seems to have no effect on in game graphics quality. I've tried setting these as "Global Settings" and also as "Program Settings" specifically for the Empire.exe. It seems like I can only control the AA through the ETW graphics panel, which for me goes from "None" to "8x."

Don't know if you can help but figured I'd ask

What you are doing seems right. Although for me I have the Transparency set to off. I have no technical knowledge of things like this though unfortunatley. I am hoping some tech god will read this and comment lol.

I have my AA set to X8 on the graphics card. I originally chose this as an experiment and it seemed to work ok.

Not sure why you would find your game runs different to mine. Although I think my processor is better than yours (but I could be wrong of course), although you have double the RAM. I am also running it on XP 32bit not vista, although I dont think this would make much difference. Like I have always said in my original post, my game runs smoothly and only seems to start lagging when the battles get up to about 5000 men, then I get lag and have to start turning the settings down.

Anyone know why this would be??

**tarvu** · April 29, 2009, 01:10 PM

I have been trying to play a Marathas campaign with commanders edition and don't find it possible, as I do get 10-20k battles regularly (marathas and Mughals have very large armies).

I can't even play on large settings during seiges without terrible fps. With these settings or any other other than some ungodly ugly resolution and everything on such low settings it isn't really worth playing for me. It ruins the game for me, and I have stopped playing all together for about a month because of it.

I have the following system:

XP Pro

Athlon 64 X2 dual processor 6400+

4 gigs of quality ram (not going to pop it out to see, but it was top of the line or near it when I built the system a little over a year ago).

8800 GTX

2x raptor hard drives setup on a raid

running on a 1680x1050 widescreen lcd monitor.

I don't really feel like upgrading my computer yet again, and I have already overclocked it a bit. I'm frankly done with PC enthusiasm, and will instead wait for the perfection of streaming technology from server clusters like the upcoming Onlive is promising. Spending thousands of dollars on my computer every couple of years just isn't a sensible option for me these days.

Still seeing the pictures of massive battles, and in game myself (as long as they aren't meleeing performance isn't a problem, but as Marathas that isn't really a viable option) has pretty much ruined Total War for me... knowing what it could be and what I have to live with using my current machine.

Though the new patch is tempting... maybe I'll give it another shot in a few weeks either as vanilla or maybe try again with commanders on a lower unit size.

**paleeagle** · April 29, 2009, 01:32 PM

Apologies if the original post doesnt help anyone much. But hopefully the links will be useful to some. Fingers crossed.

**MIDN Mainolfi** · April 30, 2009, 06:50 AM

I read a report on a tech forum, sorry can't remember the name, but it said that the transparency option always depletes performance unless it is set to 'off'. So theoretically, Supersampling provides the best visuals, but major sacrafice to performance. Multisampling provides a somewhat eye pleasing graphics boost, but doesn't sacrafice on performance too much. And off would be the only setting that you could choose that wouldn't whack you with a performance hit. I've never been able to notice the difference between any of them visually, and not really performance wise either, so just pick your poison, I guess.....

**Kevinboodts** · May 04, 2009, 08:40 AM

i have a ATI radeon 4870w with 4gb ram and a dual core Intel E8400 3.0ghz processor and still cant get ultra performances on darthmod commander ...

**paleeagle** · May 05, 2009, 06:18 AM

Since installing the new patch my graphics seem to have taken a hit. I have no idea why this is, does anyone??

Due to this I have reverted back to playing with the original unit numbers which can be found in the sub mods thread.

I still hope that the links I provided will help people with setting their graphics for the best look.

The graphics I stated that I run at are still what I use, however this is no longer with Commander Edition.

I will edit the original post to show this and contact Darth incase this thread is no longer relevant for Commander Edition.

**sdomi_cabsav@Hotmail** · May 10, 2009, 12:48 AM

I found the majority of lag actually comes from the AI not the graphical settings.

**Grazzt** · May 11, 2009, 11:04 AM

Yeah had a fight last night against mysor.. man was huge and laggy.. Was my army of 3 vs like 5 armies they had.. was like 6k troop vs 12k.. Was going good in fps until they started to get reinforcements then it got laggy.. So i think its AI lag and not just graphical lag.

**GuiltyBoomerang** · May 11, 2009, 02:11 PM

What will cause slowdowns while playing battles:

1. Having SmokeMod Full or Lite activated. (FPS drop depends on how many units have fired and lingering effects etc...)

2. Lots of troops. (10-20k troops is actually okay, its just when....)

3. Troops bunch up into one giant cluster (expletive,) as I like to put it (and when I joined the Army Cadet Corps, our NCOs would call us that too. FPS drop is virtually the same at moderate to long zoom, but close zooms will hurt.)

This leads to:

3. Big melee fights. Examples I made in previous threads are HERE : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=250427

and HERE : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=250843.
(Note - 2nd Thread was sort of like this one, but then again, it PHAILED :p )

This will hurt your FPS big time and it is almost impossible to avoid during the mid-late sections of a battle. Going down from a playable 15FPS to 3FPS is no fun, AND regardless of changing the resolution to ultra LOW and to 800x600, your FPS will either stay at 3 or go up to 5. And if you pile more troops, say goodbye to that number.

Other than these ones, Empire is reasonably playable for me with troops up to 20k. Sometimes the melees are small and so don't kill the desktop, but other than that...

**Cavalry24** · May 13, 2009, 11:02 AM

the cpu is the most important factor in this game (and other Total wars). A medium new video card is good enough for nearly all the ultra details but cpu is for the number of soldiers. So if you get stuck with your cpu, a little overclock will help.♠

**auth0ritarian** · May 26, 2009, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by Cavalry24

the cpu is the most important factor in this game (and other Total wars). A medium new video card is good enough for nearly all the ultra details but cpu is for the number of soldiers. So if you get stuck with your cpu, a little overclock will help.♠

I have downloaded darth mod & the blood/smoke mod, and I can already see a substantial drop in performance. I have units still on ultra, but lowered most other settings to high, 0 anti-liasing and x2 anisotropic I think.

My specs are AMD phenom II x3 720, ati 4850, and 4 gb ddr3. I ordered this rig pre-built and overclocked, but it kept crashing so I had reset back to stock speeds. This cpu is supposed to be a good overclocker... I guess the place I got it from did a lousy job oc'ing it.

Anyway, in order to set settings back to ultra do you suggest I overclock again, get a faster cpu or add a 2nd gpu?

thanks