Please, Someone Help Me! Total War Performance

**TestudoAubreii** · April 28, 2009, 07:24 AM

Greetings,

I've searched everywhere, but I cannot find an answer. Perhaps, my searching skills are not that great. Anyhow, I thought I would post in The Basement because you all are pretty knowledgeable. O.K., here is is:
First off, I'll post short list of my specs:

i7 920 2.67
Sapphire HD 4870 1GB DDR5 16X
3GB Ram

I know that Empire has some performance issues that many people are dealing with right now. I've tried every type of settings configuration that I can and I still see the same results, which I find is kind of weird. I am able to look past a bit of that for now and just play the game.
Since then, I've dug out MTWII and Rome and decided to give them a run again, since I now have a computer that can handle the settings on the highest level...so I thought. It seems that since I have an i7, those two games will not play well at all! I get a LOT of lag on both the campaign map and the battle map. It is really quite frustrating. I also installed Microsoft Flight Simulator X and I cannot get over 10fps.
Ultimately, my question is, is there anything I can do about this? Can I get the processor to work with these games, or should I pretty much just call it a day and realize that I won't be able to play them again? Unless of course I downgrade my rig, which is not going to happen.
Oh, I play Battlefield 2 (pretty much all first person shooters) with no hang ups, so I am sure it has to do with quad core optimization.
Anyhow, I will greatly and deeply appreciate and all help, advice or tips. I am really at my wits end trying to find out what I can do about this. Thank you all in advance for taking the time to read this and for all of your responses. Thank you.

morrisonicus

**Freddie** · April 28, 2009, 07:34 AM

Flight Simulator is a CPU intensive game and it should fly (no pun intended) on a quad core CPU. It sounds like your CPU is 'throttling' which means the CPU detects it's getting hot and sets the CPU's multiply to a lower setting which makes it run slower. This is all speculation so now we need to prove it so first things first can you download and install speedfan.

When it's open make a note of your CPU temps (there might be five of them, 4 for your CPU and one for your GPU). Make a note of all of temps at idle settings and your CPU fan speed. Now load up Empire or Flight Simulator, play it for about 10 mins to give your CPU a good work out and look at what the new temps and fan speed is.

**TestudoAubreii** · April 28, 2009, 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by Freddie

Flight Simulator is a CPU intensive game and it should fly (no pun intended) on a quad core CPU. It sounds like your CPU is 'throttling' which means the CPU detects it's getting hot and sets the CPU's multiply to a lower setting which makes it run slower. This is all speculation so now we need to prove it so first things first can you download and install speedfan.

When it's open make a note of your CPU temps (there might be five of them, 4 for your CPU and one for your GPU). Make a note of all of temps at idle settings and your CPU fan speed. Now load up Empire or Flight Simulator, play it for about 10 mins to give your CPU a good work out and look at what the new temps and fan speed is.

Hey, Freddie, thank you so much for responding I am going crazy with this stuff. I will download speedfan when I get home from work and I will post the results. So, is there anyway to change that setting without causing potential damage? I mean after we find out if the CPU is throttling, that is.
I don't know if this has anything to do with anything, but this is what I've found with CPU% when running those various games:
I've jumped out of the game (Empire) before to check the CPU performance and I noticed that when running Empire, it is at about 15%, and that is during a huge battle. When I did that during a flight with Flight Simulator X, it was at about 2%, and 2-5% is what I got while running battles with both Rome and MTWII.
I hope that made sense. Anyhow, thank you very much for your help, I really appreciate it. I'll post after work.

morrisonicus

**Freddie** · April 28, 2009, 09:55 AM

No worries, I'll be back online at TWC at around 19:30 GMT so I'll check this thread out but it doesn sound like throttling. One potential cause of this is your CPU fan isn't on the right setting in the BIOS, or the isn't plugged in at all or it could be the HSF isn't set correctly as a result of stupid push pin mechanism Intel insists on using for mounting the HSF.

**TestudoAubreii** · April 28, 2009, 07:01 PM

This was after Empire. I'll try FSX after a while to see the results.
All right, here we are. This first one is idle:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

This is what I got after two good custom battles:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

I just thought I'd post this to shoe GPU temp. and fan speed:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Thanks again, Freddy. I really do appreciate it.

morrisonicus

**Jaketh** · April 28, 2009, 07:57 PM

nothing is overheating

**Freddie** · April 29, 2009, 03:13 AM

So much for my theory about parts overheating.

Do you know what power supply you have?

**TestudoAubreii** · April 29, 2009, 06:30 AM

Originally Posted by Freddie

So much for my theory about parts overheating.

Do you know what power supply you have?

Strange, huh?! The power supply I have on my rig is a Xion 580 watt. I really don't know what else it could be. The mobo I have is an ASUS P6T X58SLI/Crossfire Triple Channel DDR3. The support disk came with this thing called Express Gate and a few other programs, but I uninstalled them because I thought it may be a cause for some of the issues I am having. Do you know what that is (Express Gate)? If so, do you think I should have left it on the rig? Perhaps, I should try to explain Express Gate. It is a program that is suppose to get you on the web, picture handling and a few other things that you would normally have to do with you OS. I also uninstalled a program called ASUS AI Suite, which is an application for overclocking, fan control, power saving and quite thermal cooling. That application was part of the mobo support disk.
I hope that wasn't too confusing. I am just trying to think about everything that I can do to remedy this. Thanks, again, for your help Freddy.

morrisonicus

**Freddie** · April 29, 2009, 07:22 AM

You can either leave the Asus software on your computer or not it's up to you, I doubt it's the cause of your problems.

I would try downloading the latest video card drivers from AMD, failing that, uninstall the drivers, uninstall the card and reinstall it.

Just out of interest what settings are you trying to run FSX at? I'm guessing you have it running at max everything which would probably explain why it's running so slow. FSX isn't a game it's a simulator and as such it places a huge strain on your systems resources especially the CPU, I'm not even sure FSX is quad core enabled some people have said they haven't noticed any improvement switching from Dual to Quad core PC's which would suggest that it isn't. To fix FSX I suggest you should be more realistic with the settings or overclock your CPU for more performance.

As for M2TW and Rome how big are the battles? A frame rate of 15 FPS is smooth in TW so I suggest you download FRAPS and get benchmarking. You will be ok with 5000-6000 men but anything over that then your asking a lot from PC especially for a game that only uses one CPU core (it's likely these games are CPU bottlenecked).

I would also benchmark Battlefield 2 with FRAPS as well, you should be getting a massive FPS scores with your setup, a HD 4870 will own that game no matter what settings you use.

**TestudoAubreii** · April 29, 2009, 08:10 AM

I tweaked some of the settingson FSX and I see a bit of a difference in frame rates. I don't think that FSX is quad core enabled. As for MTWII, my FPS is pretty low, below 15fps, same for Rome. I run the games on their highest settings, but I suppose I'll have to sacrifice something if I want to play them. I know that I haven't had over 5000 units on the field in the tests I've run thus far. It isn't just the battlemap, though, it is the campiagn map as well. I'll have to check the FPS on the campaign map, but I know that it runs with a stutter.

Battlefield 2 & 2142 run as smooth as silk. I get over 100fps during a big fire fight. I think I'm going to get the Call of Duty games this weekend and see how they play, but I am sure that I won't have a problem playing those, no matter what settings (I hope).

I am really disappointed that I am not able to play MTWII and Rome they way I thought I could. I really wish there is something I can do about it. I'll run some more tests when I get home and see if there is anything else I can try to paly these games.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to help me out with this most frustrating situation. Freddy.

morrisonicus

**TestudoAubreii** · April 29, 2009, 02:35 PM

I have a question. Is there any way to get the core that works with the game to raise in performance? I am not sure if I can do that without raising the performance in all off the cores. I hope that made sense.

morrisonicus

**Freddie** · April 30, 2009, 03:53 AM

Originally Posted by morrisonicus

I have a question. Is there any way to get the core that works with the game to raise in performance? I am not sure if I can do that without raising the performance in all off the cores. I hope that made sense.

morrisonicus

Yes, you can overclock your CPU to run at faster frequencies. Some Core i7 920 CPU's can be pushed to 4Ghz with a decent cooler (I'm not sure what you will get with a stock HSF though), if your interested I suggest your Google for articles on Core i7 overclocking guides.

With the sorts of games your running they would greatly benefit from having a CPU that runs at faster speeds.

**TestudoAubreii** · April 30, 2009, 07:15 AM

Originally Posted by Freddie

Yes, you can overclock your CPU to run at faster frequencies. Some Core i7 920 CPU's can be pushed to 4Ghz with a decent cooler (I'm not sure what you will get with a stock HSF though), if your interested I suggest your Google for articles on Core i7 overclocking guides.

With the sorts of games your running they would greatly benefit from having a CPU that runs at faster speeds.

Hey, Freddie. All right this is what I did and I think it is going to work out just fine. I safely overclocked my CPU from 2.67GHz to 3.33GHz, and I didn't have to change the voltage or anything. I ran MTWII and Rome and they seem to be running much, much smoother, and the FPS jumped way up. I can now run Empire with everything set to Ultra. FSX still has a low frame rate, but I guess two out of the three games isn't bad.
Anyhow, I played a few back to back custom battles with Empire with four full stacks and it ran suprisingly smooth. Here are some screenshots that I took. I think everything looks all right. Please, tell me what you think.

This set is before I started running Empire:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

This performance shot was taken right in the middle of a four stack battle:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

This set is after a full four stack battle:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Well, hopefully that will do the trick. I have another question for you. I noticed that when I check the performance, I click on the processes tab in the task manager and there are a bunch of processes running. How many can I stop without messing up the system?

I know I ask a lot of questions, but I really do appreciate your help and if I lived around you, I'd buy you a beer...if you drink, of course. Thanks.

morrisonicus

**Freddie** · April 30, 2009, 11:25 AM

The next TW game will use the same engine as Empire so if the battles were only using 1 CPU core in this game it will only use 1 CPU in the next. We will have to wait until the game after that to arrive (which won't be until at least 2012/2013) to see if CA rectifies this situation.

**TestudoAubreii** · April 30, 2009, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by Freddie

The next TW game will use the same engine as Empire so if the battles were only using 1 CPU core in this game it will only use 1 CPU in the next. We will have to wait until the game after that to arrive (which won't be until at least 2012/2013) to see if CA rectifies this situation.

Hmmm...2012/2013. I can't wait for MTWIV or ETWII. Just kidding, it's hard not to be sarcastic sometimes. Well, at least I won't have to upgrade for a while. Thanks for all of your help and advice, Freddy. I really, truly appreciate.

morrisonicus