better performance

[Slippy]

Just wondering what how I can get my battles as ultra smooth as those in "Decisive Battles".

I've got a decent(ish) rig, which I upgraded to about 15 months ago just for this game:

P4 3.2Ghz Prescott
1gig of memory
Radeon 9700pro

Maybe my Radeon is the weakest link but general opinion seems to be that this game is more CPU dependant. The best I can get my battles is with my unit size set to normal (giving me battles of 500 - 700 troops per side). While this is very smooth with no frame drop at any point regardless of whether I'm zooming in or out I want bigger battles. I use medium detail settings although I get slightly better performance if I set my AA quality to high in Preferences.txt (which doesn't make sense to me)

Sure I can set my unit size to large and the battles are playable, the drop in frame rate spoils it for me and I end up reverting to dropping the unit size again. One other thing I've noticed is that my frame rate improves if I mute the sound. My soundcard is onboard and I'm wondering if this is causing some kind of bottleneck. I'm running on Windows 2000 pro but I'm thinking of trying Xp just for this game in the hope that it will improve things. A mate of mine has a very similar system to mine - his processor is slower but he has a better video card (Radeon 9800 pro) and his battles are smoother than mine.

A while ago I upgraded my DirectX to 9.0c (to play the Imperial Glory demo) and I swear that since going up to 9.0c my frame rate has dropped ever so slightly.

Any tips /experiences are welcome (although don't bother with "have you tried upgrading your sound / video drivers")

The DarthMod has vastly improved this game and his skins are amazing. If I can just get large battles working smoothly then this game (for me anyway) will be complete

[HorseArcher]

moved to the basement

[Phalanx83]

I have no problems with FPS playing at unit scale small normal and large, huge does drop the fps.
I can easily play battles with 0 - 4000 soldiers.
Setting are all High or Highest.

However, my specs are even slower than yours: I have a Pentium 2.4, Ati Radeon 9700 Pro, Creative sound blaster card and 1 ghz of memory.

I have the latest DirectX and a recent driver of Ati. (www.ati.com)

See if you have a recent driver and check your running proccesses for any spyware.

[Slippy]

I have no problems with FPS playing at unit scale small normal and large, huge does drop the fps.
I can easily play battles with 0 - 4000 soldiers.
Setting are all High or Highest.

However, my specs are even slower than yours: I have a Pentium 2.4, Ati Radeon 9700 Pro, Creative sound blaster card and 1 ghz of memory.

I have the latest DirectX and a recent driver of Ati. (www.ati.com)

See if you have a recent driver and check your running proccesses for any spyware.

I haven't run any spyware apps but I guess I should just as good practice. To be honest though my process list doesn't have much in it and my CPU/memory usuage level are very low when the PC is in an idle state. I am running a old version of the catalyst drivers (something like version 4.3) I have downloaded 5.5 but I haven't installed them yet. Is your soundcard onboard or a seperate card? I think my onboard is causing slow down and are you running XP?

[{AIrBoRnE}]

Ask pent up rage what his computer specs are, he can probly play with 20,000 men with no or little lag!!!

[MeKtHep]

{AIrBoRnE} comon dont make me jalours i can soon play only with 10.000 ore perhaps little more when my water cooling etc arives salmaaaan (H) but dont tell me this stuff (i know i read it myself DOH)

but thats mutch wat pent up rage hase what kind of pc he got :|

i just got stuck with my amd mobile athlon 3400 mhz (2.4gig) 2 gig ram 2 serial ata disks 100 gig each
and my sorry *** gforce 6800 normal no ultra so
im very interested in his system for maybe in futur upgrading pci expres etc but that wil have 2 wait for the bank and my work and the cash (A)

[Slippy]

Phalanx83 -

How have you configured your Direct3D settings?
What is your BIOS AGP apeture size?

and finally.....

could you post me a copy of your Preferences.txt file?

Cheers
Slippy

[Phalanx83]

Here are my preferences, all set to high.

USE_TRIPLE_BUFFER:TRUE
USE_WIDESCREEN:FALSE
SUBTITLES:FALSE
MORALE:TRUE
FATIGUE:TRUE
LIMITED_AMMO:TRUE
SUPPLY:TRUE
FOG_OF_WAR:TRUE
RESTRICT_CAMERA:FALSE
DEFAULT_BATTLE_CAMERA:RTS
EVENT_CUTSCENES:TRUE
SMOKE:TRUE
DESYNC:TRUE
SPLASHES:TRUE
GLINTS:TRUE
REFLECTIONS:TRUE
SHADOWS:TRUE
VEGETATION:TRUE
DETAILED_UNIT_SHADOWS:TRUE
GLOSS_MAPPING:TRUE
STENCIL_SHADOWS:TRUE
MULTI_TEXTURE:TRUE
AUTO_SAVE:TRUE
SHOW_BANNERS:TRUE
UNIT_SIZE:20
MASTER_VOL:100
SPEECH_VOL:100
SFX_VOL:100
MUSIC_VOL:100
CAMERA_ROTATE:50
CAMERA_MOVE:50
CAMERA_FOV:75.000000
ENABLE_AUDIO:TRUE
ENABLE_MUSIC:TRUE
ENABLE_UNIT_SPEECH:TRUE
DISABLE_BACKGROUND_FMV:FALSE
DISABLE_ARROW_MARKERS:FALSE
AUDIO_3D_PROVIDER:Miles Fast 2D Positional Audio
CLOUD_TRANSITIONS:TRUE
GRASS_DISTANCE:100
AA_QUALITY:AA_OFF
STRATEGY_RESOLUTION:1280x1024
STRATEGY_32_BIT:TRUE
BATTLE_RESOLUTION:1280x1024
BATTLE_32_BIT:TRUE
UNIT_DETAIL:ULTRA_HIGH
BUILDING_DETAIL:ULTRA_HIGH
TGA_CAPTURE_WIDTH:1024
TGA_CAPTURE_ASPECT:1.333333
TGA_CAPTURE_INPUT_SCALE:1
TGA_CAPTURE_RESERVE_SPACE:FALSE
LABEL_CHARACTERS:FALSE
LABEL_SETTLEMENTS:TRUE
MINIMAL_UI:FALSE
CAMPAIGN_MAP_MAX_SCROLL_SPEED_MIN_ZOOM:30
CAMPAIGN_MAP_MAX_SCROLL_SPEED_MAX_ZOOM:30
FIRST_TIME_PLAY:FALSE
ADVISOR_VERBOSITY:0
MUTE_ADVISOR:FALSE
BLIND_ADVISOR:FALSE
CAMPAIGN_MAP_CAMERA:SKIP_AI_FACTIONS
CAMPAIGN_MAP_SPEED_UP:FALSE
CAMPAIGN_MAP_GAME_SPEED:10
DISABLE_EVENTS:0
MICROMANAGE_ALL_SETTLEMENTS:TRUE
ADVANCED_STATS_ALWAYS:FALSE
UNIT_USE_SHADERS:TRUE
TERRAIN_QUALITY:HIGH
EFFECT_QUALITY:HIGHEST
VEGETATION_QUALITY:HIGH
KEYSET:0
UNLIMITED_MEN_ON_BATTLEFIELD:FALSE
CAMPAIGN_MAP_CAMERA_SMOOTHING:TRUE
CHAT_MSG_DURATION:10
USE_QUICKCHAT:FALSE
GS_PIDS:FALSE
GS_PIDS_FULL:FALSE
GS_PIDS_CUR:TRUE
ALWAYS_LOGFILE:FALSE
TIMESTAMP_LOGFILE:TRUE

[Slippy]

Just rebuilt my PC with Windows XP and what a difference. Maybe its more geared towards games than Win 2000 but I'm now playing with large unit sizes and its very smooth.

Interestingly, when RTW detected my hardware it set Use_tripple_buffer to false. I've tried battles with this set to true as well as false and can't see much difference

Rock and Roll