Farewell to Stainless Steel?

[caralampio]

No, not really farewell but...

I've been considering something. I have a very limited playing time, and I play all TW games. I mean, I play one day M2 (SS), another day RTW, another day ETW, another day TATW, lately also NTW. I even play Medieval I TW on occasion, believe or not! I have a computer at this alternative location (you know, that place where one spends from 9 to 5 ). It doesn't have a video card or anything and the only TW thing it supports is M1TW.

I've come to realize that I dread when it's SS's turn. Not because I don't like it, I love it, but I lose so much time with it. And I don't mean because I lose myself and forget the time... I mean I literally LOSE time.

The typical AI turn takes 6 minutes. I spend only a minute or so giving my orders. Of course a battle takes more time, but while in the campaign mode, I play 1 minute for every 6 minutes I lose idly. I have read several books in the last months just while waiting for the AI to play. This means if I play an hour, I only spent about 10 minutes playing, and 50 minutes waiting!!

Then there's also those seconds you lose, which I call the "hiccup", every time you move a character or an army and it seizes up before ending its move. These pauses add up.

So, I'm seriously considering going back to vanilla. In fact I already started a game. Sure it was like falling from heaven to earth, the map, the units, the interface all look so... primitive. But the AI turn took all of 14 seconds. 14 seconds!!!! And it is refreshing to see units and characters zip through the map without the hiccup.

The lag problem has become worse lately and I think it is because every day new mods and stuff are added (including my own ). I think modders need to take a good look at this problem or SS will become unplayable, if it isn't already. Perhaps streamlining is in order?

Oh and before you ask, my PC is fine, thank you. I can play ETW with everything on high and even a couple of items on ultra.

[Kameraden]

I had that problem also but went off. And came back after few days. Quite odd if you think..

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Wow, I'm sorry to hear about the lost time but I'm happy that literature helped fill the void. For me the time between turns is about a minute once I'm about fifty turns into the game. Now I only have SS6.2 and Y's eye candy, so maybe it would be worse, if I had more sub-mods.

I always try and run scan disk and defrag every couple of days to keep things running fast as it can. And of course I always keep FOW turned of at the end turn. I'm sorry your leaving,... Hope you'll be back soon...

Yes in your shoes, I'm sure I'd do the same...

[ruthless knight]

well my pc is much more old and weak (it cant mount ETW....) and i dont have problem with lag at all. The ai turn takes 15 seconds average. Although that changed with the latest RR RC and im glad i use it

[Point Blank]

Running BGR is the biggest single factor in added turn time.

[Sir Walter]

I don't have much of a problem really (I do get hiccup sometimes, both in battle and campaign) and my computer failed at running the ETW demo...

[gracul]

Just curious, how long were rc4 turn times for you?
Since you can run ETW no-prob, i guess you must have at least a dual core processor, so go to the .cfg file and add:

[video]
windowed=true
borderless_window=true

This will enable you to alt+tab without the loading times, and the turns will pass normally in the background even while alt+tabbed. So its not like wasting all the time, you can also do other things while playing then. Make sure your medieval resolution is same as ur desktop tho, as you wont like running med that takes only 3/4 of a screen.

[Navajo Joe]

I would strongly recommend that you give Battle of The Baltic v2.0 a try. It has a redesigned map, with new settlements, Mad Tao's Polish Units, Rusichi Novgorod & Kievan Rus and great looking Mongol units. As for turn time, very fast, just enough time to pour a beer!

[NZV]

Can't say I have this issue, and my PC is getting pretty dated. Turn times are maybe 30 seconds.

[NewUser]

6 minutes is enormous considering you can run ETW with no problem at high. It takes longer for the turn times in ETW vanilla than it does for me on SS (RR/RC no BGR). With BGR the turn load rate really slows down, from about 25 seconds to 3-4 minutes even maybe. If you are running BGR, then I suggest turning it, if not, then I suggest reinstalling; it might be lots of trash files piling up.

[Lord Derfel]

6 minutes seems very long specially if you are not using BGR. With BGR my turns average around 3-4 minutes as well, but with RR/RC alone they go pretty quickly like usually less than 1 minute.

[caralampio]

I use RR/RC without BGR. I suppose plain SS 6.2 must take less time? I don't have it installed currently. I don't like it too much because the AI is mindlessly aggresive. I've even considered going back to 6.1. The AI turns go fast in my computer while playing ETW, NTW, even TATW. It's just SS that gives me problems. This is an old problem that I thought I had get used to, a couple of minutes would be reasonable but 6 minutes? I can't lose so much time.

OTOH I find it a bit hard to believe 15-30 seconds in this mod, whatever the variant you are using. Perhaps you have some monster rig with tons of memory? I have 3 GB of memory, an Nvidia 9900 GTX with 1 GB of memory, and a dual core processor with 2.79 Ghz.

[sbroadbent]

I use RR/RC without BGR. I suppose plain SS 6.2 must take less time? I don't have it installed currently. I don't like it too much because the AI is mindlessly aggresive. I've even considered going back to 6.1. The AI turns go fast in my computer while playing ETW, NTW, even TATW. It's just SS that gives me problems. This is an old problem that I thought I had get used to, a couple of minutes would be reasonable but 6 minutes? I can't lose so much time.

OTOH I find it a bit hard to believe 15-30 seconds in this mod, whatever the variant you are using. Perhaps you have some monster rig with tons of memory? I have 3 GB of memory, an Nvidia 9900 GTX with 1 GB of memory, and a dual core processor with 2.79 Ghz.

I have an e6300 (1.89Ghz), Radeon x1950 Pro, and 2GB of memory, so I most likely have far less processing power as you do, so there definitely is something going wrong there.

From my Papal campaign (6.2 RC4 without RR/RC). Turn 26 (so all factions still live), End Turn:
FoW on, Skip AI Movements: 1:03
FoW on, Follow AI Movements: 1:40
FoW off, Skip AI Movements: 1:02
FoW off, Follow AI Movements: 9:06

Oddly enough the french turn on that last run ended up being 55 seconds of the whole 9 minutes and 6 seconds (and yes, I sat there watching the AI make it's moves... in fact in my Templar game I routinely watched every AI make it's moves with the FoW off, as I was just as interested in what the AI was doing in it's turn than just taking my own turns. The side benefit was that I could write up some commentary about how awesome the French initially were in beating crusade stack after crusade stack

[Stario]

OTOH I find it a bit hard to believe 15-30 seconds in this mod, whatever the variant you are using. Perhaps you have some monster rig with tons of memory? I have 3 GB of memory, an Nvidia 9900 GTX with 1 GB of memory, and a dual core processor with 2.79 Ghz.

Very odd indeed. My 3yo RIG is a 2.7GHz AMD dual core with 9800GTX+ GPU, 4GB RAM (DDR2), 620W PSU. I play 6.2 RR/RC and my turns take approximately 30 seconds during later turns. Firstly, RAM is a great investment I suggest getting atleast another 1GB of it (Get DDR3 RAM if you can afford it and your motherboard compatible; alternatively some good DDR2 RAM is enough for Medieval II but i would recommend atleast 4GB (of same RAM)). Secondly, check your GPU; theres no such thing as a 9900GTX??? Lastly, its could be a bad install somewhere, I would try uninstalling and reinstalling Medieval II and all its components/submods and then reinstalling it again; ensure your Medieval II game is at v 1.05 (that is if you haven't already tried that).

edit: OK just timed it. Turn 117, 49seconds (late era); just enough time to grab that beer

[Cyprexinia]

30 seconds? 45 seconds? My turns take atleast 2-3min and sometimes 6-7. O.o how are you all getting such fast times! I'd do a complete reinstall of Medieval II but I lost the keycode for kingdoms since they put it on the booklet than the case -.- and pretty sure you need kingdoms to run SS.

[Demonic Spoon]

30 seconds? 45 seconds? My turns take atleast 2-3min and sometimes 6-7. O.o how are you all getting such fast times! I'd do a complete reinstall of Medieval II but I lost the keycode for kingdoms since they put it on the booklet than the case -.- and pretty sure you need kingdoms to run SS.

Start -> (Run if in windows XP) -> regedit.exe.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Wow6432Node -> Sega.

Your CD key should be somewhere in there. the exact names of the registry folders may vary.

[Ichon]

Very odd indeed. My 3yo RIG is a 2.7GHz AMD dual core with 9800GTX+ GPU, 4GB RAM (DDR2), 620W PSU. I play 6.2 RR/RC and my turns take approximately 30 seconds during later turns. Firstly, RAM is a great investment I suggest getting atleast another 1GB of it (Get DDR3 RAM if you can afford it and your motherboard compatible; alternatively some good DDR2 RAM is enough for Medieval II but i would recommend atleast 4GB (of same RAM)). Secondly, check your GPU; theres no such thing as a 9900GTX??? Lastly, its could be a bad install somewhere, I would try uninstalling and reinstalling Medieval II and all its components/submods and then reinstalling it again; ensure your Medieval II game is at v 1.05 (that is if you haven't already tried that).

edit: OK just timed it. Turn 117, 49seconds (late era); just enough time to grab that beer

Wow... that puzzles me because you have almost the exact system as I do but I have 2.8g CPU OC'd to 3.0.

Installed flat with no changes it took 3 min 4 sec with 6.2 compilation with BGR.

Setting affinity to 1 core and high priority it was 2 min 25 sec.

I'll take off BGR and try it later without.

Interesting though most factions zoom by in less than 10 seconds but Romans and K-Shah both took longer than 35 seconds so if there are some special scripts running there or something...? Romans is the largest faction but Mongols, Fatimids, HRE, and Independent Sovereignties all larger than K-Shah.

[Rat-tail]

My Gaming PC is getting dated but all the games I have tried run. For me turn time is around 1 min and I spend about 10 to 30 min micro manage my Kingdom.

Sorry to hear of you going ... you will missed. Hope you enjoy what you shall choose to do ... just know that the door is always open to return for a good friend.

[NewUser]

I think MTW2 only can use 1 core, but apart from that, there's something wrong. You should try reinstalling because my computer does not have as much processor or RAM as yours.

[themoob]

I feel your pain caralampio.

My computer is slower than yours, but I can still run battles smoothly, yet the AI turns for me take many minutes sometimes, even without BGR.

Now, I keep SS with RR/RC installed so I can play multiplayer with friends, but if you're just playing single player, I have a solution for you!

It's called Battle of the Baltic 2.0. Go downlaod that and play the Baltic campaign. Not only is it a fantastic mod and campaign map, but because it has so few factions, the turns are incredibly short, yet you still get to enjoy the experience that is SS.