Lag In Large MP Games

[TheEschaton]

I'm sure this has been discussed in here before, but it's not on the main screen anymore and I'm not sure how far back I will have to dig.

I've noticed that when I join MP games of more 2 people, I tend to get increasing amounts of lag. Now I'm on a rather good comcast cable connection and I've got this game permitted through my firewall, no router on the line to get in the way, and I can't understand why EVERY single game I join has this issue.

It has to be something about my setup, since it can't be that every game I ever join is going to have some laggy participant.

As for my hardware, I think it should be fine:

2.4 ghz Athlon 64X dual-core
4 gigs of DDR2 6400 RAM, dual-channel
2x Geforce 8600s @ 256mb apiece, SLI'd

Most of my settings are medium or low, and no matter how big the battle gets in SP it never lags seriously (a few minor hiccups when sieging star forts with quicklime perhaps, but nothing more).

Any information you all could give me about this MP problem would be most helpful.

[daniu]

Yes, games get laggy fast with more people.
I assume it's because the "weakest link" (i.e., the player with the slowest connection) drags everybody down.

The weirdest thing happened to me when I was playing a 2v2 with desufed on NTW, highly laggy... even after both of our opponent had left!
After that, we played a 1v1, no problems.

[TheEschaton]

I'm just spitballing, but it sounds like the RAM isn't getting freed up. These total war games just fill it up and have no mechanism for dumping and giving us some of our ram back.

[daniu]

I'm just spitballing, but it sounds like the RAM isn't getting freed up. These total war games just fill it up and have no mechanism for dumping and giving us some of our ram back.

Possible, but improbable...
A memory leak would just crash the game. Also, it's possible to play another battle after one with huge lag so even if you were right, the memory gets freed after a battle is finished.
There used to be one in the beginning, but that only effected me after several hours of playing GC and got fixed.

[TheEschaton]

Never said it was a memory leak. I'm just saying the game isn't utilizing its RAM economically. But I know exactly about how games utilizes my computer's resources, so it's a total spitball to be sure. All I know is it makes me feel bad, because I keep having this sneaking suspicion that I'm the one causing the lag.

[Claus DeWitz]

Using smaller funds or unit size seems to result in less laggy team games. However, CA writing horrible code seems just as likely as 1 in every 8 players overestimating the load their rig can handle.

[daniu]

However, CA writing horrible code seems just as likely as 1 in every 8 players overestimating the load their rig can handle.

I must disagree.
The overall quality of the TW series is pretty high, so the chance of really horrible code are not too high;
people overestimating themselves on the interwebz are a dime a dozen.

[TheEschaton]

I must disagree.
The overall quality of the TW series is pretty high, so the chance of really horrible code are not too high;
people overestimating themselves on the interwebz are a dime a dozen.

Agreed; hence my lingering self-doubt.