slow loading game + ai turns?

**James.Bond** · August 19, 2010, 05:07 PM

rome total war runs very smoothly for me / no issues with speed. but europa babarom takes 10 min to load, and each ai turn takes at least 1-2 min. is this normal?

**XSamatan** · August 19, 2010, 05:29 PM

It is normal that EB takes more system resources than vanilla RTW as the mod maxes out most aspects of the engine. Furthermore the source code of RomeTW.exe is not optimized on 'newer' windows versions as it was designed to run smoothly on XP (which it does quite good).
Upgrading your RAM to at least 3 GB for Vista and 2.5 GB for Win7 is probably the best way to increase performance. Increasing the page file might help too. Other versions of RTW, especially RomeTW-ALX.exe, are more clever designed and will run faster, see in the mini-mod section on how to use it.

If you are new to EB, see the EB FAQ!

XSamatan

**James.Bond** · August 19, 2010, 05:31 PM

ah ok i guess it's a hardware problem then (i have 512 mb ram lol)

**Siegfriedfr** · August 22, 2010, 02:09 AM

Originally Posted by James.Bond

ah ok i guess it's a hardware problem then (i have 512 mb ram lol)

You NEED 2GB for XP and 3GB for vista really, anything less makes ANY demanding game slutter.

**XSamatan** · August 20, 2010, 06:03 AM

If you can, upgrade it.This will speed up things enormously! Or, you can do other things between turns, some people managed to learn for their final exams between turns and received great results!

XSamatan

**TuCoT** · August 20, 2010, 02:57 PM

If you want to play EB, you must appropriate this situtation I think.

**Lordinquisitor** · August 20, 2010, 05:40 PM

Yes, it takes some time to load it. (10, 15 minutes. O.o)
But the a.i turns are blazing fast; The Loadspeed of the battlemap is normal.

**pbwu1f** · August 21, 2010, 07:34 PM

It's your computer. The hardware you have installed is not enough to handle your game at the settings you have it at. You can ether upgrade your PC or lower your settings. I build my PC just for EB and I think it was a good decision. Just so you know, I can play E:TW maxed out. So I'll be good on the RTW mods cause that's what I really play.

**Turtle Hammer** · August 23, 2010, 02:20 PM

Just out of intrest, how would 6GB of RAM handle this mod? I'm throwing more RAM in my pc soon.

**mamik_yev_konak** · August 25, 2010, 09:19 PM

Originally Posted by Turtle Hammer

Just out of intrest, how would 6GB of RAM handle this mod? I'm throwing more RAM in my pc soon.

The game will only use up to 2 GB of memory, if necessary. If you wish to use more you need to edit the engine executable file header. Do this at your own risk.

**Turtle Hammer** · August 26, 2010, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by mamik_yev_konak

The game will only use up to 2 GB of memory, if necessary. If you wish to use more you need to edit the engine executable file header. Do this at your own risk.

If I backed everything up first, what's the worst that'd happen if I attempted something as risky as that? And how would I go about attempting such blasphemy?

**mamik_yev_konak** · August 26, 2010, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by Turtle Hammer

If I backed everything up first, what's the worst that'd happen if I attempted something as risky as that? And how would I go about attempting such blasphemy?

I'll PM you.

EDIT: For anyone else who may be interested...

http://youtu.be/ROGg_D1BmnM?hd=1

**~~Prasutagus~~** · August 24, 2010, 04:54 AM

Pretty amazingly, probably.

I have 2 Gb of Ram and the turns take about 2 minutes max for me, even in advanced campaign.

**XSamatan** · August 25, 2010, 06:23 AM

More RAM than 3GB would not increase this game as it is based on 32bit source and cannot use that much memory. And btw, you won't need it, the exe itself isn't optimized to run under 64bit systems and/or 'new' OS like Vista/Win7.
2GB and a pagefile of 6GB is more than enough to play it smooth under XP, for Vista I would increase the RAM to 3GB for Win7 (only if you have 64bit) to 4GB.

XSamatan

**Turtle Hammer** · August 25, 2010, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by XSamatan

More RAM than 3GB would not increase this game as it is based on 32bit source and cannot use that much memory. And btw, you won't need it, the exe itself isn't optimized to run under 64bit systems and/or 'new' OS like Vista/Win7.
2GB and a pagefile of 6GB is more than enough to play it smooth under XP, for Vista I would increase the RAM to 3GB for Win7 (only if you have 64bit) to 4GB.

XSamatan

I was worried 32 bit wouldn't use the most of the extra RAM. But, I can only upgrade 2 sticks at a time as I have to have matched pairs of memory sticks, and there's little price difference between 1 and 2GB sticks. Dual channel memory or some witchcraft along those lines. Are ETW or NTW optimised for 64 bit at all?

**XSamatan** · August 25, 2010, 06:28 PM

IIRC they're not, but giving the system all along more memory will speed up background-tasks and thus release power that can speed up the game.

XSamatan

**Turtle Hammer** · August 26, 2010, 01:44 PM

That's some Rep for you right there mamik_yev_konak!

**Milligon** · August 28, 2010, 04:23 PM

I don't have any issues on Win 7 myself. But I do run the game in compatibly mode for 'XP- service pack 3'. I only have 2 gigs of ddr2 ram, and the only slowding that occurs is booting the game up. Turn-wise my turns are pretty fast which is more important by far to me anyways.