Disappearing Bodies: At What Setting Does it Stop?

Hello everyone, im a first time poster and long time veteran of the TW series. Love these forums btw, helpful many a time over many a game.

Anyway, just got the demo for shogun and was heartbroken to see the trademark battle carnage melt into the floor. I know its a settings thing but thats about all so I have a couple of quick questions

1. At what 'cut off' does this happen. I can just about run it on high (laptop ya see) and they still disappear, would high with the odd, very high ensure they remained or is their one key box or setting that needs to be checked?

2. Is this just a demo issue? (no previous instances of this happening in any previous tw game for me on the same hardware)

3. And finally, am I the only one who would happily lower my settings a little and play on medium just to see the battle damage remain. I know it main seem weird but it has always been a staple of part of my enjoyment, and indeed the series. I love the way the bodies paint a picture of the battle that unfolded. I mean if my computer can handle 40fps with same number of units alive and moving, why is it when they die it decides they should erase them off the field.

Thanks in advance for any help guys, and I hope you are enjoying the demo!

It has been happening on all the ETW engine based games. I believe only the very high settings can handle it.

Evan

Hey Evan, what i dont understand is that I never had this problem on any previous ETW engine games. Why would it start now on the same hardware?

That's a shame, I always loved to look around the battlefield to see the carnage, my downloads almost finished and im about to play demo. I have never experienced bodies disappearing in any TW game to date.

If im not mistaken it depends on what shader model you enable in the graphic options. My only options are shader model 3{high and low}and i get dead bodies on 3 high.

Im rocking the old shader model 3 (high) as well but the bodies still pop out of existence every couple of seconds

Manually change it to SM4, SM4.1 or SM5

Is that something that is meant to be done 'in game' as i only have an option for model 3. If not, and its an external thing how would I go about doing it? Thanks for the response!

Originally Posted by DakkaDon

Is that something that is meant to be done 'in game' as i only have an option for model 3. If not, and its an external thing how would I go about doing it? Thanks for the response!

You have to dig around in your AppData folder and find the script for it. Here's a link:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=427996

it has nothing to do with shaders. do you even know what shaders are?

it's probably unit detail or some other thing that relates to that.

Originally Posted by cinco

it has nothing to do with shaders. do you even know what shaders are?

it's probably unit detail or some other thing that relates to that.

Why has it got nothing to do with shaders? Shaders are crucial in defining the volumes and position of rendered 3D and 2D objects.

Evan

Completely agree with the original post.

This. Really bothers me. A lot.

I usually don't nitpick about graphics (I'm fairly happy even with low settings), but this completely breaks the mood for me and I get all angry. Even more than the lack of blood. It's like that epic and brutal battle never even happened. Like I've been playing Pac-Man or Time Crisis or something. Maybe I'm too used to Medieval 2, but after several hours of this, it's possible that I even lose interest fighting out battles in the future.

Some questions:

I assume Empire and Napoleon had the same problem, since they use the same engine (I only played Empire for 2-3 hours). Did this happen even on Medieval 2 and Rome on the lower settings?

How difficult can this be? I thought the soldiers, once dead, do not interact with the environment in any way? For example, do the corpses get blown away if a cannonball happens to land nearby? I'm no programmer, but can't the developers simply treat the bodies as part of the landscape and somehow integrate them into the terrain texture (i.e. blood splats in some shooters)?

Can this be fixed by mods, if not by patches?

Honestly? I have very little idea what shaders are Im relatively new to series PC gaming and although I have learned a lot, I still have a lot to go. So right now the only thing we know is on VH they stay and everything else they go. Why is a realistic battlefield a 'high' requirement? Anyone know the coding logic that is behind the body removal?

I really want bodies back., Hope it's just a demo thing.

It's just a simple matter of having your video/graphic settings high enough.

I can run NTW on very high settings, but I took them down to stop too much lag online and then suddenly my bodies started disappearing. It's the worst thing imaginable in a game about 'epic battles'!

I didn't have the time to single out which setting was actually causing it, but I'm sure some more experienced players could post telling us, but I just raised the settings of most things and the bodies were back to staying on the battlefield.

Set unit detail to ultra and yor problem is solved.

Originally Posted by tab16

Set unit detail to ultra and yor problem is solved.

I think what people want to know what setting is the threshold for the bodies to start disappearing.

Will the bodies be persistent regardless of their number on very high or ultra?

this issue was not in empire but showed up in Napoleon, i did some testing a while back, and medium settings and below the bodies disapeared, pute the setting on high and its all good.

Originally Posted by G3NUINE chief

this issue was not in empire but showed up in Napoleon, i did some testing a while back, and medium settings and below the bodies disapeared, pute the setting on high and its all good.

ALL bodies are consistent at high and up?

Originally Posted by Maizel

ALL bodies are consistent at high and up?

yes it seems that way.