SS 6.4 - Long AI Turn Times

[Doc Holiday]

I have to say, Stainless Steel is the mod I've been hunting for for ages. After a painful install of Kingdoms (bought it just so I could play your mod ) I finally got everything ready to go and installed SS 6.3 and then 6.4 on top of it without a hitch.

Although the game plays beautifully, the AI turns on the campaign map take roughly 5-6 minutes to complete. I know others have had this problem and have posted their trial and errors on this site--I've followed solutions posted to the letter but to no avail.

My computer specs, while not top of the line, are able to handle battles on the highest settings with multiple armies without any lag:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (32 bit)
• Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 @ 2.40 GHz 900 MHz
• Installed Ram: 4.00 GB (3.00 GB usable) <--- recently downgraded from 64- to 32-bit OS
• GeForce GTX 260 - 896 MB GDDR3

To solve this issue I have tried the following:

1. Disk Cleanup
2. Defrag
3. Changed from borderless window to full-screen
4. Set affinity from 2 to 1 processor
5. Set process priority to high
6. Turned off campaign map shadows
7. Turned off show AI moves
8. Closed all other programs while running the game

And... I'm out of ideas. Also, before anyone mentions it, yes I did install the game with UAC off... (it is the first thing I always do when reinstalling windows after a reformat)

When I 'setup' my campaign via SS_setup.exe I had only the following checked:

• Savage AI
• Longer Assimilation
• Permanent Watchtowers (love this one, btw)

That is, I do have RR (Real Recruitment) enabled and BGR disabled. Any help would be greatly appreciated; many thanks in advance.

[Losthief]

I have to say, Stainless Steel is the mod I've been hunting for for ages. After a painful install of Kingdoms (bought it just so I could play your mod ) I finally got everything ready to go and installed SS 6.3 and then 6.4 on top of it without a hitch.

Although the game plays beautifully, the AI turns on the campaign map take roughly 5-6 minutes to complete. I know others have had this problem and have posted their trial and errors on this site--I've followed solutions posted to the letter but to no avail.

My computer specs, while not top of the line, are able to handle battles on the highest settings with multiple armies without any lag:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (32 bit)
• Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 @ 2.40 GHz 900 MHz
• Installed Ram: 4.00 GB (3.00 GB usable) <--- recently downgraded from 64- to 32-bit OS
• GeForce GTX 260 - 896 MB GDDR3

To solve this issue I have tried the following:

1. Disk Cleanup
2. Defrag
3. Changed from borderless window to full-screen
4. Set affinity from 2 to 1 processor
5. Set process priority to high
6. Turned off campaign map shadows
7. Turned off show AI moves
8. Closed all other programs while running the game

And... I'm out of ideas. Also, before anyone mentions it, yes I did install the game with UAC off... (it is the first thing I always do when reinstalling windows after a reformat)

When I 'setup' my campaign via SS_setup.exe I had only the following checked:

• Savage AI
• Longer Assimilation
• Permanent Watchtowers (love this one, btw)

That is, I do have RR (Real Recruitment) enabled and BGR disabled. Any help would be greatly appreciated; many thanks in advance.

are you installed in program files (x86) or in another section of your drive? This has made a big difference for some people with turn times.

Also you shouldn't have ot worry about other programs with 2 cores, so thats not it, mtw2 only uses one core at a time leaving one free.

How long do regular kingdoms turns take for you?

Are you able to over clock your processor, as the main thing for turn time is processor speed.

[Doc Holiday]

are you installed in program files (x86) or in another section of your drive? This has made a big difference for some people with turn times.

I'm running on 32-bit Windows 7, so there is only one Program Files folder (which is the x86 equivalent if I were running a 64-bit OS).

Also you shouldn't have ot worry about other programs with 2 cores, so thats not it, mtw2 only uses one core at a time leaving one free.

I figured this was the case, but I wanted to give the affinity trick a try since it helped with load times tremendously when playing Mass Effect 2.

How long do regular kingdoms turns take for you?

Honestly, I couldn't tell ya... once I installed Kingdoms, I jumped straight to installing Stainless Steel.

In regular Medieval 2, my turn times would get longer the more I played a campaign, however AI turns usually wouldn't exceed 30 seconds.

Are you able to over clock your processor, as the main thing for turn time is processor speed.

No, unfortunately. I can only overclock my graphics unit, as far as I'm aware. The processor chip I have just isn't capable--I've tried.


On another note... I did buy the games through D2D (Direct 2 Drive)--both games, M2TW and Kingdoms. Could this be the culprit?

Out of curiosity, I uninstalled SS 6.4 and 6.3, reinstalled just 6.3, and ran the Fixed.exe patch I found somewhere on these forums. The first couple AI turns resulted in only about 45 seconds to 1 minute, which is quite manageable. However, 6.4 has some really nice features that I'm going to miss if I stick with 6.3. Is there something to do with the jump to SS 6.4 that my computer just doesn't like? I find it hard to believe, but ya never know...

[Losthief]

Out of curiosity, I uninstalled SS 6.4 and 6.3, reinstalled just 6.3, and ran the Fixed.exe patch I found somewhere on these forums. The first couple AI turns resulted in only about 45 seconds to 1 minute, which is quite manageable. However, 6.4 has some really nice features that I'm going to miss if I stick with 6.3. Is there something to do with the jump to SS 6.4 that my computer just doesn't like? I find it hard to believe, but ya never know...

ummmm....shouldn't be an issue where you got it.

No, actually ss6.4 really wasn't any longer at all for me.

I'd recommend reinstalling at least the ss part, but probably the mtw2 completely, outside any program files (i.e. in a new section called C:/games or whatever.)

so your new c drive section on windows explorer would have folder called games on the same screen as Program files.

Also did you run the 6.4 install .exe with 'right click run as admin' and run the ss_setup.exe the same way after the install. Its gotta be some file or something slowing something down if 6.3 was That much faster for you, and not just a little bit.

[Doc Holiday]

. . . did you run the 6.4 install .exe with 'right click run as admin' and run the ss_setup.exe the same way after the install? Its gotta be some file or something slowing something down if 6.3 was That much faster for you, and not just a little bit.

Yeah, I installed everything as an admin just as you described. Also, I have a function to allow me to manually 'Take Ownership' of any file or folder I choose, and I performed that whenever possible.

A complete reinstall of M2TW and Kingdoms seems unnecessary at this point. Both perform flawlessly on their own.

I may just have to settle with 6.3 or try another mod until 6.5 comes along (hopefully changing my situation for the better). Thanks for your input.

[Doc Holiday]

Well... as I mentioned earlier, I recently downgraded my OS from 64- to 32-bit Windows 7, and as a result my 4 gigs of RAM was only recognized as 3 gigs due to the limitations of 32-bit software. As some of you might imagine, that was starting to really eat at me.

So, I've been up all night reformatting and reinstalling 64-bit Windows 7... and I figured while I was at it I would learn to overclock my graphics card. Pretty sure I was able to squeeze out an extra 15% of it. And, of course, to test the results I had to reinstall M2TW, Kingdoms, and SS 6.3+6.4.

Sad to say that after so many changes, I'm not sure what did the trick: added RAM, overclocked GPU, or a reinstall of the game and/or mod... but I'm now achieving AI turn times of roughly 15 seconds!

I'm really not sure whether to stay up another few hours laughing while I play this fantastic mod or collapse on my bed. In any case, thanks again, Losthief, for lending a hand when you didn't have to.

Whenever a mod catches this thread, please feel free to close it.

[Caesar Clivus]

I doesn't actually surprise me that you got such a big performance boost from reinstalling. A few years back I had to reinstall M2TW and it run heaps better. I'm wondering if the .pack files get internally fragmented over time. The same thing happens to the packed files for Lord of the Rings Online. Turbine released a defragger to defrag those files and the performance boost was immense.

[sim0b]

Ive got the same problem with long AI turns ie 5-6 mins each turn. Its annoying and i never used to have this problem until i reinstalled it. Anyone know a fix?