GPU and older TW games

**Validicus** · June 22, 2012, 04:32 PM

After soldiering on with an Intel Celeron and an Intel GMA Mobile Chipset for years, I'm finally getting a new laptop. I was hoping I would -finally- be able to play Rome Total War and Medieval Total War II properly with it, but I've read a post on some notebook forum about how a graphics card with 2GB video RAM experiences issues with the older TW games.

Is this true? If so, is there not a way around it? Aside from newer games, I figured that after finally conforming and getting something with good specs that I'd finally be able to enjoy games like RTW and MTW which I feel as though I've missed out on.

The GPU in question is the new ADM 7970m. Processor is of the latest i7 variety.

Any feedback would be much appreciated! Thanks.

**irishron** · June 22, 2012, 06:10 PM

Do you have a link to the laptop?

**karamazovmm** · June 22, 2012, 07:59 PM

Originally Posted by irishron

Do you have a link to the laptop?

it should be either a NP9150/9170 (P170/150em) or a m17x, m18x, those are the only ones that come with the 7970m for now, the samsung series 7 gamer and the msi gx60 should pack it as well soon. The interesting thing about the gx 60 is that it uses a A10 4600m apu.

http://www.malibal.com/boutique/pc/c...?idProduct=523

thats a NP9170/P170em

regarding the gpu its a 7870 downclocked at 850mhz core being the vRAM at the same speed, people can oc those beasts to 1ghz+ some with voltage tweaks others dont need that at all to be stable.

I remember that once you told me that the m2tw couldnt handle well 512mb+ of vram.

**Jaketh** · June 22, 2012, 07:07 PM

I'm not sure about any TW game older then Rome but RTW and higher should be fine in terms of compatibility.

**irishron** · June 22, 2012, 08:03 PM

Medieval2 has proven to handle about anything but the owner has to do the tweaking to make it happen. It still gives 1gb cards fits at times.

**Validicus** · June 23, 2012, 12:50 AM

Thanks for the replies, folks! It is indeed an Alienware m18x. I didn't think it would be relevant. It actually has crossfire 7970ms, but I already figured I'd have to disable one of them. Other salient specs if relevant are 3720QM & 8GBs of RAM (1600MHZ). At this point, I've read about people having problems with crossfires, problems with the enduro feature, among other things which is stopping people from getting the FPS they want on new games. Apparently there are serious driver issues at the moment. I don't know much else as it all goes over my head.

What kind of tweaking is necessary for RTW & MW II, then? Is there a simple way to reduce the amount of video ram used?

On an unrelated note, am I likely to have issues with other older games, too? (Stuff like Age of Empires III, Civilization 3 & 4, Cossacks).

Wish I had known about his potential issue before I went with 7970m. It's like if someone got themselves a new DVD player, but then then they learn that they will never be able to watch the likes of E.T. and Uncle Buck on it. Just seems daft to me!

**karamazovmm** · June 23, 2012, 02:21 AM

usually the problem is from crossfire, however you can disable that. I havent heard anyone having any kind of problems with older games with a 7970m

and yes there problems with enduro, you can disable it in your m18x

**Validicus** · June 23, 2012, 05:10 AM

So just those two changes will address whatever issues there are with video RAM? That's such a relief if so!

**karamazovmm** · June 23, 2012, 03:53 PM

and you might need those tweaks that irishron mentioned. Sincerely after steam and GOG, I have discarded most of my old games boxes, its a simple matter of it works, just install and play