My machine can't handle Rome 1?

[Khangirey]

My clanmates recently pressured me into buying R1. I installed it and went to a multiplayer battle in which I got around 7 fps throughout. I've got an excelent computer that runs medieval, napoleonic wars, empire, and shogun on ultra graphics with no problem. Offcourse it may be some threading issues but I wanted to check with the community for solutions.
Videocard: Gtx 570 2.5 gig
Cpu: Intel Quad2Core 2.4ghz
Ram: 8 gigabytes

[Chris Death]

Any details about your ingame graphic settings?

~S~ CD

[Khangirey]

Any details about your ingame graphic settings?

~S~ CD

Well, I run everything on Max, considering that I can run even the most brutal simulators (arma 2) flawlessly.

[Chris Death]

Well, I run everything on Max, considering that I can run even the most brutal simulators (arma 2) flawlessly.

Well this explains everything then.

RTW is an old game being developed at a time where all those fancy new hardware
techniques from nowadays didn't even exist.

For example;

You got a quad core @2.4 ghz

RTW can only use one of your 4 processors which means that you are running it on
a 2.4 ghz single core. So no benefit for you from the core-side.

You got 8gb of ram while the RTW engine can only use 2gb. There's a fix for that but
a) this would require to alter the RTW exe which is illegal
and
b) it wouldn't help you in your case because you need it for multiplayer so you probably
wouldn't even be able to use this option due to being not compatible with your exe
to any other one.

I'm not 100% sure about "b" because i did not need to try that since my game is running fine
as it is.


As you said you are on max settings i suppose you are also using unit size "huge".

There's a reason why competitive gameplay in RTW multiplayer is usually set to unit size "normal".

Consider unit size "large" to be the upper limit for multiplayer games in combination with eye-candy
and you'll be fine - my personal tip would be: "normal" for best performance and for improving
your micro-management skills aswell.

Here's an example from my own experience;

Me and my working mate were using a lan-cable which means a "perfect" connection and still,
when playing on "huge" we are getting desync in each battle - this means that we are in the
same game but playing different battles - units on my screen do different than on my mate's
screen - or other units aren't even there anymore for me while he is busy fighting them or vice
versa. And btw - we were both using decent pc's which yet have to find the game that isn't
running on them.

As Hyperfyre already pointed out: turn off grass and turn off anti-aliasing when playing online.

Take singleplayer for the eye-candy and take multiplayer for the functionality of the game.
The fun in multiplayer has nothing to do with fancy graphics but with playing against human
beings and using tactics/strategies/good army build and the micro-managing factor.

~S~ CD

[Hyperfyre]

Try turning grass and anti-aliasing settings off.
My laptop runs Rome fine without those two (everything else at max), provided I don't have massive 4000+ troop battles.

[Khangirey]

Thanks, I don't know what happened, but In actual game, not in the menu, I edited the video settings to the minimum, which in turn ran fine. Then I placed all the settings like they previously were and it worked fantastically even in battles up to 10000 units. Thanks alot everyone. I guess it might have been a bad ini file.

[Miku-chan]

I suggest that you don't Maximize unit Detail ,High Detail is enough

[BrodY]

I'm having the same issues in campaign games. And the only explanation I've come up with, and heard from others, is the multi-core issue. I really hope they make some kind of patch for it sometime, because I really want to be able to play RTW again. Just like you I run all the other TW-games on ultra settings with no noticeable lag, but not being able to play RTW is just outright frustrating. Guess I'll have to wait for RTW 2 ^^

[TitaniumGladius]

I got no multicore issues. If this only happens in multiplayer I suggest you get your internet connection checked as opposed to your hardware. Go online and do a "bandwidth test" If your download speed is below 2mbps or if your ping is above 200ms then your internet isnt for online gaming.

If thats not the case then I suggest your turn down unit size from huge to large. RTW was made before milticore processors existed so it will only utilise one of your cores. So your performance will be the same as if you had a single core @ 2.4ghz.