Battle map unit stuttering

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Hey, I've considered my computer's performance in this game an anomaly since I can play everything else well. Here are my specifications:

CPU - i3-2100
GPU - Sapphire 7870 (upgraded from a HD 6850 last month)
PSU - Antec 650w TruePower
RAM - 2x2 4GB Corsair DDR3 Vengeance
Hard drive - 500GB Seagate Barracuda
Mobo - Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3, Intel Z68
Case - Bitfenix Shinobi
Monitor - 23.5 inch Packard Bell - usually play on 1980x1080.
CPU cooler - Gelid Tranquillo Heatsink

During large battles (usually either FotS or large fund 3v3/4v4 Shogun 2 battles) the units stutter terribly. I've tried using DirectX9, lowering resolution, bought a new GPU; all to no avail. I've also checked the resource monitor and Afterburner during play and neither my CPU, memory nor my GPU usage are maxed out. It's perplexing to me because my fps is decent during the stutter/lag - usually 40+.

I've been told on other forums that it could be my CPU and I'm looking for a second opinion on that. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

edit: Oh, and Shogun 2 also crashes during the loading screen everytime I finish a battle. Kind of a big problem too.

[irishron]

Battle stutter = cpu speed. The i3 is actually bottle necking your new and old graphics cards.
Too many have reported since the game was released even with 4-core cpus that the game is using 100% of one core and about 60% of the gpu, i7 included.
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...4xr2-must-lagg Read the last post by Aljabberwock. It's relevant ETW to R2 as they all are Warscape engine.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Cheers for the fast reply. Was thinking of buying a new CPU in the near future anway - the i3 is getting a bit worse for wear. Any suggestions for a replacement? Haven't really been keeping up to date on the best hardware over the six months but I've heard the 3570k is a decent CPU. Budget is £100 - £200.

[irishron]

The ones in The Basement are saying wait for Intel's next release next year.

[TheMeat]

Well. if you buy i3 2100 with HD 7870 your CPU will botttleneck your GPU so you wasted your money. Anyway,im concerned that i3 processor is not good enough for this game...

BUT: 2100 is 3.1Ghz and 2nd generation core processor.If you had 3.3ghz and Ivy Bridge that is about 10% better than Sandy bridge, like 3220 maybe it wouldnt lagg that much.

I was planning to buy new PC and it seems to me that Core i3 3220 is better choice than i5,since game use only 1 core.Only downside of i3 is no turbo boost but i dont know how much that helps.

And Irishron,you really think Haswell will change anything? Well,maybe 10% increase in performance but thats not big deal really..

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Well. if you buy i3 2100 with HD 7870 your CPU will botttleneck your GPU so you wasted your money. Anyway,im concerned that i3 processor is not good enough for this game...

BUT: 2100 is 3.1Ghz and 2nd generation core processor.If you had 3.3ghz and Ivy Bridge that is about 10% better than Sandy bridge, like 3220 maybe it wouldnt lagg that much.

I was planning to buy new PC and it seems to me that Core i3 3220 is better choice than i5,since game use only 1 core.Only downside of i3 is no turbo boost but i dont know how much that helps.

And Irishron,you really think Haswell will change anything? Well,maybe 10% increase in performance but thats not big deal really..

I didn't buy a i3-2100 with the 7870, my original set up was the i3 and a 6850.

[irishron]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=575749 is the discussion in The Basement. I'll let you decide.

[TheMeat]

Very interesting thread Irishron,you got me worried for a moment but then i realized how many ,,Dooms day prophecies'' Desktop PC survived in the last 20 years.

[AngryTitusPullo]

I'm using i3-2100 with 5770 and 4GB of RAM. Works fine with the default setting though I'm playing with Ultra unit size so it lags a bit for full 40 units x 2 battle. The rest are mainly high/medium setting and running Shader Model 3.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Thought I'd just bump this thread rather than post a new one. I purchased an i5 3570k and I still face serious stutter in large Shogun 2 battles. The strange thing is it lags even when I'm playing on low/medium settings. My CPU/GPU and RAM usage seem to be standard during this stuttering. Any ideas? Could it possibly be a background application interfering?

[irishron]

There is always that probability.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Okay...

Which applications could be interfering? Any suggestions at all?

[irishron]

Autoupdatres starting with Microsoft, Adobe, Java, antivirus, antivirus automated scans, automated defrags even though they swear otherwise, any kind of multitasking as in MSN, Skype, running in windowed mode so you can peruse the web at the same time, etc.

And remember, even with your new cpu, the game still only uses one core of it 100% of the time.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Task Manager and Resource Monitor while playing Shogun 2:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

MSI Afterburner:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Anything seem amiss?

[irishron]

Time for someone else.

[Plan C]

Hmmm... This is weird, I had a very similar experience earlier and it made me stop playing Shogun altgoether. Do you experience stuttering on the campaign map at all? In my case it was definitely unequal core usage where, as irishron mentioned, core 0 is hammered at 100% the whole time and I found issues on camp map and battle maps in equal measure.

Strangely, the issue seemed to simply go away after the last patch! Oh, I also use GameBooster 3 which is ace and I recommend you try it too in first instance. That, coupled with the patch, appears to have sorted the stutter for me.

I have a laptop based on a clevo ph150m with 8GB RAM, i7 mobile cpu (2.6 ghz) and a Radeon 6990M so nothing uber flashy.

Try GameBooster and see if it makes any difference, good luck.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Yeah I know, I haven't played Shogun 2 for months because it's practically unplayable with the stutter. I replaced about 2/3 of my hardware and still the same problems; completely bizarre. I'll try GameBooster.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Nope, didn't work guess I'll have to resign myself to not playing Shogun 2. That sucks. Thanks for the help.

[irishron]

Connected? http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=575849

[Plan C]

Connected? http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=575849

That thread makes a lot of sense, thanks.

Brain_in_a_vat: I played around with trying to disable virtual cores, setting affinity etc. and nothing helped. There just doesn't seem to be much of a margin in hardware settings optimisation.

I think the best you can do is shut down as many redundant services as you can (also try starting Steam in offline mode!) and trying to optimise your graphics settings.