Iron out Total War tech myths

[DogSoldierSPQR]

So wait, what is the max amount of cores Rome 2 will use and how efficiently will it use them?

[BroskiDerpman]

Wow thanks for the info AlQamar. Pretty useful!

[Heinz Guderian]

This is an interesting thread ALQamer. Rep+

[alQamar]

Thanks for the feedback. I currently collect more myths and add them aswell

[craziii]

if you want multi core games you have to wait about 1+ years after bone n ps4 releases. so 2 more years from now at the earliest. that is when I plan to upgrade my comp again

[Heinz Guderian]

alQamar, who is sponsoring R2? AMD or NVidia? I remember they had major problems with Shogun 2 and AMD 7970 cards after the FOTS expansion. I think it involved what kind of sockets users used. Have these problems been fixed now? It was only a year ago.

[DarthRuanek]

This is, sorry, absolutely nonsense.

64bit has nothing to do with multicore support. And please read the myths. The game is NOT SINGLE core. Sometimes I wonder if people read OPs

While the game isn't single core, and using multiple cores doesn't require a 64-bit OS, having more cores theoretically can help. Because other processes (background processes, other programs the user is running, etc.) can be spread around more efficiently, there would theoretically be slightly better performance with more cores, though in actuality that's probably almost always negligible.

alQamar, who is sponsoring R2? AMD or NVidia? I remember they had major problems with Shogun 2 and AMD 7970 cards after the FOTS expansion. I think it involved what kind of sockets users used. Have these problems been fixed now? It was only a year ago.

I recently got a new computer with a 7970 card, and I haven't encountered any problems with Shogun 2 at this point. Granted, I've probably only put in maybe 15 hours into it, so that's by no means definitive. And if the problems are exclusive to FOTS I've only played that for around a half hour on the new computer, so that's even less useful.

[karamazovmm]

While the game isn't single core, and using multiple cores doesn't require a 64-bit OS, having more cores theoretically can help. Because other processes (background processes, other programs the user is running, etc.) can be spread around more efficiently, there would theoretically be slightly better performance with more cores, though in actuality that's probably almost always negligible.

exactly that
in general the requirement to have your cores better used by the OS is to always use the most modern of them all, be it windows, OSX or linux

the problem here is that those background tasks are fairly non cpu intensive.

I would still put out that in general its best to have 8gb+ of ram thus a 64bit OS, given that your OS is still running and people are more commonly leaving process running like, browsers, music players, message apps and using those. aside gaming purposes, more ram + SSD makes your pc more responsive (benchies can't tell that at all)

all in all great work AlQamar

[alQamar]

Sponsoring means they give them hardware to develop the game on. Ridiculously Shogun 2 they advertise AMD and the performance was poor.

[Heinz Guderian]

Who is "sponsoring" it this time?

[SamueleD]

Who is "sponsoring" it this time?

Intel I think, and yet Intel performs great for TW

[alQamar]

Intel of course and confirmed.

I heard they switched to nvidia aswell as the shader programming for dx11 weren't that successful till release and has been optimised with FOTS but that are rumours.

[MrChris]

In terms of cores and multithreading

multithreading doesn't just take place because you have more than a single core, a game and other applications have to be coded to run on separate cores. Multithreading is not a simple thing to even implement (even when you are doing just basic stuff in Java) you have to consider the fact that splitting up a task so to speak into individual components can create issues in itself.

A very bad and simple example would be, say you want to build a car, and you split the task up between 4 people, one person goes to get the tires, another person goes to get the chassis, another the engine and the last person...well they can go and get the seats or something (lol)

For the car to actually do anything you need all of the components to be assembled first, and in a lot of cases you need to assemble the parts in a certain order as well, you could be sat there with your nice looking car, but the guy with the engine hasn't come back yet so its of no use...the tires could show up after just a day or something, but then you might wait weeks for the other parts...

same can be said when your CPU is executing certain jobs, it needs data to be in certain places at certain times, and needs some tasks to be complete before others take place, since they will be waiting for data etc

this has to be coded into the game by the developers, there is no magical medium that is going to determine how to split tasks up dynamically on its own

and even then, some tasks simply do not suit, or would not benefit, being multithreaded

and then sometimes its just counter productive to what the OS wants to do, Win 7 can do a degree of shifting around threads etc but will ultimately look to let certain cores enter sleep state to save power etc

I think its good that Total War can of course take advantage of more than a single core, but it has nothing to do whatsoever with a 64bit os, and is not a "brute force" solution to performance issues, at least not in the same manner that a higher clock speed is typically considered

the next generation of consoles may change that of course, but then the last generation had multiple cores as well (or in the case of the PS3 pseudo cores) and given that Total War games are PC only currently, do not expect them to suddenly utilise 16 cores and countless threads to give 9001 fps

[alQamar]

Thanks for your additions! And the good example Chris. I think all the community is aware that we need a new tw engine and not only optimisations every game.

Jack Lusted said why there is a lack of different fighting animations "we are on budget with the memory". That's saying we finally need a scalable and 64bit warscape engine that would be worth to have a new TW game. But most fans seem so obsessed and now interested what the next TW will be instead to all pointing that out.

I am sure, when the most of the community would not ask for the next TW game or new features, but claiming a new engine we had more chance they will do this for god sake.

I am furthermore sure that this task is possible but may take 1-2 years without any release of dlcs like Fots or even new TW games. I wish people would start to raise and make this clear on TWC and totalwar.com

As we know petition threads will not be accepted and talked down by fans that do not understand the core problem I suggest to use your signatures as a voice


"instead of a next TW soon we wish a new engine that is scalable and 64bit coded. Thank you CA."

Let's begin now

I think when hundreds of members would do this they wouldn't deny to think about it and most of all commenting it.

Actually they know about this issue but cover it with marketing talk "we try to / working hard in it / it is complicated / not an easy task"

Just to quote some CA phrases to this topic.

And for sure like with shogun 2 they will announce they already work on a next TW game 7 months after release.

We need to break this circuit asap.

[SamueleD]

After Rome II comes out, I think they'll make the pause and create a new engine, it makes sense: Rome II is so big and varied that it can easily keep us occupied while they create the engine, besides, I don't think this would mean no expansions and DLC, because for those they don't need to make a new engine, so the people who make the engine are not needed for that and can go and work on a new one, hopefully 64-bit and as multi-threaded as they can make it.

[alQamar]

You words in gods ears Sam. I lost my faith, especially as the need to make a lot of faction DLCs and there is a lot of stuff they can add to Rome 2. We will see.

[DarrenTotalWar]

I dunno much about PC hardware, but I just bought this so that I can hopefully play and record in 1080p on a high setting:
PC SPECS:
-Pioneer BDR-208DBK 15X BLU-RAY Burner & 16X DVD+/-R/+/-RW Drive
-AMD FX-8350 4.00GHz Eight-Core AM3+ 8MB L2 Cache & Turbo Core Technology
-2TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
-16GB DDR3/1600mhz Dual Channel (Kingston HyperX Blu w/Heat Spreader)
-AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video card
-Windows 8
-ASUS M5A97 V2 AMD 970 Chipset, ATX mainboard w/4RAM slots, 7.1 Audio ect ect
should be alright?
i bought AMD because it was their sponsor in shogun and my old and machine ran shogun better than any other game I had

[Demetrios of Messene]

alQamar, your threads are most informative +rep

On the issue you are raising regarding a next gen TW engine, let me share my thoughts:

I have never liked the warscape engine since the moment I laid my eyes on ETW. In fact, I believed that the RTW engine still had room for improvement and could last 1-2 more main game titles visually before replacement.

However, warscape engine is here to stay for good or worse and it is natural for CA to want to cover this investment before moving on. Therefore, I do not really think that it is a matter of community pressure to make them consider using more a advanced engine yet.

Additionally, a game engine is a crucial and sensitive design decision. Maybe they want to be more careful with their next choice, which means that they will keep warscape for as long as it is safe for them to do so. And when they finally decide to make a new choice they will probably be very careful when and how to announce it.

[alQamar]

Thank you for your reputations and your contribution in this thread, just added a new MYTH into the OP enjoy!

I dunno much about PC hardware, but I just bought this so that I can hopefully play and record in 1080p on a high setting:
PC SPECS:
-Pioneer BDR-208DBK 15X BLU-RAY Burner & 16X DVD+/-R/+/-RW Drive
-AMD FX-8350 4.00GHz Eight-Core AM3+ 8MB L2 Cache & Turbo Core Technology
-2TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
-16GB DDR3/1600mhz Dual Channel (Kingston HyperX Blu w/Heat Spreader)
-AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video card
-Windows 8
-ASUS M5A97 V2 AMD 970 Chipset, ATX mainboard w/4RAM slots, 7.1 Audio ect ect
should be alright?
i bought AMD because it was their sponsor in shogun and my old and machine ran shogun better than any other game I had

wrong thread please visit the HW advice thread for such questions @ all

[alQamar]

Hello everyone,

added yet another myth: Faster RAM gives you a better performance - Curious? Have a look on the facts in the OP and enjoy.