Grass is going to kill our PC's in M2:TW

[SnArF|D]

We all know the devastating effect grass can have during medium-large sized battles in Rome: TW. As we've seen in screens and video's the grass is riduclously detailed in M2:TW. They now have flowers and the blades themselves are even more detailed.

I really think CA needs to seriously work on the grass in M2TW and make sure it isnt to much of a performance killer.

I know this sounds like a stupid thing to bring up, but I have a feeling grass is going to be the biggest headache for alot of players, and not so much the units and shadows etc.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

Then turn it off.
I never had any problem with the grass in RTW tho.

[SnArF|D]

Then turn it off.
I never had any problem with the grass in RTW tho.

What's your specs?

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

2.3 ghz Celeron
128mb Radeon 9800pro
512mb ram

[SnArF|D]

2.3 ghz Celeron
128mb Radeon 9800pro
512mb ram

And grass doesnt effect you at all?
What settings are you running?

I know for me if I zoom in to close on a huge battle grass is a killer, but when I turn it off and zoom in, my FPS doubles.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

And grass doesnt effect you at all?

Well of course there is a effect, the grass moves which more computer work.
However the effect was hardly noticable, maybe 1-2 fps lower.
And I use large unit setting, with things mostly on high.

[The_Dark_Legion]

long grass or any type in rtw never seem to make my rtw lag.

[Kanfoosh]

So put grass on a low detail level or turn it off completely

[Kdar]

I don't think playing without grass will kill playability of the game....

[SnArF|D]

I know, i'm just saying it will most likely have a effect on performance. Think of Oblivion ...but I guess i'll just turn it off if I get crappy performance.

[The_Dark_Legion]

not just that if you notice how the army is station when an enemy is near their like jumping or warming up, unlike RTW, rtw had no life. so i think thats gonna have a little lag.

[Vanquisher]

@SnArF|D
With all due respect, your processor isn't the best and is likely to cause you grass lag. Should be faster than a celeron but I'm guessing either your memory is slow or you are not tweaking your PC.

And i'm certain that the engine the grass is working over will not create a significant performance drop. You have to expect things like this to get more detailed etc, what would be the point in keeping it simple? Games evolve with the hardware and thus the ratio of performance/current specs will be virtually the same.

Its very simple; if you want to play the latest games with the new features, upgrade your PC. As I've said befor, your processor is very out-dated in the gaming community. If your looking to keep your PC up-to-date and you can afford it, upgrade at least once a year.

[SnArF|D]

@SnArF|D
With all due respect, your processor isn't the best and is likely to cause you grass lag. Should be faster than a celeron but I'm guessing either your memory is slow or you are not tweaking your PC.

memory is ddr400 (pc3200)
CPU is @ 2.1GHz...its socket 754 though which blows, but im sure its better than a celeron.
Ive tryed every tweak to improve performance in RTW...I have defragged, virus scans, I use CCleaner which finds and fixes registry issues etc.

I have been plagued with crappy performance in RTW for a long time, and I still cant figure out why.

[Turkeys!]

if they included a option to change the shaders im sure there will be a option to turn off the grass.

[Vanquisher]

DDR 400 is not all the same speed, this goes for all memory there can be a massive difference between different builds and prices. Buffered corsair dual channel ram will be a huge difference over random 1gb sticks from lesser makes. Also check the speed of your HDD, this is always one of the most ignored things and can give a huge performance boost and can also cause great lag if the memory/processor can't draw data from it fast enough.

[Kinjo]

Ca has mentioned that they are using a new optimized system for the grass which is obvious from the screen shots. In RTW the viewing distance is what destroys your system, I believe the game default max was 150. You can reduce the viewing distance in the preference file or in the video settings no problem.

[Invoker]

Grass eats up framerates on my PC in every game where it's highly detailed. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the best example of this. Only when I turn the grass off can I actually play on decent video settings without choppiness in outside areas. In RTW I have all the settings maxed out, but finally got so tired of the slow framerate with large battles (since I play on huge settings, a large battle is most of them), I just turned grass off. I never hide units in grass anyway, so it doesn't make a difference.

Oh and if anyone was curious:
Pentium 4 Centrino 2.2 Ghz
1024 MB RAM (can't remember the specification)
128 MB Radeon X300 (I didn't have enough money to get a good video card, so this is what causes all my performance woes, but it's decent. Hopefully I can upgrade when I get more money)

[SnArF|D]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820141212
Thats my RAM.

@SnArF|D
With all due respect, your processor isn't the best and is likely to cause you grass lag. Should be faster than a celeron but I'm guessing either your memory is slow or you are not tweaking your PC.

And i'm certain that the engine the grass is working over will not create a significant performance drop. You have to expect things like this to get more detailed etc, what would be the point in keeping it simple? Games evolve with the hardware and thus the ratio of performance/current specs will be virtually the same.

Its very simple; if you want to play the latest games with the new features, upgrade your PC. As I've said befor, your processor is very out-dated in the gaming community. If your looking to keep your PC up-to-date and you can afford it, upgrade at least once a year.

And the guy with the celeron, 512mb ram and a 4 year old 9800pro isnt outdated?
I know my problem isnt hardware related.

Merged double post. - Trajan

[lebr]

I've noticed the grass lag also when i zoom in (from 30 FPS to 10-15 FPS or even 5 FPS), but i think that's because i run RTW at 1920x1200. I think M2TW wont even run on my PC at that resolution, but its the native resolution of my monitor, so i guess i've to get an new video card.
Running on a 9800PRO @ XT at the moment

[Matty_P]

this is a surprisingly legitimate discussion.

at first, i was like...grass doesn't kill people...