Virtual memory is my savior...

[SnArF|D]

Some of you know I have been having performance issues in Rome: TW. I bought it in june of last year and since then its been nothing but a headache. I could barely run sieges with normal sized units and just my overall RTW experience lacked (performance wise)

I continued trying to fix my issue for almost a year with no luck, drivers etc...you name it I did it. But there was one final thing I had overlooked, virtual memory. It was set to 1536 the entire time my performance was lacking. I raise it to 2048 yesterday and fire up RTW, honestly not expecting a difference.

I set my settings to-
High-Highest
1024x768
Huge units
shadows ON
reflections/glints ON
Desync animations- ON
Smoke/Dust- ON

Custom battle- guals vs julii 2000 man battle....
I almost cryed. To make sure I wasnt dreaming I alt tab and turn FRAPS on....58FPS....didnt drop one time. Even when zoomed in on the entire battle.

Now can someone explain to me why my performance went from miserable to awesome because of virtual memory?

[rayzzz]

put your virtual ram up to 3gb. i hear you're meant to put your virtual memory size to three times your ram. so u would end up with a total of 6000mbs of virtual ram

[SnArF|D]

I had it at 1536 because people told me it should be 1.5x the amount of RAM you have.

[Gigantus]

I had it at 1536 because people told me it should be 1.5x the amount of RAM you have.

Best way to figure out how much you need is to run task manager in the back ground and the later to check what the peak commit charge is. Add 20% and then you are good. There are obviously limits to that, but the best way is still to increase your actual RAM.

[GORE]

There are obviously limits to that, but the best way is still to increase your actual RAM.

QFT

virtual memory kept me gaming for about a year, but when i bought oblivion i was forced to increase my RAM and dont regret it in the least.

[Spart]

Thanks for the tip, mate. I have 1024 mb of RAM and virtual memory was set to 768.. So I raised it to 2048 and damn! Rome works fine with 9000 legionaries in the field.
Didn't have trouble with any other games before though. Rome-problem solved now.

[Hells Bells]

hmm im going to try this when i get mtw2 maybe give a fresh breath of life into my comp

[Germanicus75]

I've got 2 GB of RAM and have turned page file off (I use zero virtual mem). Do you think that will improve or reduce my system peformance for RTW?

[shenmueguru]

How does one go about tweaking this virtual memory?

[rayzzz]

you go to my computer, view system info, advanced tab, performance settings, advanced and then Virtual memory.

[Gigantus]

If you have performance issues (FPS rate down) then the following settings should be lowered or switched off according to my experience:

desync animation: a major hit
glints: ditto
grass detail: switch to low
effects details: medium
building details: low to medium
Anti Alias: off

One thing that seems to improve the performance is the setting of your graphics on forced anisitropic settings of 2 or 4 (depending on your card). On some cards (Nvidia) I think you can do that for specific games (executables)

To set your virtual memory (pagefile) proceed as follows:
Right click your 'my computer' icon and click properties on the drop down menu
Click the 'advanced' tab and then 'settings' under performasnce
Click the 'advanced' tab and click 'change'
You can now set the size for your pagefile with either 'custom size' (recommended 1,5 to 2 times your RAM) or have a 'system managed size'.
Click 'set' and ok your way out.

Even with enormous amounts of RAM you shouldn't really switch off the paging file as some programs use them by default. Just use system managed, if you don't nedd it, it will not effect performance.

[SnArF|D]

If you have performance issues (FPS rate down) then the following settings should be lowered or switched off according to my experience:

desync animation: a major hit
glints: ditto
grass detail: switch to low
effects details: medium
building details: low to medium
Anti Alias: off

One thing that seems to improve the performance is the setting of your graphics on forced anisitropic settings of 2 or 4 (depending on your card). On some cards (Nvidia) I think you can do that for specific games (executables)

To set your virtual memory (pagefile) proceed as follows:
Right click your 'my computer' icon and click properties on the drop down menu
Click the 'advanced' tab and then 'settings' under performasnce
Click the 'advanced' tab and click 'change'
You can now set the size for your pagefile with either 'custom size' (recommended 1,5 to 2 times your RAM) or have a 'system managed size'.
Click 'set' and ok your way out.

Even with enormous amounts of RAM you shouldn't really switch off the paging file as some programs use them by default. Just use system managed, if you don't nedd it, it will not effect performance.

With my x800XL those settings should be nothing to me. I found above all those grass is the biggest killer. I heard grass is CPU related. My hard handles AA ridiculously well. I really dont get much of a performance hit going from OFF to HIGH with the AA.

I found no difference when turning ON or OFF desync anim....

[mac89]

Ive put my virtual memory to the max but havent noticed much difference. I think..... maybe some difference when trying 20000 men in 1 battle but not much.

[shenmueguru]

I used the "maximize performance of RTW" which guarenteed a performance boost of 20+ fps in RTW (I think I got 3) and they recommended 700MB virtual memory for a 512MB system. Is it OK for me to go to 1024 virtual memory?

[shenmueguru]

Meh, I only got 3-5 frames tops. RTW should run in the 20 FPS average now...

Do you think 2048 would do anything if I have 512MB?

[Richard the Lionheart]

I'll try this later tonight if I have time and see what results I get. :hmmm:

[Gigantus]

One thing to keep in mind: Virtual memory is slower than RAM.
Conclusion: the higher the percentage of Virtual memory used, the slower your application will run.

Example 1: if you have 1GB RAM and need 600 MB total you will not benefit from the Virtual memory
Example 2: if you have 512 MB RAM and need 600 MB total you will need roughly 20 % Virtual memory, the slowdown should not be great.
Example 3: if you have only 256 MB RAM and need 600 MB total you will need more than 50 % Virtual memory, the slowdown should be considerable, if not making the application unusable.

If you don’t play online, you could close running processes and services. First close your AV and Firewall and then check the taskmanager for processes that you don’t need.
I have written a little batchfile for myself that I use when I feel like playing monstrous battles. Looks like this, comments in brackets not to be entered:

net stop alg (AV related)
net stop wuauserv (Windows Update)
net stop aswupdsv (AV related)
net stop bits (Background Intelligent Transfer)
net stop diskeeper (Diskeeper Services)
net stop sharedaccess (Shared Access)
net stop netman (Net related)
net stop nla (Net related)
net stop spooler (Printer)
net stop schedule (Taskscheduler)
net stop uphclean (User Profile Hive Cleaner)
net stop webclient (Webclient)
net stop windefend (Windows Defender)
net stop arsvc (Always Ready Service)
taskkill /im msascui.exe /f (Windows Defender)
taskkill /im ashdisp.exe /f (AV)
taskkill /im ashserv.exe /f (AV)
taskkill /im sagent2.exe /f (Printer)
taskkill /im timeup.exe /f (Log on timer)
exit

The netstop command terminates services that are not needed when playing. Has a drawback: you will have to restart your computer to activate everything again.
Taskkill with the /f switch forces applications (processes) to terminate.

On my gig the whole procedure frees up approximately 80 MB and brings down the ‘occupied’ memory to 175 MB after the fresh reboot.

Now a word of caution: TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK!! (Worst I experienced when I was experimenting first with it was re-booting)

[Germanicus75]

Hi Gigantus. This is very interesting. Like you I also close down all non-essential OS processes before using RTW. But it's time consuming and I was looking for a way to speed it up and automate it. Like you, I also use Avast antivirus! Could you explain in more detail how and where you implement this batch file? I'd be interested to know as well what parameters you enter to close down ZoneAlarm and spoolserver (printer) in one go as well :-) Thanks.

[SnArF|D]

I cant see how its time consuming. Unless you have 60 processes running, that'll take a while. I know even when i'm not gaming, the most I have running at any given time is about 25. When I game I have 20 running (all SYSTEM stuff).

You could go to Start > Run > type in msconfig and go to the services tab. You can disable certain services from starting up when you restart of boot up windows. Just find the zonealarm and spoolserver service and disable them. If you want to enable it after gaming, simply go back into msconfig and enable them the same way you disabled them.

[Gigantus]

I cant see how its time consuming. Unless you have 60 processes running, that'll take a while. I know even when i'm not gaming, the most I have running at any given time is about 25. When I game I have 20 running (all SYSTEM stuff).

You could go to Start > Run > type in msconfig and go to the services tab. You can disable certain services from starting up when you restart of boot up windows. Just find the zonealarm and spoolserver service and disable them. If you want to enable it after gaming, simply go back into msconfig and enable them the same way you disabled them.

I wonder what would take longer: running the batchfile or closing 15 services and 4 programs by hand? But thanks for the tip with msconfig. Will the services come back on in case you have a crash and re-boot?