Extreme battle lag

**jemus** · April 03, 2014, 12:35 PM

I can't really play this wonderful mod, since there seems to be an extreme battle lag. I just started a game with Sueben and tried to attack Boii. However, after a minute every soldier moves in slow motion, the whole battle is lagging.

I don't have any problems with the vanilla game, everything works fine (Benchmark test: average of 80 fps). I also tried the same battle there as mentioned above - no lag at all!

Consequently, I think this should be an issue with the mod. Does anyone else have this problem?

Sorry for my poor English by the way.

Thanks a lot

Jemus

**est Dudus** · April 03, 2014, 01:12 PM

I have not encontered that and I had a 20 vs 37 battle____which I lost, it was so cool. Anyways, I received no lag, so I hope its not the mod. Do you have anyother mods which might not be updated for patch 11?

**LawL_LawL** · April 03, 2014, 01:31 PM

You should monitor your FPS during battles when it seems to stutter a lot. In my case I have stable FPS but the game just stutters anyways, and I think some have said it's usually an issue with siege battles or excessively large field battles where the game's optimization is pushed to the limit (having already been poorly optimized to begin with).

If you find that it's the FPS that tanks, and not just the game's general performance, I would think it's to do with DeI's increased unit sizes.

**billydilly** · April 03, 2014, 01:46 PM

I agree with the OP, for me there is a noticeable difference in performance (FPS) between DEI and Vanilla - fortunatly not so much that it bothers me.

I read somewhere that Selea mentioned the they would take a look at the textures at some point.

**est Dudus** · April 03, 2014, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by billydilly

I agree with the OP, for me there is a noticeable difference in performance (FPS) between DEI and Vanilla - fortunatly not so much that it bothers me.

I read somewhere that Selea mentioned the they would take a look at the textures at some point.

Well, that is concerning. I haven't had this yet...but vanilla is also 160 men...are you guys playing with 240 unit sizes?

Also, I need to make a video on this....I found a couple threads on how to icrease performance. Believe it or not this game is optimized to run on full graphical settings. I was receiving lag with mixed strings...so I turned everything up...wow fixed everything. Also, it showed that you need to adjust your graphic card settings ( mine is nvidia) to specific levels. I get almost no lag. I will make a video for you guys showing you. Also, this game works off of cpu....so if you don't have a good one inceased unit sizes will kill your game play.

**jemus** · April 03, 2014, 02:17 PM

Thanks a lot for your reply. My fps is stable, but it stutters anyway. Ok, I have to admit I was just testing a battle. That means I sent all my troops to one ladder, maybe this crowd is the reason why it lags that much. There seems to be a huge difference to vanilla anyway. I guess I really have to use the small unit size instead of the big one in vanilla. By the way: I am using the settings of the Geforce Experience game optimation. Or is my GTX 670 graphic card too bad for this game!?

**LawL_LawL** · April 03, 2014, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by jemus

Thanks a lot for your reply. My fps is stable, but it stutters anyway. Ok, I have to admit I was just testing a battle. That means I sent all my troops to one ladder, maybe this crowd is the reason why it lags that much. There seems to be a huge difference to vanilla anyway. I guess I really have to use the small unit size instead of the big one in vanilla. By the way: I am using the settings of the Geforce Experience game optimation. Or is my GTX 670 graphic card too bad for this game!?

670 is fine, the real problem seems to be CPU stress and the games lack of optimization to utilize multi-threading and greater processor strength found in most gaming PCs. Can't really "fix" this until CA decides to make a game that utilizes more than one core out of four or more available cores.

**est Dudus** · April 03, 2014, 02:30 PM

670 is one of the best cards out there still.....I have 780 and 770s and still find the 670 is great. I will make a video showing how I have my settings....Do you overclock you cpu. I have mine to a mild 4.2 and it got rid of a lot of shutter as well. Now, if you send all units in to one area (giant blob) you will get a slow down as it stresses the cpu.

**jemus** · April 03, 2014, 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by Ant909

670 is one of the best cards out there still.....I have 780 and 770s and still find the 670 is great. I will make a video showing how I have my settings....Do you overclock you cpu. I have mine to a mild 4.2 and it got rid of a lot of shutter as well. Now, if you send all units in to one area (giant blob) you will get a slow down as it stresses the cpu.

Ok, my cpu has only 3.8 (overclocked). I tried to avoid a giant blob and it's much better then. However there is definately a noticeable difference between DEI and Vanilla. Thanks for making a Video! I guess this should help me a lot.

**Ganossa** · April 03, 2014, 02:40 PM

Well there is higher res textures and more units on the battle field if you like so o_O what do you expect

Reduce unit size and lower unit quality to very high or high.

@TheDude, when will ya have your next let's play starting and which faction you gonna pick?
Edit: saw carthage has highest % though I voted for pontus

Dont forget to use GEM

**est Dudus** · April 03, 2014, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by LuciferHawk

Well there is higher res textures and more units on the battle field if you like so o_O what do you expect

Reduce unit size and lower unit quality to very high or high.

@TheDude, when will ya have your next let's play starting and which faction you gonna pick?
Edit: saw carthage has highest % though I voted for pontus

Dont forget to use GEM

Yeah, you guys spilt the vote so Carthage it is. The let's play drops tomorrow, Friday night special!

**Troubleshooter** · April 03, 2014, 02:58 PM

My FPS is just fine at all settings on Ultra, but during a city battle with 2-4 stacks my animations get really choppy. This seems far less severe when i use High unit sizes, which are closer to vanilla.

I am guessing it is a CPU thing since the choppiness gets worse when my units have to find a path over walls or through streets etc. You know, the thing units of similar size have been doing 10 years ago in RTW, when we had a fraction of the CPU power we have today.

**est Dudus** · April 03, 2014, 03:02 PM

I just recently found high setting works for 40vs40 with no stutter.....

**Ganossa** · April 03, 2014, 03:22 PM

Problem is it seems you cannot change unit size during a campaign. My units remain the same size?!

@TheDude, I would suggest "over the alps" or to the east first.
Wouldnt like Rome to get crushed right away

though they might not leave you any choice

**akvilonn** · April 03, 2014, 03:43 PM

Originally Posted by LuciferHawk

Problem is it seems you cannot change unit size during a campaign. My units remain the same size?!

No disrespect, TW Artifex, but were you born yesterday?
___________________________

To the OP - I completely agree, I experience huge spikes in stuttered and slow-motion animations after 0.85 release.
It does not matter what settings or shader version 3/4/5 I switch to, either I set shadows to lower, or anti-aliasing on/off or any other settings - just does not matter.

Battles start to run smoothly when armies are apart, but when units clash, (especially in siege environments) and run into each other, it just turns into a slide show, like 5fps, even though your camera runs smooth around.
It is, some say CPU bottleneck, but I believe it must be something to do with formations and animations, whenever distance among units closes, the Warscape engine just chokes.

I completely agree something has to be done about this.

**AnimaMea** · April 03, 2014, 03:53 PM

I *think* this is caused by pathfinding, having a lot of trouble on sieges; it might be exacerbated by the bigger unit sizes, but its more a vanilla problem than a dei one in my experience, used to be a problem on empire too

**Ganossa** · April 03, 2014, 03:57 PM

Well, I usually do not change unit size but leave it on ultra. -no matter what-
Cannot remember changing it in any TW game to date.

Hope this is not a crime

**KAM 2150** · April 03, 2014, 04:09 PM

CA also put limit on how much GPU resources can be given for animations, so even if your FPS is high, your units can still lag, because game thinks graphic card can't handle it.