Help with lag issues!

**123123123** · July 18, 2014, 03:10 AM

Hey!
This is the thing, i'm running bootcamp on a macbook pro. I've installed Windows 7 back and fourth a couple of time over the years and just recently installed it again. I've earlier run MTW2 before without any problems but this time it get's really laggy during battles and campaign.

I've tried:
Updating my drivers, my OS, tried FSP-booster with the 4gb update, reducing menu/backgrounds for maximum performance.

I play medieval total war 2 with the third age + mos mods and experience lag with these specs

PS: I've searched for an answer and read almost every thread but nothing seems to work.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**irishron** · July 18, 2014, 04:13 AM

You did not say whether the game was dvd, dvd Gold, Steam or other.

I get lag on the campaign map because of having the graphics settings to max and my system is well above spec. This game is very cpu intensive and the gpu is used after pushing everything through the cpu. Every animation frame shadow, blade of grass, building, what have has to go through the i7 before the 650M even sees a byte. The i7 can play the game by itself but forget the eyecandy.
In Nvidia Control Panel, have you made sure the game's prfile is set to "Maximum Performance" or what Nvidia calls it now?
In Windows' Power settings, is it set to Power Performance and not whatever is default?
In the Macbook's version of a BIOS, are there power settings to override its power saving settings?

After this turn down the graphics settings and enjoy the game. Anything better custom build a desktop. There are places in campaign and battle it will lag. The game was never optimized.

**123123123** · July 18, 2014, 04:40 AM

It's the DVD version of the game

**123123123** · July 18, 2014, 04:38 AM

I know that there is always gonna be lag, but this is something else. I play the game on the lowest graphic settings and it still lags! And this is even in small battles. I've played this game with full stack armies going against each other before and that's the only times i've needed to lower my graphics.

I tried maximizing the nvidia control panel settings - no change
I changed the power settings to maximum performance - no change
Don't know what you mean with the "macbook verion of a bios"

Can it be directx 11? Can it be the heat from the gpu?
Could it be a bad Nvidia update?

**irishron** · July 18, 2014, 05:05 AM

The game uses dx9. It does not know dx11 exists and dx11 does not know M2 exists. Two totally different programming formats. Microsoft in its "infinite wisdom" did not make dx10 and newer backward compatible.
It could be SecuroROM has found your virtual drive and making a fuss. Try it with it uninstalled.

This game is also notorious for being a stress test for notebooks and some have had to invest in cooling pads. Macbook possibly got the same problem?
You don't have much room on C: drive. Tried cleaning out the garbage and defragging it? 16gb isn't much for a swapfile in today's pc world. Heavily fragmented drives can slow a computer down, too.

**123123123** · July 21, 2014, 07:10 AM

Originally Posted by irishron

The game uses dx9. It does not know dx11 exists and dx11 does not know M2 exists. Two totally different programming formats. Microsoft in its "infinite wisdom" did not make dx10 and newer backward compatible.
It could be SecuroROM has found your virtual drive and making a fuss. Try it with it uninstalled.

This game is also notorious for being a stress test for notebooks and some have had to invest in cooling pads. Macbook possibly got the same problem?
You don't have much room on C: drive. Tried cleaning out the garbage and defragging it? 16gb isn't much for a swapfile in today's pc world. Heavily fragmented drives can slow a computer down, too.

Hey Irish, thank for the advice.

Actully, I'm currently playing the game on the highest graphics (skipping the shadows) without any lag.

Not 100% what made it work but his is what I did:

- I reinstalled Windows 7 to get more space as you mentioned
- Did some research and installed directx 9.0 as I read in some forum that it can co-exist with directx11 and if you added some lines in the shortcut to medieval it would choose directx 9. Dont know if this really worked or not but I did it.
- Updated the graphic cards
- Made several windows updates (I think it was after a certain windows update the game started working properly)
- As you mentioned that i7 has a hard time to process the game to the graphic card, so I accessed all my cores (4 which were parked so that all would be working) and activated them as well.

The real lag came when there were close combat and I zoomed in, now completly gone.