Possible solutions to improve Rome 2/DeI load times

[Mr. What Zit Tooya]

Some people have been talking about issues with DEI or just Rome 2's load times in general.

As I just found out two days ago, Steam actually implemented multiple hard drive support back in 2012, I have no clue how I never saw this. Therefore I moved my Rome 2 folder to my second ssd in order to greatly improve my load times.
A link for how this can be done is found here:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=3035634
Just a note on this, when moving the file folder to a different hard drive, you must create a Steamapps>common folders and place rome 2 inside those, otherwise steam will redownload the entire game, as it did for me.

Another option if you want to continue your current hard drive is to either optimize your ssd, or for HDD, defragment it and optimize it using a program. What this essentially does is takes files on your hard drive which is a magnetic disk and is read using basically a needle, and moves the files so that the needle does not need to travel or search as much for the correct files to load.

I personally recommend Auslogics Disk Defragmenter, it is free and very simple. Just download, install, automatically detects hard drives. To get best result click down arrow and select defragment and optimize in the drop down menu.
NOTE: SSDs work very different than HDDs and you should not defragment an SSD, I recommend seeing if your ssd manufacturer provides software to optimize it like Samsung's Magician.

Link for Auslogics (make sure to deselect adware when installing, go slow through install so you don't miss it):
http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/

Hopefully this does not violate any forum rules, just trying to help people improve their experience if posssible.

[Dresden]

Thanks for posting the help. I also recommend an SSD for load times, really helps.

[Denco]

Thanks for posting the help. I also recommend an SSD for load times, really helps.

Cant live without one to be honest.

[qlum]

Indeed, I have very limited free space on my ssd but I think rome 2 is one of the games that needs it the most.

It however does not make the load times good or anything, just a little less .

[ferassh]

Indeed, I have very limited free space on my ssd but I think rome 2 is one of the games that needs it the most.

It however does not make the load times good or anything, just a little less .

SSD didn't help my DEI loading times at all.
id recommend http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...formance-Boost the boost game option made DEI loading times less that 30 seconds its amazing with no side effects for me.
im using windows 8 64 , 7950ati cf , 8gig ram , Xeon 1230v2

[BTAxis]

DEI takes a minute and a half to load the campaign map for me. It's manageable, but not too much fun to sit through every time a battle ends. An SSD wouldn't help much here, the task manager shows that most of the time it's just maxing out the CPU without any I/O activity at all.

[Ritterlichvon86]

BTAxis, you're wrong. What the task manager tells you is irrelevant, it doesn't show what's happening.

But...even with a very good SSD the loading times to the map reach more than 20 seconds easily. I'm used to almost instant loading times for most other games - Rome however, is really demanding.

[BTAxis]

BTAxis, you're wrong. What the task manager tells you is irrelevant, it doesn't show what's happening.

I don't know what you're talking about, the task manager in Windows 8 tells you precisely how much CPU, memory and disk I/O any running program is using at the moment. Maybe you're using a different OS or a simplified view or something?

[Mr. What Zit Tooya]

Yea loading times are still not the greatest even with my ssd. But I did notice large improvements coming from my 7200rpm HDD. A disk defragment will help, but only so much either compared to better optimization of the game itself or a faster drive. I am still waiting to see more results from the other thread before I try it. Looks promising though to improve performance aspects of almpst every part of the game.

[Dossey]

I also have an SSD and it didn't decrease loading times... At all. I have a 5 minute load time for DEI and a 1.5 minute load time vanilla to get to the campaign map.

[Ritterlichvon86]

Dossey, maybe you don't have your SSD as the primary drive in the O/S.

You should have your Windows on the SSD, as well as Steam and Rome 2. You can then use old conventional HDDs to put games on that you rarely play, or have a slow loading time, and your other data like photo, music, films, etc.

[carbide]

I have Samsung 850 SSD and 16gigs of 2400mhz memory which this game gulps up 8gigs of it including cache. Load times have never really been a problem for me.

[Fedual]

Interesting, could be fun to hear my input since i have a decent computer i can say that in my experience with the newest versions of DeI that has been coming out (especially after EE), it is possible to have very quick loadingtimes. I have also allways had my Rome II on an SSD. These short loadingtimes was not possible in earlier version of DeI mind you i did try .
Since the newest versions i have like 10-15 seconds load times all the time except when im launching a new campaign and loading up an existing campaign, loading in and out of battles/ending turns and things like that is very fast nowadays.

So i think this is a collaboration between DeI making a better optimized mod And using a secondsry SSD to store demanding games.

[Dossey]

Ritter,

I don't have my SSD as my windows boot. Would this slow down load times? I'll get windows 8 onto my SSD tonight and see if that makes a difference.

[Mr. What Zit Tooya]

Ritter,

I don't have my SSD as my windows boot. Would this slow down load times? I'll get windows 8 onto my SSD tonight and see if that makes a difference.

It would actually make load times for most things much slower. Always have your OS on the ssd. Makes your entire system that much more responsive. If you have space after the move I would put rome 2 on it as well and use your other drive for less important games and pretty much any other types of files

[CJiaBa]

its all u need...

[Dossey]

Just figured I'd give an update. The FX-4100 is broken in Rome 2 for some reason. While I made a significant upgrade to an i5 4690k, there is no reason the game was insanely laggy and campaign load times were 3 1/2 minutes.

It's nice to actually have 25 second load times and perfect FPS , and actually enjoy DeI.

[=Vastator=]

Just figured I'd give an update. The FX-4100 is broken in Rome 2 for some reason. While I made a significant upgrade to an i5 4690k, there is no reason the game was insanely laggy and campaign load times were 3 1/2 minutes.

It's nice to actually have 25 second load times and perfect FPS , and actually enjoy DeI.

Did you update the bios for your FX? Rome II and shogun 2 work really bad without the bios update.
BTW, your new i5 is way more powerful than a working FX 4100.

[Dossey]

Did you update the bios for your FX? Rome II and shogun 2 work really bad without the bios update.
BTW, your new i5 is way more powerful than a working FX 4100.

Yes I updated the BIOS for the FX. It made the game actually playable (as in, didn't lock up after you hit the end turn button). The "playability" was 3 1/2 minute end turn times (even on vanilla) and insane lag. I've found, on various forums, 2 other instances of people with an FX-4100 having this issue and they never had the problem solved.

[13151438]

Well I'm unlucky, I have a ssd and still get 1 min loading time with DEI, but under 20s with vanilla.
I have tried all the changes from this thread but it did nothing.
I was wondering if you guys with a ssd manage to get a less than 30s loading time? Maybe there is something with my rig if that's the case...