Campaign Shadows Lag

[Sulfurion Blackfyre]

Hello, I need some help here, or at least an explanation as to why this occurs. I have been playing Medieval 2 almost ever since it came out, but during all that time I had a pretty crappy laptop which only allowed me to play the game with the graphics on medium at best. I always wanted to play with campaign shadows on, as I find that they completely change the look and feel of the game.

Well, recently I bought a new laptop (finally) that allows me to pretty much play any modern game quite smoothly, like Rome 2 or Attila.

But back to Medieval 2, the problem is, I can indeed play with every setting maxed out, both in battle and campaign, but, as soon as I turn the campaign shadows on, the strat map becomes a lagfest...

Why does this happen? Is it a lack of optimization? Some kind of dependency on a single CPU core? Is there a fix of some kind?

I notice it happens mainly around trees.. if I go to, say, Egypt, the lag disappears, but in Germany or France, it is unplayable.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[Frunk]

This is a problem I find particularly frustrating, as I'm a modder currently creating a map based in the Americas where trees are plentiful.

Gigantus explained it to me like this:

Forests (both types) and high mountains have a 3D element that can slow down even the best machines because the game is only using one core.

You were pretty much spot on with your assumption. The Medieval 2 engine does not use more than one core, even if you have an eight-core processor like me.

Zarathos was working on a memory editing project to break some of the hardcoded limits of the game, and managed to achieve single-core "optimisation" as part of this, but I don't believe he indicated how much of a benefit this brought. He has not released anything and when I spoke to him the other day I got the impression he has more or less ceased work on that project, as even for someone with his skills, delving into the engine is just too difficult.

In the past, I've tried changing my settings via Windows' Task Manager to give priority to the game .exe, but it certainly didn't solve the problem, if it provided any advantage at all.

We are currently conducting a petition for Creative Assembly to revisit Medieval 2 and release a patch for the hardcoded limits and CPU limitations, but to be brutally honest I hold out very little hope that we will be successful.

[Sulfurion Blackfyre]

I see, it's a shame then

I searched a bit more afterwards and tried that single core fix you mentioned, but just like you, it did not work (though I read it was successful for some), in fact, I think it actually made it worse hah.

Well, I guess the memory editing project truly is our only hope now. If they manage indeed to unlock what they have in mind, the possiblities are astounding...

Regardless, thank you for your reply. Here, have some +rep, haven't given one of those in a long time