The solution to the lag/low fps problem in Rome Total War for high-end modern computers

[Incendio]

Hi everybody,

I was desperately trying to run Rome Total War in my gaming laptop but I was always getting unplayable lag and I had low fps in every custom battle. Yesterday I found the solution in the following link:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/t...er-old-games-/

Basically, you only need to download a small file d3d8.dll (286 kb) and put it in the installation folder of Rome Total War. Those who have newer Nvidia graphic cards should give a try; worked for me.

I hope this could help someone

Regards

[Buster]

That is how i play now, but downside is that fire arrows and fire shots from siege equipment (walls onagers etc) are not visible.
Do you experience this too?

[Skizzy]

I would never advise anyone to download .dll files.
Not sure if I'm allowed to post this link, but let's find out:
https://www.lifewire.com/important-r...-files-2624455

Especially pointing towards the "How to fix DLL problems the right way" caption in the article.

I keep my nVidia drivers up to date, yet RTW never lags for me.
I did not download any DLLs at all.
Fire arrows and flaming siege shots are still visible for me as well.

[Buster]

Well, we are happy you don't have the same issue that many of us had for a long time. There are dozens of topics on other forums, steam, totalwar.com, nvidia etc.
It has to do something with nvidio optimus enabled systems.

Sometimes it just won't use nvidia card even if you are force it, just using integrated one.
Sometimes both battle and campaign map is lagging, or choppy.
My case it seems just the campaign map.
I made a video just now to show the issue.
LINK
I personally dug through a lot of topics, tried many solutions.
I reinstalled windows, all drivers are up to date, tried all compatibility mode, checked directx, i downloaded the old Directx 9.0c, boutght the steam version, bought disc version etc.

When i copy that directx 8 file to the rome folder, everything works perfect. No lags nothing. Except the flaming issue.

[Saul Tyre]

@ Buster: I rarely have any lag nor ctd's, my rig is AMD 6300 x 3.5 ghz 8gb RAM 650 watt PSU 2gb Nvidia gtx750 & use Shadowplay and get 40-60 fps when recording my LP'S. I "bypassed" windows control in my UAC and use Large Address Aware enabler. My settings have large units, low/medium grass, medium/high vege, high everything else, AA off & widescreen. I also play RTR VII, Roma Surrectum III, TATW DAC 1.1 & MOS 1.7 plus EB II too (all have high content which tax a PC) with little problem. My OS is Win 7 Pro and I don't ever use Steam. Guess I'm just lucky eh?

[Buster]

But yours is a desktop right? Most affected are notebooks with nvidia optimus (integrated + dvga).
Mine is i3 2.8GHZ + 840m, it shouldn't lag either. It is weird because battle map works fine, but not the campaign map. But that dirextx 8 dll it works properly.

[HawkDreams]

I honestly do not know why people believe Rome can see and use a Directx 8 file. You may as well use a picture of yourself for all the difference it makes. Rome is DirectX 9.01b in its design. The entire gaming engine would have to be decompiled, rewritten, and reassembled to make it even see a directX 8 file. There is simply no compatibility for DirectX 8. If you say it does, I want to see the proof in videos both with and without that file in place with no other changes.

I am sorry that people cannot read and understand the system requirements do not include INTEL CPUs with onboard HD such as the last of the Celeron CPUs and and all of the "i" series CPUs and the system requirements specifically state Pentium series CPUs for INTEL. The ONLY way I can find to fix for everyone is if INTEL creates a program like Alchemy for Soundblaster that creates an exemption list to block interaction and hide the onboard HD processes within the CPU for any listed program. They will not do that because that is same as advertising onboard HD CPUs are flawed.

[Buster]

I made a video, just to demonstrate. LINK
I don't know why anyone would make a topic and lie about it, when you have this solution on Steam forums and Nvidia's too.

As you can see, that is the original issue, there is a massive lag on campaign map, as if it does not recognise the dvga. Which is my nvidia 840m.
Al global and programs are on the DVGA settings in nvidia control panel.

However, there is a side effect (as i mentioned in one topic here), flaming effects are not visible such as arrows, onagers.
If you play without the file, you have them back, but also the lag.

[Skizzy]

So you either have lag, or you don't see flaming effects..
Not much of an issue in my mind to be honest.
Have you tried re-installing yet?
And have you tried lowering AA and/or graphic settings?

[Buster]

Well yes, that is the deal I usually never use flaming arrows, so it's not a deal breaker for me. Prefer no lag of course.
I did, i tried steam version, before that disc version, even from torrent (sega and CA versions), tried with different patches too.
Reinstalled windows, vga card driver etc.

Believe me, i've tried every solution i could find on forums (nvidia, twcenter, steam etc), tried every dodgy files.
Also I was playing with setting, AA is off as well.

Like I said, most people have this with Optimus enabled configs. When you have an integrated gpu, and a dedicated one.

[z3n]

IIRC rome and even m2 do call on d3d8, and will even crash/complain if you don't have previous versions of DX and all their dynamic link libraries installed.

Usually game exes can call the code within DLL's even if they're not included in the game necessarily. So even if it seems like a magic fix, it could very well be most of the code being called is from the d3d8 DLL and not the d3d9 to ensure backwards compatibility perhaps.

[Aismov]

IIRC rome and even m2 do call on d3d8, and will even crash/complain if you don't have previous versions of DX and all their dynamic link libraries installed.

Usually game exes can call the code within DLL's even if they're not included in the game necessarily. So even if it seems like a magic fix, it could very well be most of the code being called is from the d3d8 DLL and not the d3d9 to ensure backwards compatibility perhaps.

I was very skeptical myself about this fix, and to say the least I was leery about downloading a random .dll file from a random website.

I'm happy to say that this fix works 100%. The difference truly is night and day. I used an old laptop I recently replaced to test this out to 1) ensure this .dll isn't crawling full of trojans/malware/etc and a scan I did came up clean, and 2) whether this really works and won't break either my game install, save game files, or entire system (none of these happened). Also note that I initially tested this fix on my old laptop (2014 HP Probook) which is a Core i5 3320M (2.6 GHz), 8 GB ram, Radeon 7650 M (1 GB VRAM).

As others have said the only downside is you can't see flaming arrows. One other thing I can add is that in mods (I'm playing RSII) the loading bars/screens will look a bit off, but otherwise everything else works superb. I went from terrible/choppy map movement, freezes when I opened a settlement/character to totally smooth FPS.

I also tested this out on my ultra-late game RSII save file which is at 730 AUC (game starts at 536 AUC; so thats 184 years or somewhere around 90 turns into the game). Even heavily trafficked areas such as Greece are totally smooth as well. Oh, I also have shadows enables on the campaign map.

[Saul Tyre]

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