Strange in-battle FPS drops after upgrading PC.

**Alexmcm13** · November 08, 2016, 11:50 AM

I recently upgraded my PC to an i7-6700k and a GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card. This setup can play almost every game on my system buttery smooth. But for some reason, whenever I try and play Medieval 2, whenever I get into battle, I get wildly inconsistent frames, dropping as low as 1 fps for upwards of five seconds, to a strong 60. I'm not sure why the performance in battle flags so much... Anyone else experience similar issues on more modern hardware? Anyone know of a fix?

**Gigantus** · November 11, 2016, 06:06 AM

M2TW only uses one core - if the single core speed is below 2.7 then you can expect lagging.

Reducing the detail graphic settings (grass, shadow) and using this texture set for buildings helps without loosing much graphic effect.

**Incendio** · November 11, 2016, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by Alexmcm13

I recently upgraded my PC to an i7-6700k and a GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card. This setup can play almost every game on my system buttery smooth. But for some reason, whenever I try and play Medieval 2, whenever I get into battle, I get wildly inconsistent frames, dropping as low as 1 fps for upwards of five seconds, to a strong 60. I'm not sure why the performance in battle flags so much... Anyone else experience similar issues on more modern hardware? Anyone know of a fix?

I thought I was the only one having this issue. I have exactly the same problem but only in sieges when a wall falls. Please do a test with a siege and try to destroy the walls. If you have the same problem that I am having, your fps will drop to almost 0 and once the walls are destroyed, your fps will raise again.

Gigantus, I am not a Total War expert but I think the problem is not exactly the single core speed and lack of multicore support for MTW2. I tried with smallest unit size, worst video settings and the problem persists. I realized that installing the game outside program files help just a little (maybe because of the UAC issue) but currently I can't play sieges. My bet is a compatibility issue with newer Operating Systems / Hardware. Currently, I am being supported by SEGA. If I have any solution I will let you know.

Anyway, this is my gaming laptop so you can see I am beyond the requirements, I can play any other Total War games except Warhammer because I am not interested in it

CPU Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.60 GHz - 3.50 GHz with Turbo Boost
16 GB RAM
GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M 3 GB DDR5
Windows 10 64 bits

Edited: I didn't read your recommendation about those textures. I will give a try. Thank you!

**Incendio** · November 11, 2016, 01:28 PM

I tried with your texture set Gigantus, I put the folder blockset inside the data folder inside Medieval II Total War but the problem with walls persist. Very weird.

**Gigantus** · November 11, 2016, 07:23 PM

The wall destroyed interlude is a 'cut scene' playing, like 'general dying' - you can disable that in the configuration file (medieval2.preference - open with Notepad):

[game]
event_cutscenes = 0

Set the value to 1 and then make the file read-only as the game will otherwise revert the change (not really advisable) - this applies only to the Grand Campaign, if you play mods then add that entry to the mod's own configuration file.

The cut scenes are in the same format as the intro movies if I am not mistaken - have you got a FPS drop when they play?

**Incendio** · November 12, 2016, 12:57 PM

No, the "video" interlude of walls falling doesn't affect my fps, the fps drops dramatically while in game the walls are being broken and all the stones fall to the ground. In max. settings, the fps drops from 60 to 8; in lowest settings the fps drops like 216 to 20. I don't know if the fps drops due to the stones or the dust. When the battle takes place inside the castle everything is fine. I am aware of single-core issue limitations so that I understand I can't play well battles of more than 4,000 men. What I don't understand is what is happening with the walls because the historical battle Siege of Setenil is unplayable (and there is less than 2,500 men in this battle). I recently noticed in other historical battles of Kingdoms expansion that terrains with rocks also cause massive fps drops when zoom in the terrain, even if there are very few units. I simply don't understand this issue.