[Support] Tech-Hardware: Tips and Tricks for a better DEI experience.

[IamOdysseus]

Yes, last CA update (summer 2018 I think) generally improved graphics and the game became more demanding.

Use that pack, lower graph options (don't use huge unit size) and you'll be fine.

I have these settings:
CPU
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz

GPU
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4 GB

RAM
- 4 GB Kingston @ 1600 MHz
- 4 GB Kingston @ 1600 MHz

Do you think that more RAM would benefit my PC for playing DEI? And how would you change it? Buying 16 GB with more frequency?
@Jake gonna try this pack and tell you. I have been unable to play DEI with decent settings since the date you have said. Btw I can play Attila with mods with quality settings and max performance unit setings with +25 all the time and 9k soldiers using this guide. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=1581603370. So i guess my computer, despite not being a TOP computer, is not broken. And what computer is pretended for playing DEI with everything maxed nowadays?

[Leonardo]

I have these settings:
CPU
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz

GPU
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4 GB

RAM
- 4 GB Kingston @ 1600 MHz
- 4 GB Kingston @ 1600 MHz

Do you think that more RAM would benefit my PC for playing DEI? And how would you change it? Buying 16 GB with more frequency?
@Jake gonna try this pack and tell you. I have been unable to play DEI with decent settings since the date you have said. Btw I can play Attila with mods with quality settings and max performance unit setings with +25 all the time and 9k soldiers using this guide. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=1581603370. So i guess my computer, despite not being a TOP computer, is not broken. And what computer is pretended for playing DEI with everything maxed nowadays?

You definitely need to have more RAM and I suggest that you upgrade your RAM with 32 Gb if possible, otherwise 16 Gb will due for the time being. Of course large HDD's can also decrease lag and low FPS in-game.

[IamOdysseus]

You definitely need to have more RAM and I suggest that you upgrade your RAM with 32 Gb if possible, otherwise 16 Gb will due for the time being. Of course large HDD's can also decrease lag and low FPS in-game.

What frequency is recommended? Large HDD? Having a big HDD makes better fps? I play with a SSD.

[Leonardo]

I have the same frequency as you have for the RAM, but I've 32 Gb RAM and you only have 8 Gb RAM which is way too low.

Well, I can only share what I have regarding HDD/SSD.

2 HDD Seagate 3 Tb
1 HDD Seagate 2 Tb
1 SSD Kingston 120 Gb (not in use anymore)

It depends how fast a HDD is or how large a SSD is and having a large SSD will definitely help, but some day in the future a large SSD that doesn't have enough free diskspace or it is too framegented will slow down your game.

I also need to point out that it is not recommended to defrag a SSD and doing so will damage the SSD. However, using a large HDD will always help, if it's defragmented on regular basis let say at least once a week.

[Vardano]

You absolutely don't need more then 16 Gb of RAM, just make sure you run it in dual channel mode. Frequency matters a lot! The higher frequency RAM gives much better 1 and 0,1 lows which means you won't experience much of FPS drops which are so frustrating in the most of TW games. 1600 Mhz is no go in 2020, upgrade if you can at least to 3200 Mhz and 14 or 15 CL.

[IamOdysseus]

You absolutely don't need more then 16 Gb of RAM, just make sure you run it in dual channel mode. Frequency matters a lot! The higher frequency RAM gives much better 1 and 0,1 lows which means you won't experience much of FPS drops which are so frustrating in the most of TW games. 1600 Mhz is no go in 2020, upgrade if you can at least to 3200 Mhz and 14 or 15 CL.

I have this Motherboard, I guess it can only work up to 1600 Mhz.
GA-B75M-D3H
It says this: Support for DDR3 2200(OC)/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...H-rev-10/sp#sp

[Vardano]

I have this Motherboard, I guess it can only work up to 1600 Mhz.
GA-B75M-D3H
It says this: Support for DDR3 2200(OC)/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...H-rev-10/sp#sp

I had a similar system like yours with 4790k and 1600 Mhz memory, unfortunately you can't go higher than 1600 Mhz with your motherboard's socket. You have to spend more to get a new socket and usually it is expensive thing to do, but you have to sacrifice for DEI, you know. ; ) The most important advice is not to spend more money on a more amount of RAM, it is waste of money, especially for Rome II.

I'm currently on my laptop and still did not decide what PC I'm gonna get next. Ryzen CPU's are good but not for old TW games as their single core frequency is not as good as Intel ones, but this year both AMD and Intel gonna bring newer and better products, just for you to know.

[charlieh]

I am in the same boat, as regards to my system. A little while back, I over-clocked my RAM to 1800MHz. I gained a couple more frames, but not much more, as far as I could tell.

[G. Ward]

You absolutely don't need more then 16 Gb of RAM, just make sure you run it in dual channel mode. Frequency matters a lot! The higher frequency RAM gives much better 1 and 0,1 lows which means you won't experience much of FPS drops which are so frustrating in the most of TW games. 1600 Mhz is no go in 2020, upgrade if you can at least to 3200 Mhz and 14 or 15 CL.

Very interesting stuff.

Do you know why R.A.M. frequency matters in Total War Games? I must admit, I'm suspicious that anyone would need more than 8GB or RAM for any of the Total War games (if they can only use 4GB).

I can see how having quite a few C.P.U. cores would help though, because, although the game(s) can only use one core fully, the O.S. -- which, in the background, still uses some processing-power -- can use all the cores. In some circumstances, this might make a large difference in performance, & I think it's why the game doesn't run well on a dual-core processor: because the O.S. uses up a lot of the C.P.U.

How does V-RAM effect things. I find that the game (and Shogun II) lags when a large pile of dead-bodies is in the view of the camera. (It has to be relatively close-up). Would this be solved by having more V-RAM?

I just have no-idea abt so much of this stuff.

Thanks very much for your replie(s).

Sorry I have been late to get back to you (& everyone else).

[Leonardo]

You absolutely don't need more then 16 Gb of RAM, just make sure you run it in dual channel mode.

Modern computers actually does that by default, so there is no need to make sure of that anymore.

Why neglect modern technology?

[Vardano]

Very interesting stuff.

Do you know why R.A.M. frequency matters in Total War Games?

Faster ram = more bandwidth = more fps.

Check this video out and will understand everything you need about RAM speeds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct-n28zeFew

Leonardo, I don't know what you saying. Many people mis-configure by accident when building their PC and get stuck on single. You have to insert memory sticks into 1&3 or 2&4 slots to made it work in dual channel. RAM installed into 1&2 slots of your motherboard will work in a single channel, so you still have to do this manually to run it in dual.

[G. Ward]

Faster ram = more bandwidth = more fps.

Check this video out and will understand everything you need about RAM speeds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct-n28zeFew

Yes. But, why does it matter so much in Total War games? In most games, the speed of your R.A.M. doesn't matter at all.

[Leonardo]

Faster ram = more bandwidth = more fps.

Check this video out and will understand everything you need about RAM speeds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct-n28zeFew

Leonardo, I don't know what you saying. Many people mis-configure by accident when building their PC and get stuck on single. You have to insert memory sticks into 1&3 or 2&4 slots to made it work in dual channel. RAM installed into 1&2 slots of your motherboard will work in a single channel, so you still have to do this manually to run it in dual.

I am well aware of that, thank you. However, there is another thing that people sometimes forget to check, because the two RAM modules must be indentical otherwise the dual channel mode won't work.

[Jake Armitage]

I'm using this list cleaner and I think I've noticed some less lag.
What I can say for sure is that it won't harm anything, I have it turned on since a week (also when not gaming).

Link has been provided in discord by Save Scum, here's his post:

If you are getting broken saves or bad performance.
It is windows bug. It does not clear standby memory. producing stutter in games or worse
Sadly it affect Total war games.
(Author of D.D.U made it)How to check? Open Task manager - performance - memory tab
Open resource monitor. If it will fill all of your memory by launching programs or browser tabs, you might need it.
That bug does not care if you have 8 or 128 gigs of ram
(google is your friend if you are unsure about using it)

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1256

[gnosis89]

I made a thread, but suppose it'd fit in here as well;

Does anyone else experience stuttering (units and often camera scroll) with bad FPS drops despite hardware not being maxed out (neither CPU nor GPU are ever at 100%) Medium unit sizes and most things on high/very high. (No AA) I've messed around with the graphics settings ALOT. New drivers etc...tried setting affinity for CPU, no luck. Changed power settings in windows too. Especially bad in 2v2 battles, dare not try anything above (again despite GPU and CPU not being maxed out...)
I'm on a new PC (ryzen 5 2600 and rx 580 4GB 24 GB RAM), but even on my laptop which was an i7 4720HQ and an 970m I still had it. I've never been able to run RII without such stuttering.

[zonks40]

I made a thread, but suppose it'd fit in here as well;

Does anyone else experience stuttering (units and often camera scroll) with bad FPS drops despite hardware not being maxed out (neither CPU nor GPU are ever at 100%) Medium unit sizes and most things on high/very high. (No AA) I've messed around with the graphics settings ALOT. New drivers etc...tried setting affinity for CPU, no luck. Changed power settings in windows too. Especially bad in 2v2 battles, dare not try anything above (again despite GPU and CPU not being maxed out...)
I'm on a new PC (ryzen 5 2600 and rx 580 4GB 24 GB RAM), but even on my laptop which was an i7 4720HQ and an 970m I still had it. I've never been able to run RII without such stuttering.

I recently upgraded my video card from a GTX 970 to a GTX 1660Ti, and the game ran like shite, battles and campaign map, no matter what graphics settings, I tried everything, nothing made a bit of difference, only thing that fixed it was going back to my GTX 970.

[Fernandesz]

Does anyone know how to activate the FPS monitor in the game? Rome 2 is the only one that doesn't work

[Jim_Riley]

So, I know some people (or a lot, not sure) have some sort of issues with this mod as far as stuttering or lag with big battles. I have experienced the same issues and I have a decent enough rig that handles Vanilla and most mods with Ultra/Extreme settings pretty flawlessly but this mod changed a few things in that case. I've tried a variety of all the tips on the first post and found minimal noticeable impact and had given up playing DEI for the time being as battles started to get progressively worse on my system with each update to the mod.

That said, the other day I noticed some interesting ways to work around my own lag issues and it might help others. I found that the UI during battles seems to tax the system more so than I would have ever thought. In fact, if you start battles WITHOUT the unit flags and then remove the UI all together and play that way, I found it to actually boost my experience. Battles run pretty smoothly when fighting 20vs20 stacks. The issue? Well, you don't get a whole lot of feedback without the UI so battles feel extra chaotic, for better or worse. I keep water settings LOW, Sky settings LOW, turn off SSAO but max out my texture, model, shadow settings. Terrain can be fiddled with as I sometimes don't like the 4ft grass everywhere blocking the action so I'll lower the grass/terrain quality. It's the actual character models that matter most to me to truly appreciate how beautiful they all look with the meticulous research that went into them.

So to summarize the super simple theory that seems to allow me to play big battles again with unit sizes set to Large:

-Minimalize the UI information such as turning off unit flags.
-Decrease the UI ratio to 80% or so
-Go down on monitor resolution; I figure if you have maxed out AA and texture/Model quality, you should be able to go down a few resolutions without the overall quality suffering much.
-Remove the UI during the battle so you have absolutely nothing as far as information goes on screen.
-More trial and error is needed but so far I am able to actually play battles that generally last on average 8-15 mins but take 30-40 mins of real time due to lag, just fine and without the lag. Makes a HUGE difference.

Not sure if it helps anyone but it made a difference for me and maybe even adds in a sense of immersion when you really think about it. Definitely makes you more focused on the battle.

[Eidgeniesser]

I came by an 3-4year old PC and am playing R2TW on it. The GPU isnt up to the task though so I play it on low settings and resolutions.

Is the Geforce GTX 1070 8GB good enough to get the basic ultra settings R2TW experience? I can get it pretty cheaply, but would you recommend it.

[elementall]

Hello! I thought it was the only one and it was a problem of mine since I changed my hard drive. But I have the same stuttering problem, when before the game was very fluid. It's a shame I can't find a solution and I've tried many variations of graphics but with no luck.
I'll try the list cleaner. and with hiding flags (I had not tried that).
Dresden do you know anything about this?
Thank you all.