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

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Strategos, how much of the real difference between one 1070 and two of them in terms of R2 performance?

Well it depends...sometimes even double FPS. You could check a live test here.

[lequintal69]

Hello,

I'm facing a recurrent problem that happens when I launch a campaign (new or save)

When I start a campaign for the first time (usually after booting my pc) on a new day, the loading will be ultra slow and will usually stop at 80%, with the hourglass cursor becoming the ingame arrow, and the campaign sound starting. Also I can hear the sound of the options windows if i click the escape
Its all like if my campaign had lauched but I was stuck with the loading windows


Usually at this point I alt f4 (leads to crash or sometimes it doesnt) and relaunch the game. This time, the loading is super fast and everything works pretty well. When i relaunch the game, I usually get the new windows (from last CA patch) asking me if im sure I want to play with outdated mod (even tho I didnt change my mods)
I have good pc, can run battles on very high/ulta, never crashs ingame etc

Is it a problem with my GPU not loading the first time and thus leading to a crash ? Like, for some reason,the basic graphic card would be used the first time, and not my nvidia GPU?

Any other ideas?

[Jake Armitage]

Regarding the outdated mods CA window, it will always apperar when you're loading the same mods after a crash. To eliminate the pop up re-save the mods with PFM or try (maybe) to change mod's name.
Can't say about other issues, never happened to me.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Hello,

I'm facing a recurrent problem that happens when I launch a campaign (new or save)

When I start a campaign for the first time (usually after booting my pc) on a new day, the loading will be ultra slow and will usually stop at 80%, with the hourglass cursor becoming the ingame arrow, and the campaign sound starting. Also I can hear the sound of the options windows if i click the escape
Its all like if my campaign had lauched but I was stuck with the loading windows


Usually at this point I alt f4 (leads to crash or sometimes it doesnt) and relaunch the game. This time, the loading is super fast and everything works pretty well. When i relaunch the game, I usually get the new windows (from last CA patch) asking me if im sure I want to play with outdated mod (even tho I didnt change my mods)
I have good pc, can run battles on very high/ulta, never crashs ingame etc

Is it a problem with my GPU not loading the first time and thus leading to a crash ? Like, for some reason,the basic graphic card would be used the first time, and not my nvidia GPU?

Any other ideas?

Hey. You're issue will be likey solved with step 6 from the opening post. Feel free to try it and let me know.

[lequintal69]

Seems to be working so far

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Seems to be working so far

If it's working so far, then 99% you'll have no further issues.

[ThePoshBarbarian]

Hi guys, I have a very frustrating problem that has been going on for at least a month now.

Ever since the release of the patch 19 hotfix I've had random CTD from time to time (around every 1 in 5 campaigns, at least turn 20+), but recently, with the DeI hotfix, it's gotten worse, as in it takes around 15 minutes after starting a new or old campaign to get a CTD, and I always get the following message:


Hell this even when I try saving the game.

I have tried everything, reinstalling the game, updating my graphic drivers, only using DeI with no submods, deleting the appdata cache, but i still get this bloody error, and I'm starting to pull out my hair out.

And it's definitely not a vanilla problem, I've tried 50+ turns of vanilla, and nothing happens, though i haven't tried with other mods from the workshop.

Can anyone please help me, this is really frustrating, and I'm completely at a lose!

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Hi guys, I have a very frustrating problem that has been going on for at least a month now.

Ever since the release of the patch 19 hotfix I've had random CTD from time to time (around every 1 in 5 campaigns, at least turn 20+), but recently, with the DeI hotfix, it's gotten worse, as in it takes around 15 minutes after starting a new or old campaign to get a CTD, and I always get the following message:


Hell this even when I try saving the game.

I have tried everything, reinstalling the game, updating my graphic drivers, only using DeI with no submods, deleting the appdata cache, but i still get this bloody error, and I'm starting to pull out my hair out.

And it's definitely not a vanilla problem, I've tried 50+ turns of vanilla, and nothing happens, though i haven't tried with other mods from the workshop.

Can anyone please help me, this is really frustrating, and I'm completely at a lose!

Ηey buddy.
Well, since we have no other crushing reports lately (strangely enough) I bet it's something on your end.

1) Have you changed your system's page-file by mistake maybe ?
2) Do you have plenty of space in your disk ?
3) Uninstall all older versions and clean Install the latest microsoft visual c++ for your system.
4) Do you have STEAM installed in your system's drive C: ?
5) Always Run Steam and Rome2 as administrator.
6) VERY IMPORTANT Even when mods are disabled/uninstalled from the mod manager, any .pack files persisting from them are still loaded at launch by rome2.dll. So check again your Data folder for old pack files.

''Virtual loc'' is most probably referring to allocated memory in your system. Remind me what Hardware are you using. Windows Version 32 or 64 bit ? RAM ? etc Plus your Antivirus

[ThePoshBarbarian]

1) I haven't touched any system page-files
2) I have 44.7GB left
3) I haven't' done that yet, so that may be the problem
4) my steam is installed in the Program Files (x86)
5) I've done rome 2 as administrator, but not steam (which I changed today)
6) I had deleted any old mods, deleted the data folder, verified the cache integrity, and when that didn't work, deleted all the dll files in the rome 2 folder + the executable re-verified again and still have the same problem

Hardware is thus:
- CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7660U CPU @ 2.50GHz
- GPU:

Intel(R) Iris(TM) Plus Graphics 640
- OS: Windows 10 64 bit
- antivirus: windows default + avast
- RAM: 8.0GB

I should also say that i have the "use "user.script"" option in the mod configuration enabled, i had heard with the recent changes CA made to mods in rome 2, that i had to have it enabled.

EDIT:
Never mind, I've managed to fix the problem (at least i hope, 50 turns of no crashing as the Iceni). Turns out i had to reinstall my Visual C++ stuff for rome 2 (surprised i don't have to do it for Attila though)

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Never mind, I've managed to fix the problem (at least i hope, 50 turns of no crashing as the Iceni). Turns out i had to reinstall my Visual C++ stuff for rome 2 (surprised i don't have to do it for Attila though)

So my 3rd suggestion solved the issue. ?
Plus I would suggest to install steam on a different folder. For future reference, it's not advised to have it in C:

[igortwin]

Anyone have problem with add Rome2 in razor game booster? When i try it says "failed to ad game". Thanks for help...

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Anyone have problem with add Rome2 in razor game booster? When i try it says "failed to ad game". Thanks for help...

No issues whatsoever...Just checked it. You could also just run the booster and start Rome 2 normally, it will get the boost either way.

[WindGuru]

Evenin' gents. I've recently upgraded my graphics card to try to get some extra power out of DEI, as the battles were moving at a slow pace, and honestly I had to resort to save scumming to even stand a chance in my recent Roman campaign (whilst I can win battles I'm massively outnumbered in, it's so laggy that it's pointless to even try, the game moves like treacle and I'd waste four hours in a single fight).

I've never had a problem with massive full stack battles in vanilla Rome 2 or Attila (sometimes with Warhammer) but I guess my rig still isn't powerful enough to fight giant ultra sized battles in DEI. Sigh.

Any thoughts on my specs and what are the recommended specs for DEI? (I've also noticed that if I select medium unit sizes my population pool is still depleted by the amount of men it takes to form an ultra unit. What's going on?)

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.5GHz
RAM: 8192MB RAM
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 16299)
GPU:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Display Memory: 12145 MB
Dedicated Memory: 8081 MB

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Evenin' gents. I've recently upgraded my graphics card to try to get some extra power out of DEI, as the battles were moving at a slow pace, and honestly I had to resort to save scumming to even stand a chance in my recent Roman campaign (whilst I can win battles I'm massively outnumbered in, it's so laggy that it's pointless to even try, the game moves like treacle and I'd waste four hours in a single fight).

I've never had a problem with massive full stack battles in vanilla Rome 2 or Attila (sometimes with Warhammer) but I guess my rig still isn't powerful enough to fight giant ultra sized battles in DEI. Sigh.

Any thoughts on my specs and what are the recommended specs for DEI? (I've also noticed that if I select medium unit sizes my population pool is still depleted by the amount of men it takes to form an ultra unit. What's going on?)

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.5GHz
RAM: 8192MB RAM
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 16299)
GPU:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Display Memory: 12145 MB
Dedicated Memory: 8081 MB

Hello. Well you could get the grasp from the opening post and the many other posts discussing game's performance here, but I guess I could give you a summary. The game's engine is far from perfect, it lags no matter the GPU's power and that because the game is (wrongly ofc) CPU and NOT GPU hungry. The 4690K was ofc a decent CPU in his time, but now it's almost not enough. Maybe you haven't so much lag in Vanilla game, but I'm sure you will have hangs and slowdowns in bigger battles. A little Overclock since your CPU is a (K) model will help you squeeze a few fps. Your card is a great choice and could play almost 99% of the newest games with 60fps on 1080p, but Rome 2 has engine issues as I have told you. You could certainly use another 8giga of RAM though and also follow the instructions from the opening post to further increase your fps in battles and campaign map too.
Many people play with large or medium unit sizes since, DEI is far more demanding than Vanilla Rome. Now about your population issue, @Dresden will know the answer. I'm positive that DEI was made with Ultra units in mind though, so the population's script maybe is fixed to that.

[WindGuru]

Hello. Well you could get the grasp from the opening post and the many other posts discussing game's performance here, but I guess I could give you a summary. The game's engine is far from perfect, it lags no matter the GPU's power and that because the game is (wrongly ofc) CPU and NOT GPU hungry. The 4690K was ofc a decent CPU in his time, but now it's almost not enough. Maybe you haven't so much lag in Vanilla game, but I'm sure you will have hangs and slowdowns in bigger battles. A little Overclock since your CPU is a (K) model will help you squeeze a few fps. Your card a a great choice and could play almost 99% of the newest games with 60fps on 1080p but Rome 2 has engine issues as I have told you. You could certainly use another 8giga of RAM though and also follow the instructions from the opening post to further increase your fps in battles and campaign map too.
Many people play with marge or medium unit sizes since, DEI is far more demanding than Vanilla Rome. Now about your population issue, @Dresden will know the answer. I'm positive that DEI was made with Ultra units in mind though, so the population's script maybe is fixed to that.

Hail Strategos! I've actually implemeted most of the points you talk about in the first post, it's brilliant advice. Shame that Rome 2 is so badly optimised. I'm a beginner when it comes to upgrading my computer hardware, but thanks for your help in setting out some things I could do. I'll definitely look into upgrading my CPU and RAM (ultra battles are the dream!).

[ScipioTheGreat]

Message me if you need any help. I just upgraded to a 1070 as well( using a eGPU) and even though I’m running it on Windows Bootcamp and using an EFI, which tricks my mac into believing the 1070 is my real graphics card, I’m getting around 60 FPS on very high settings. This along with some simple tweaks to windows and program functions, and I’m running almost anything without a hitch. And about a month ago I was only getting around 15-20 FPS with the lowest settings

Hail Strategos! I've actually implemeted most of the points you talk about in the first post, it's brilliant advice. Shame that Rome 2 is so badly optimised. I'm a beginner when it comes to upgrading my computer hardware, but thanks for your help in setting out some things I could do. I'll definitely look into upgrading my CPU and RAM (ultra battles are the dream!).

Couple of points:

-Don’t use Razr or practically any GameBoosters if you’re CPU is struggling to allocate resources to Rome 2 constantly. Background applications are a huge root of this problem and will cause a lot of the stuttering you’ll see. The tweaks that Razr performs almost never make up for its own RAM requirements to run in the background, and thus makes it quite inefficient. A lot of the edits it makes to add extra FPS are simple setting changes you can do yourself, and with most being permanent you won’t have to repeat the same process every time you login.

-To get the most out of the Xbox disablement, disable all the related services in the services program.

-While you’re there, turn off super fetch as well.

-A lot of players have yielded surprising results from changing the Rome 2’s cpu cores. Access task manager while running the game, go over to processes I believe it is, locate Rome 2 and affinity under it, and disable all cpu cores except one. Test all four of the cpu cores and see which one gives you the best performance enhancement. With the task manager opened up, you can also set the priority of the game to high without the need of the one listed above.

-Dont overclock unless you know what you’re doing. Unless you tweak the right settings. to the right values, you may be doing more harm than good. Let me know if you need some pointers on that.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Hail Strategos! I've actually implemeted most of the points you talk about in the first post, it's brilliant advice. Shame that Rome 2 is so badly optimised. I'm a beginner when it comes to upgrading my computer hardware, but thanks for your help in setting out some things I could do. I'll definitely look into upgrading my CPU and RAM (ultra battles are the dream!).

My pleasure. Feel free to report back for any other issue you may have.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Message me if you need any help. I just upgraded to a 1070 as well( using a eGPU) and even though I’m running it on Windows Bootcamp and using an EFI, which tricks my mac into believing the 1070 is my real graphics card, I’m getting around 60 FPS on very high settings. This along with some simple tweaks to windows and program functions, and I’m running almost anything without a hitch. And about a month ago I was only getting around 15-20 FPS with the lowest settins

Well, 60 solid fps (even with 1080ti) aren't possible. Just zoom in and half your fps are gone. Warscape is so badly written that you can't effectively maintain solid fps throughout any battle on any setting. Guaranteed. I have 4 different setups at home. From middle to extreme high hardware (7700K 5ghz oc, 1080ti, 32giga of RAM). Any experienced gamer of the series could assure you about Warscape's functions and restrictions. Question: Are you actually playing DEI (not Vanilla Rome 2) on a Mac with Bootcamp ? with 60fps on 1080p,Ultra settings ? no offense but I have never seen anything similar.

Couple of points:-Don’t use Razr or practically any GameBoosters if you’re CPU is struggling to allocate resources to Rome 2 constantly. Background applications are a huge root of this problem and will cause a lot of the stuttering you’ll see. The tweaks that Razr performs almost never make up for its own RAM requirements to run in the background, and thus makes it quite inefficient. A lot of the edits it makes to add extra FPS are simple setting changes you can do yourself, and with most being permanent you won’t have to repeat the same process every time you login.

I could agree with that, since I don't usually like Boosters and I prefer my custom edited registry settings for Win 10, but for people who aren't tech savvy, Cortex or SmartClose are very helpful and they usually work, not for every game and setting, but with low to middle systems they are working great. You surely don't expect much help with a high end system, right ? These apps are for middle tier gaming rigs and they just disable automatically background applications,free RAM etc

I suppose you haven't seen that I even provide an auto registry batch file,right ?

-To get the most out of the Xbox disablement, disable all the related services in the services program.

Check the opening post.

-While you’re there, turn off super fetch as well.

It may or may not work. But usually a good advise indeed.

-A lot of players have yielded surprising results from changing the Rome 2’s cpu cores. Access task manager while running the game, go over to processes I believe it is, locate Rome 2 and affinity under it, and disable all cpu cores except one. Test all four of the cpu cores and see which one gives you the best performance enhancement. With the task manager opened up, you can also set the priority of the game to high without the need of the one listed above.

Old trick, doesn't work most of the time. It's something like disable multithread with an I7, but usually people have more fps with multithread enabled. If you have a powerful cpu and the game is optimized. From earlier talks with Rome's 2 Devs and my personal tests, I can tell you that Rome 2 could use more than 4 cores most of the time.

-Dont overclock unless you know what you’re doing. Unless you tweak the right settings. to the right values, you may be doing more harm than good. Let me know if you need some pointers on that.

That's true. But OC with modern hardware is like a walk in the park, you literally need to push only a button most of the time (with above average mobos ofc) I'm always doing it manually almost for 20yrs. Most people aren't experienced enough though, that's why we have guides and videos. Plus Rome 2 is a game hugely affected from CPU OC. You could have over 25 extra fps from a stable 4,8-5ghz OC. Plus I haven't told him to personally OC his pc, I just mentioned that he could certainly gain from it.

PS
I have the feeling that you haven't checked my opening post or most of my posts in this thread. So posting without even reading my OP is actually quite unsettling since I'm a perfectionist.
You do understand that I know what I'm talking about here, right ? I'm not just copy pasting things or advising people without any experience. I'm involved with hardware, custom builds and programming for almost 20 yrs. Since my first Amstrand actually .

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your eagerness to help etc . Anyway thanks for your inputs, that's why I have created this thread. Keep them coming (but first please read the OP).

[ScipioTheGreat]

Didn’t mean to step on your toes here Greek, my post was not intended to compete or take away from the suggestions you have made above, I was just giving him some ideas that myself and many other R2 players have explored to increase performance. Whether they work or not, I can only attest to the effectiveness of some of them, but I’ve seen these points across many forums and other sources with players claiming to see improvements. I apologize for my unsettling post, I will delete once I find a way.


In response to my points, disabling the xbox feature will not actually stop the service from functioning with games many have found, you have to actually disable it under services. This has been answered on Microsofts own site.


As for the super fetch complication, I don’t know why it wouldn’t help, as it frees up resources, but that's just what I've gathered from research.


The priority point was just so he knows how to set it manually for games in the future.


I never said overclocking is difficult to understand or learn, I was just advising him to do some research on the matter because users have done some damage to their setups, and that I was willing to lend a hand if he needed it.


And for my setup, and your disbelief of me running R2 with excellent results. There is no need to question my statement in that manner. Obviously I am actually playing Rome 2 with DEI mods (to make such a response like that is unnecessary and quite surprising that you would question another forum users intellect in such a way when they're just trying to help fellow person out), and I wouldn't lie about my settings... Many people run this game at max settings with a 1070 and surpass my FPS, though some may not be DEI users (I’ve configured my setup to prevent bootcamp from affecting my system functions too much) and it does fluctuate depending on what I do in-game but they average is around that number. If you don’t believe me, just search it. And if you don’t believe all those people, I will provide screen shots, and if you don't believe those, well, come out to Arizona I guess...? [emoji23]

Cheers

-

[ltsweeting]

Not sure if this is a common issue or not but I have a real hard time playing custom or historical battles with DeI activated. Before anyone asks: I know it is DeI because I've tested with all my mods in different combinations and it only happens when DeI is active. Anyway, during custom and historical battles I get really bad fps drops for pretty much the entirety of the battle. Even just loading them up takes a long time and with custom battles I usually have to crtl+alt+del and end the entire task because it can get so bad sometimes that the map wont load at all and I get stuck on a black screen or it freezes as the camera begins to pan in on the battle map. The bizarre thing about it is this never happens when playing battles during a campaign. I can even load into and play battles from the campaign with many more units than I'll try with in a custom game and I won't have a problem at all. I've made all the adjustments from the original post in this thread which are applicable for me. I'm just really curious as to what it could be with my DeI which causes this trouble for customs and historicals.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Not sure if this is a common issue or not but I have a real hard time playing custom or historical battles with DeI activated. Before anyone asks: I know it is DeI because I've tested with all my mods in different combinations and it only happens when DeI is active. Anyway, during custom and historical battles I get really bad fps drops for pretty much the entirety of the battle. Even just loading them up takes a long time and with custom battles I usually have to crtl+alt+del and end the entire task because it can get so bad sometimes that the map wont load at all and I get stuck on a black screen or it freezes as the camera begins to pan in on the battle map. The bizarre thing about it is this never happens when playing battles during a campaign. I can even load into and play battles from the campaign with many more units than I'll try with in a custom game and I won't have a problem at all. I've made all the adjustments from the original post in this thread which are applicable for me. I'm just really curious as to what it could be with my DeI which causes this trouble for customs and historicals.

I'll have to search it a bit buddy.



---------------------------------------------

And for my setup, and your disbelief of me running R2 with excellent results. There is no need to question my statement in that manner. Obviously I am actually playing Rome 2 with DEI mods (to make such a response like that is unnecessary and quite surprising that you would question another forum users intellect in such a way when they're just trying to help fellow person out), and I wouldn't lie about my settings... Many people run this game at max settings with a 1070 and surpass my FPS, though some may not be DEI users (I’ve configured my setup to prevent bootcamp from affecting my system functions too much) and it does fluctuate depending on what I do in-game but they average is around that number. If you don’t believe me, just search it. And if you don’t believe all those people, I will provide screen shots, and if you don't believe those, well, come out to Arizona I guess...? [emoji23]

Cheers
-

I think you totally misunderstood my point mate. I was just shocked. I never said you lied and surely haven't questioned your intellect. Ι'm sorry if you felt that way. Well,I also have a 1070gtx Strix (sli) on my second pc and I know exactly how it performs. I also do benches for Tech sites, so I'm very familiar with how each hardware part performs with various games. The point is that the game is very CPU hungry and a Mac is not used to run CPU demanding games. I have higlited something you said and that's the key word, NOT DEI users. DEI is something completely different from Vanilla performance wise. In Vanilla many users could have 120fps and in DEI they could get 30fps ,that's the problem. DEI is far more demanding due to complexity of its textures. So I can't see how you could run DEI full Ultra settings on 1080p resolution with a laptop's hardware. I haven't seen anyone doing it since I started playing Rome 2. If you're playing with small units and medium settings then yes why not, but again the fps won't be stable as that's how the engine works (unstably).

Didn’t mean to step on your toes here Greek, my post was not intended to compete or take away from the suggestions you have made above, I was just giving him some ideas that myself and many other R2 players have explored to increase performance. Whether they work or not, I can only attest to the effectiveness of some of them, but I’ve seen these points across many forums and other sources with players claiming to see improvements. I apologize for my unsettling post, I will delete once I find a way.

No need to delete anything buddy, we're cool here and we surely don't silence our users.
I appreciate your inputs and I'm encouraging you to do it freely anytime.