Windows 11 & Total War (specifically Medieval II)

**Frunk** · April 19, 2022, 09:27 AM

Hi forum,

Hope you've all been well. I've been away for quite a while but am hopefully going to be back sometime soon. A couple of years ago my modding project stalled when my 8-year old Alienware laptop died. I replaced it with a fairly heavily kitted out Dell XPS, which, after only about 20 months, suffered a motherboard failure, and I foolishly did not opt for the extended service period. I won't make that mistake ever again on anything like a phone or a laptop as I've had too much bad luck with them in recent years.

The XPS death is something I will likely take to Consumer Affairs in my country as it's a pretty poor lifespan for such an expensive device (over $4,500 AUD). Dell, in between ignoring me, tells me they do not have the part(s) available to do a repair. I believe them; I know parts are scarce, but I still a) think it's crap the laptop died so quickly and b) need a PC urgently for my work (and, you know, my life

). I'll let you guys know how both the contact with Dell and the inquiry with Consumer Affairs goes, down the track, if you're interested, but it's not the story of this thread really.

tl;dr bit:

What are your thoughts on Windows 11 for gaming? Specifically, older games like Medieval II: Total War...

Which is basically the only game I play (

) when I get the chance to game at all without the guilt of feeling I should be doing something more productive, which is sadly the story of me for the past 3 years, at least. I'd like to play other TW games and generally-speaking other non-TW "modern" games as well.

I always wanted to maybe build my own PC. Well, I figured now is as good as ever, and I've decided on a parts list I'm pretty excited about, having spent the past 3 weeks since my XPS died, almost non-stop watching YouTube reviews, tutorials, reading tech articles and what-have-you to educate myself on just what the hell all these parts are and which ones I should pick. As a matter of fact, I consider myself pretty educated, now.

I can get into my build if anyone is interested (I sometimes worry about coming off 'braggy' when it comes to things like expensive PCs), but the most relevant thing for today's topic is my choice of an Intel Core-i7 12700K, which some of you may know as one of the new (as of Nov 2021 IINM) Alder Lake CPU series from that manufacturer. I have somewhat heard that Windows 11 is the preferred operating system for Alder Lake CPUs due to Windows 11 being developed to support the new 'Thread Director' of Alder Lake CPUs. In layman's terms, the Thread Director is just another way for the CPU to perform efficiently. The CPUs are still able to be used with Windows 10, but users may not receive the full benefits. Hence, my question whether W11 might be worth avoiding for my new computer. I think I could possibly install W10 on a separate boot device, as an option as well.

tl;dr bit:

Have you experienced/heard of any issues surrounding playing TW games on Windows 11, more so than what we already experienced on Windows 10? (A subject I published my own trouble-shooting thread on, here on TWC.)

Thanks in advance. Good to be kind of "back", and hopefully will talk more with you all soon.

Frunk

**z3n** · April 19, 2022, 10:16 AM

Windows 11 is horrible, generally if a good windows version like windows 10 or windows 7 comes out, the next which follows has serious issues (windows 8 and windows 11).

I gave it a chance but it had far too many problems e.g. UI lag, crashes, general slow speed (on a high end desktop), sound problems, driver issues with no gsync support, the list goes on. Basically windows 10 is the stable and better choice currently. Maybe they'll eventually fix the issues but I wouldn't take the chance tight now.

**♔Greek Strategos♔** · April 19, 2022, 10:51 AM

Hey, Frunk!
It's been awhile!
I hope you're doing well

I've tested Win11 on 4 different machines (both intel-nvidia and Ryzen-ati based) My experience is basically what z3n already said. I wouldn't suggest them atm, for any kind of work, gaming or every day use. I'm personally using Win 10 custom Ltsc, since Win 10 early release, but you can just get the latest clean update of Win 10 Pro. They're quick and stable.

Now if you want to talk about hardware, my suggestion is to wait for Am5. Tech reviewers agree that 5800X3d is a nice implementation, but not groundbreaking. Am5 will probably be a bigger and more clever grab, than the current Amd choices. Tbh, I'm personally more into Intel based systems, due to their stability and much less issues. But evidently Amd is doing big steps forward. 12700K is also an amazing gaming CPU and actually cheaper than 12900K or 5800X3d. So if you plan to use your PC for gaming and everyday use, just grab the 12700K and you won't regret it. You'll also see no real time difference, by using the thread director on Win 10, instead of Win 11. It's more like a marketing thing,for making users switch to Win 11.

If you also want to talk about GPUs or other hardware possible suggestions, just let me know.

PS
Also don't waste money on DDR5. You'll see NO difference in everyday use.

**Gigantus** · April 19, 2022, 12:32 PM

By the time I got a handle on my win11 upgrade to actually try playing M2TW I had already resolved to roll back. Pretty much a noob when it comes to hardware, but I doubt that you can do much wrong when it comes to running this 32bit application - other then trying to use hardware like monitors with ridiculous resolutions, but I think someone has figured out by now how to get 4K in 2*1mile resolution to work with the game

**♔Greek Strategos♔** · April 20, 2022, 06:21 AM

Originally Posted by Gigantus

By the time I got a handle on my win11 upgrade to actually try playing M2TW I had already resolved to roll back. Pretty much a noob when it comes to hardware, but I doubt that you can do much wrong when it comes to running this 32bit application - other then trying to use hardware like monitors with ridiculous resolutions, but I think someone has figured out by now how to get 4K in 2*1mile resolution to work with the game

Don't forget the 4GB patch though

**Gigantus** · April 20, 2022, 07:41 AM

Kind of the silver bullet for 32 bit applications - allowing access to another 2GB RAM. Nothing you can do wrong with that, as of late it's on the top of my list of stuff to do to get M2TW working 'better'. The other approach is here, the name is a tad misleading, not originally by me.

**♔Greek Strategos♔** · April 20, 2022, 10:54 AM

Originally Posted by Gigantus

Kind of the silver bullet for 32 bit applications - allowing access to another 2GB RAM. Nothing you can do wrong with that, as of late it's on the top of my list of stuff to do to get M2TW working 'better'. The other approach is here, the name is a tad misleading, not originally by me.

Well, Med 2 is all around poorly optimized (especially on newer machines) no matter the memory access thingy and I remember how I was constantly trying to find ways to alleviate that, back in the day.
Thanks for the link

PS
If you're gaming on Win 10, you'll definitely want to disable full screen optimizations as well and ofc Game Mode (for every game) which was a disastrous implementation. You can also try setting Hyper-threading to off or run the game with fewer physical cores. Especially if you have an Intel CPU (more power on single-threaded applications).

**Gigantus** · April 20, 2022, 11:31 AM

Most mods already set the game to windowed mode via the CFG file as it makes the game more stable, especially if you do alt-tabbing, in some cases however it requires the user to manually set the in game resolution to at least the same values as the desktop resolution to avoid actual windows instead of full screen.

Code:

[video]
windowed = 1                           # allows for easy Alt+Tab, requires game video resolution the size of desktop or larger
borderless_window = 1                  # removes border from windowed mode
battle_resolution = 1920 1080          # enter your desktop resolution
campaign_resolution = 1920 1080        # enter your desktop resolution

And I have been trying to promote the use of core priority assignment via the BAT file, see example from Bare Geomod as the game only uses one core:

Code:

@echo off
title Gig's Universal Batch file
cd ..\..
IF EXIST kingdoms.exe (start /affinity 1 /high kingdoms.exe @%0\..\Configuration.cfg) ELSE (
IF EXIST medieval2.exe (start /affinity 1 /high medieval2.exe @%0\..\Configuration.cfg) ELSE (
    echo.
    echo ERROR: Cannot find the M2TW or Kingdoms executable.
    echo You probably installed Bare Geomod into the wrong folder.
    echo.
    pause
  )
)

**♔Greek Strategos♔** · April 20, 2022, 12:17 PM

That's great! I was also experimenting with various batch files (still have a few for Attila and Rome 2 here on TWC) back then. It's weird that some games perform terribly when in window mode and others run far smoother. I guess it's because of the Vsync different implementations. For example Paradox's CK3 has a fake full-screen which is actually windowed but the call it full, so the game performs terribly with G-Sync and Free-Sync monitors. Tbh Paradox V-Sync was always kinda ''buggy''. Not sure how it plays with Med 2 though. Last time I touched it, I was 23-24.
Have you found a solution for the error?

PS
I have collected lots of optimization tips, most of them for modern games, but applicable to older games as well. Already posted some of them here on TWC, for Rome 2 and Attila, as I remember.
We should compare notes or compile a mega performance guide, at some point

**Gigantus** · April 20, 2022, 12:42 PM

I haven't really gone beyond the 'fixes' that can be applied directly in the game - eg no hardware dependent\specialized changes. The BAT file is actually the original, disk version way to start a mod, I simply 'fleshed it out' a bit and made it steam version compatible. It can also be applied to RTW instead of the cumbersome short cut definition.