Medieval 2 Total War hiccups, why?

[Eucharistadorer]

I just downloaded the demo for Medieval 2 Total War, and with everything maxed, I'm getting 10 fps and things are stuttering in the larger battle on the demo. What would be causing this, my gfx card? This shouldn't be happening, to my knowledge, on a system such as mine. (system in sig) Thanks

If anyone plays that is....

 

[zooairz]

Euch,

Have you gone through and reduced your graphic requirements in the game to see if it is truly video dependent?

Have you tried re-installing?

I have an older ATI x800xt on a PD30, 3.0Gb (not c2d) and it runs fine at my monitor's resolution. I do however, have most of the settings at medium and not a lot of the eye candy on.

For what it is worth, I have another system that it (full game, not demo) runs fairly well on with Nvidia cards but they have their own issues.

I assume you have 3gb of ram because it was available, Win 32bit OS's can only use 2.3 gb of ram. I don't care, that is just so you know.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

Reinstalling what, the game? It's a demo.

For the graphics requirements, I shouldn't have to reduce them, because F.E.A.R and Oblivion run fine on max, but this one doesn't. Someone told me it's because it's a demo and might not be optimized, but I find that hard to believe. The mechanics and graphics of the game are pretty much the same.

Ya, that's why I have 3gb, but I thought XP could recognize 3 gigs?

 

[Mr Techguy]

I had problems with my game too. Seems that having my PCIe slots over clocked to 125mhz was the problem. I backed them down to 100MHZ and now the game never crashes.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

And that helps me how?

 

[cpburns]

Windows 32-bit OSes do indeed recognize your full 3GB likely. The more devices you have installed in your machine which require memory addressing space, aka DMA and IRQ's, the less memory you can use overall. So take the address space requirments of all your components and subtract them out of 2^32 (4.3billion, aka 4GB) and that's how much space you have for physical memory. Windows XP was built back when 4GB of memory was out of sight for the desktop market. Its nature as a 32bit OS requires that devices use memory addressing space at the top end of the address range for device access.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

Do you have any input on my M2TW problem?

 

[cafuddled]

I too have an X800 XT PE and run the game at 1680X1050 with a 3500+ and 2GB’s of DDR400 memory. The games settings are all set to maximum bar the shadows and I get about 30FPS with a drop to about 20 if the battle gets big enough. That’s also with the unit count set to maximum.

It seems like it most likely is a case of the demo not being optimised to an extent that new hardware run the game just as well as Steven Hawkins would run from a stampede of raging bulls.

 

[uberman]

Large battles do really draw on the hardware .I don't have the game installed at the moment but I believe there is an option to sync the models which may help.Also being a demo and therefore incomplete game,there may be patches for the full version that adress some of those issues.

 

[cafuddled]

As I said I had everything up max and my hardware is a generation before his so doing things with the settings wont work. He either needs to sort out a hardware/software problem he has with his PC or he needs to try the full game to see if the demo is the problem. Oh just a side not, you have checked to see if your graphics settings (driver side) have not been set to default on 'quality' thus making your game run with 6X AA and 16X AF?

 

[Eucharistadorer]

I'll check, what difference does it make?

So the primary culprit is that it's probably the demo not being optimized?

 

[uberman]

Sounds plausible.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

But you'd think it wouldn't do that?

 

[Inferno106]

I get the same problem when battles get REALLY big (4500+ men on the field).

First make sure your graphics drivers are up to date.

Second, Medieval 2 Total War had two versions of the demo released. The first version was released early and buggy and did not perform well. It was replaced a few weeks later with an updated version that was much better. So, make sure you have the newest version of the demo (although, I doubt you can even still get the bad version). And just generally speaking, demos are not as good as the end result so there could have been more optimization after the demos were released that is in the full game.

Also, Medieval 2 Total War was made before dual core or quad core gaming really got off the ground so, it is possible, that all the units on screen at once are not optimized for a multi-core system. For example, Supreme Commander can have hundreds of units, but it is optimized for that to work with dual/quad cores. Medieval 2 Total War may not be.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

But even one core of a Core 2 duo is faster than most single cores, to my knowledge. So that shouldn't be it. And plus, I set affinity to one core, and I still got the same results.

The battles on the demo aren't really all that big, so my system-as high as it is-shouldn't be getting any slow downs. What are your rigs specs? Just out of curiosity.

I had to turn everything down to low, to the point where I couldn't even see the guys arrows firing just to get to 25-30 fps. Ugh...this is pathetic. I think it's the demo not being optimized, because my rig can handle games that are this graphically intensive at 40 fps, without any stutters and with everything maxed. Like Oblivion and FEAR.

Does everyone agree with me?

 

[uberman]

It's a good game and worth getting the full version.Get it, update it,then you will know.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

But that's such an unknown, I don't want to get it and then find out it doesn't work for some reason. But hey, it's worth a shot, I'll wait till it hits 30$ though.

 

[prolfe]

And that helps me how?

Dude, you're a punk. In case you haven't noticed, the world does not revolve around you. There are actually other people on this forum, and maybe that tip (about the PCIE overclocking) will help one of them.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

Dude, shutup. All I did was ask him a simple question. You aren't even a moderator/administator, so what are you doing trying to butt in??? Don't come barging in here like you are, calling me names and telling me what I can and can't do. You got a problem with what I said, take it up with one of them.

This is my thread, if they have a question pertaining to their game/computer, they shouldn't just hijack a thread-they can start their own. There is a thing called thread hijacking you know........

Give me a break.

 

[llama_man]

Actually, since your rig stats don't state whether you're running at stock or overclocking, his post might have been of help to you. Instead, of politely telling him that you weren't overclocking, you made a smart-*** sarcastic remark to belittle him.

There is a thing called being a spoilt brat, you know?

I'll only give you what you earn. You're a long way short of respect, let alone a break.

 

[uberman]

I have Rome Total War and I love it.It's very similar and could be had probably for 30$ or less.Yor rig should play these games fine.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

Actually, since your rig stats don't state whether you're running at stock or overclocking, his post might have been of help to you. Instead, of politely telling him that you weren't overclocking, you made a smart-*** sarcastic remark to belittle him.

There is a thing called being a spoilt brat, you know?

I'll only give you what you earn. You're a long way short of respect, let alone a break.

Man people on this forum are getting to be jerky. No, I'm not overclocking, why would my cpu be running at 2.4 ghz if I was?? And my ram at 800mhz, I would have stated that. Get off my back already.

So I'm a spoilt brat now am I, how in the **** do you know that???!!! Don't frickin judge me, you don't even know who I am. So cut the crap, say something relevant to the topic, or don't say anything at all! Sheesh...

Uberman, I'm confused, what were you getting at?

 

[llama_man]

I called you a spoilt brat because you've come here asking for help, and anyone who's offered help that hasn't been to your liking or approval has been treated with sarcasm or abuse. Remember that people are taking the time to post to try and HELP YOU. You should show a little gratitude. Your posts give the impression that you think the whole world revolves around you, and that everyone should devote their every waking hour to solving your problems, and should they not succeed then you are entitled to tear them off a strip. This would make you a spoilt brat.

If their suggestions aren't relevant, just ignore them or politely point out why it doesn't apply in your case. Don't start posting sarcastic put-downs or no-one will help you at all.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you don't have much experience posting on forums. I'd suggest that next time you type something sarcastic in what you think is a friendly way, you take 5 seconds to reread your post and think about whether it could be misinterpreted as an insult or a put-down.

 

[uberman]

I was just mentioning that Rome Total War is basically the same game and if you want to try that out and your machine runs it okay(which it should)then Medieval should run fine as well.Your machine specs are all good so I really would suspect problems with the demo and not your hardware.

 

[Eucharistadorer]

I called you a spoilt brat because you've come here asking for help, and anyone who's offered help that hasn't been to your liking or approval has been treated with sarcasm or abuse. Remember that people are taking the time to post to try and HELP YOU. You should show a little gratitude. Your posts give the impression that you think the whole world revolves around you, and that everyone should devote their every waking hour to solving your problems, and should they not succeed then you are entitled to tear them off a strip. This would make you a spoilt brat.

If their suggestions aren't relevant, just ignore them or politely point out why it doesn't apply in your case. Don't start posting sarcastic put-downs or no-one will help you at all.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you don't have much experience posting on forums. I'd suggest that next time you type something sarcastic in what you think is a friendly way, you take 5 seconds to reread your post and think about whether it could be misinterpreted as an insult or a put-down.

Other than my third post on this thread, who in the hek did I treat with sacrcasm and abuse? Please give me a quote.

And also, I know how to post on forums. I post one sarchastic remark and all of a sudden I'm deemed to be acting like a spoilt brat or that I don't know how to post on forums? Give me a break.