Total War Frame rate

gallowaya · 14 Mar 2012 at 15:14

Hi,
I am wondering whether anyone has had issues with frame rates in Empire: total war (I know it isn't a recent game but maybe in the past). Anyway, I have been playing it recently on my newly built gaming rig, and at first all the battles where great, ultra settings no lag.

Then in the middle of a battle to day, no larger than previous ones I experienced ridiculous amounts of lag, I lowered the settings down to medium and still no progress, I checked to see if I had any other demanding programs running and I didn't.
Is there a cache that needs emptying or is it a general problem to the game.

If they are any help my specs are:
2500k (not over clocked)
560ti 2gb
8gb DDR3

Thanks

Swi1ch · 14 Mar 2012 at 15:27

Empire Total War is notorious for it's sketchy performance. I had pretty much exactly the same problems as you.

I'll see if I can remember what I did to fix it.

matt_fsr · 14 Mar 2012 at 16:40

Thats a spec that should be able to handle ETW no problems!

Did you close ETW, and re-open the program itslf? Did that make any difference?

I mainly play the Napoleon expansion, and sometimes get some slowdown and occasional audio glitches, which I suspect is caused by things not being emptied from RAM correctly.

I usually find a save, close, and re-start the program fixes the problem.

Howitzer · 14 Mar 2012 at 17:00

It's an Empire thing lol.

I've had the odd problem like that from release. Sometimes it's a bit stuttery, other times it flows like water!

I've never found any settings/programs/restarts etc even drivers or anything that was deffinately effecting it. It's pretty much random.

It's a shame, but I still play it all the time. Awesome game!

gallowaya · 14 Mar 2012 at 17:15

I had a further look on-line and It seems that if you destroy a wall on a fort (which i did) during a siege the AI goes nuts and repeatedly issues directions to find another path for there troops slowing it down. Bad programming apparently.

Swi1ch · 14 Mar 2012 at 18:13

My suggestion is to search for DarthMod Empire. It has several versions, the most basic being a huge performance/bug overhaul. The biggest and best version has a significant number of big changes, such as accurate unit size so your infantry companies will now number 600+ instead of a pathetic 100 or so.

I don't remember the other modifications it does entirely, but stuff like not allowing light cavalry to charge the front of a steady, well trained veteran unit and just smash it up, they now get slaughtered instead (Like they would).

I really recommend it. With all the bells and whistles it makes for some amazing battles, especially with the smoke and 'battle graphic' updates. Watching 1000+ ranked muskets firing at once and the resultant smoke cloud is amazing.