Empire Total War - The Frustration

So Ive appealed to this forum a few times now complaining about the stuttering campaign map and each time no solutions came up. Well after that I kind of gave up but then found that using the grab and scroll button on the mouse made the stutter something minor to worry about. Well knowing that I decided to finally start playing and did. I started the Warpath campaign and was having a decent time learning the new stuff and how to work the game and then...after about an hour...HUGE SLOWDOWN. I dont understand. I have a good freaking rig...why the hell is there a problem?

My specs:

CPU: Q6600 OCed @ 3.2GHz

RAM: 4GB

Videocard: GTX 260 Core 216

OS: Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

I mean I know there was a memory leak problem and all those damn bugs but I figured Id have an okay time. I mean its just the Warpath Campaign for gods sake. And for the record - god its a boring campaign. I hate dealing with the Indian tech. I have yet to delve into a grand campaign - and havent since I got it cuz of the performance problems - but I dont know if it would be any better. I mean - Is there something wrong with my computer or with the game? Should I just give up and just stop constantly uninstalling and reinstalling the game praying I get some fun out of it? Ive spent so long trying to actually play the game I paid for but man am I failing. I love managing economies and resources and armies and such but this just sucks. lol.

Any time you siege a walled city and breach the walls, the game slows to a crawl due to pathfinding issues. The idiotic AI issues 1,000s of contradictory orders in milliseconds and overwhelms the system. Best to avoid breaching walls altogether.

Further, there is sometimes a long pause and delay when selecting fleets from the campaign map. Not much you can do about it though.

Any time you siege a walled city and breach the walls, the game slows to a crawl due to pathfinding issues. The idiotic AI issues 1,000s of contradictory orders in milliseconds and overwhelms the system. Best to avoid breaching walls altogether.

Further, there is sometimes a long pause and delay when selecting fleets from the campaign map. Not much you can do about it though.

bogaty

You might want to check out Darthmod. I believe it fixes the memory leaks and slowdown issues. Adds better AI, larger units, better effects/sounds and damage.

You might want to check out Darthmod. I believe it fixes the memory leaks and slowdown issues. Adds better AI, larger units, better effects/sounds and damage.

soldine

Yea, it adds many new features as well. HUGE improvement to the game.

Yea, it adds many new features as well. HUGE improvement to the game.

soldine

You can always download the submod which reverts the unit scale back to normal. Though I really didnt notice much of a performance impact at all. Unless you turn the added smoke textures on full detail. Trust me, download it, try it. You can very easily customize it to the performance you want. Youl be playing a better version of ETW, AI thinks and doesnt spam commands. I also noticed the huge improvement in the way of random slowdowns and such. Now i can actually select a full fleet without waiting 30 seconds for the game to catch up, and ive got a brand new gaming pc.

You can always download the submod which reverts the unit scale back to normal. Though I really didnt notice much of a performance impact at all. Unless you turn the added smoke textures on full detail. Trust me, download it, try it. You can very easily customize it to the performance you want. Youl be playing a better version of ETW, AI thinks and doesnt spam commands. I also noticed the huge improvement in the way of random slowdowns and such. Now i can actually select a full fleet without waiting 30 seconds for the game to catch up, and ive got a brand new gaming pc.

soldine

Its not top of the line but it does its job:

i5 750 quad 3.44 Ghz

8GB DDR3 Kingston RAM

Ati Sapphire 5770 1GB

cost roughly $1000 CAD. I have no trouble with playing all current games on highest settings 1680 x 1050 - 1920 x 1080. Including Crysis.

Empire and Napoleon are both horribly optimised.

Darthmod doesn't do anything to fix the slowdown issues caused by wall breaches.