Curiously low performance...

[St!gar]

Hi. I'll get straight to the point. I'm experiencing fairly low FPS in this game, which I find curious, seeing as my gaming rig can run the much more graphically intensive Medieval 2 -and Empire Total War games on the highest settings and resolution with very little slowdown, rarely dropping below 30 FPS in even the most insanely massive battles. In your average battle in XIII Century, however, the FPS usually rarely goes above 15 when there's a decent amount of action on-screen, and in one relatively large Custom Battle even went as low as 8 FPS - in other words, unplayable - something I have honestly never experienced in any game I have for as long as I've owned a computer, and that's not even an exaggeration. The FPS seems to drop in particular when there are units in hand-to-hand combat.

So I was wondering if this is a well-known issue with the game? In all the discussions I have read regarding the game on various message boards, I have so far not noticed anyone remarking on the FPS, which leaves me wondering precisely what the deal is. Is it my particular hardware, perhaps? Poor optimization? Is it one graphical feature in particular that tends to induce slowdowns that I should know about?

Just to get it clear; I love XIII Century: Blood of Europe - or, that is, I really want to love it. Because that's what it deserves. If only the Total War games payed that much attention to the gameplay in the battle sequences, we wouldn't be stuck with the mess we have now. Unfortunately, the dizzyingly low performance of this game is the one thing that has prevented me the most from enjoying it. Because of that, I have hardly played it since the day I bought it off Steam, months ago. And that's a shame. And such a waste.

My specs are:

Radeon HD 4870 (Latest driver.)

4.5 GHZ CPU

4GB RAM

Windows XP

Can't remember any more.

Anyways; could anyone kindly shed some light on this, if they have any answers? Any tips on how to improve performance? I have a rig that runs Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2 and Empire: Total War flawlessly on max settings, yet it seems to have met its match with this game, which, honestly, doesn't make sense. :confused:

Thanks in advance.

[mitra]

You already installed the patch 2.2.1?

Try to change the various graphic settings of game to see if the performance change. Seeing what is the parameter which permit the better performance will be possible to now what can be the problem.

[St!gar]

You already installed the patch 2.2.1?

I downloaded XIII Century Gold Edtiton from Steam. Doesn't Steam automatically make sure you have the newest version?

[mitra]

I downloaded XIII Century Gold Edtiton from Steam. Doesn't Steam automatically make sure you have the newest version?


Steam is late, because they are still trying to modify the patch for transform her in "steam-depending exe".

Download here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=110667&postcount=6 (copy and paste patch) ; this free the game from steam interface necessity.

[St!gar]

That broke the game.

I think I did everything correctly - I copied the new folders over the old ones - and now, whenever I choose to start the game, it loads up and I only get a white screen and background music where the title screen should be.

[mitra]

That broke the game.

I think I did everything correctly - I copied the new folders over the old ones - and now, whenever I choose to start the game, it loads up and I only get a white screen and background music where the title screen should be.

Make a cache control over steam (this restore the game to 2.2.0), and try again (you install also the second patch file? shell.2.2.1 is the patch and en.zip is the english translation)

[St!gar]

I did what you suggested, and this time it worked. My game is now updated to 2.2.1. Thanks! It's kind of hard to tell if I notice any difference in performance yet, but I have a question:

On the "Geometry" -tab in the Graphic Options -menu, what's the difference between the "Highest" and "Ultra" -settings?

[mitra]

I did what you suggested, and this time it worked. My game is now updated to 2.2.1. Thanks! It's kind of hard to tell if I notice any difference in performance yet, but I have a question:

On the "Geometry" -tab in the Graphic Options -menu, what's the difference between the "Highest" and "Ultra" -settings?

Ultra is a ameliorate level of post processing the image respect "highest".

[St!gar]

Ultra is a ameliorate level of post processing the image respect "highest".

I don't quite understand what you mean. :confused: Are you saying that it increases the post-processing?

[mitra]

I don't quite understand what you mean. :confused: Are you saying that it increases the post-processing?

Yes something like that; they added for better use the capabilities of the better video cards.

[St!gar]

The reason I'm asking, is that the previous setting in the Geometry-tab is called "Highest". That doesn't make sense. How can something be higher than highest? Is it just a LOD -setting, or something?

[mitra]

The reason I'm asking, is that the previous setting in the Geometry-tab is called "Highest". That doesn't make sense. How can something be higher than highest? Is it just a LOD -setting, or something?

Hightest is the previous "highest", Ultra now is the "highest" level: the game has been always optimized to work with low prerequisites, so now they add a Ultra level which give better graphic for better performance machines

[St!gar]

Oh, it's an option that came with the 2.2.1. -patch?

[mitra]

Oh, it's an option that came with the 2.2.1. -patch?

Yes

[St!gar]

I see. Thanks.

In my most recent experiences, however, it's really hand-to-hand combat that is the biggest resource hog, for some reason. It really is funny. I just played the first English campaign mission; the battle of Evesham, which I'd say is a medium-sized battle. The FPS was just fine, really - mostly in its 30's and 20's, which is quite acceptable in my opinion, as long as the units were just moving around or standing still. Even ranged combat left no particular FPS drop.

But the second units started closing in and fought in hand-to-hand, the FPS instantly took a hit, and rarely went above 15 for the duration of the fighting, usually being less than that. It would get even worse if I started zooming in, for some reason.

I'm wondering why that is the case, to such an extent. Is it because the computer has to do particularly many calculations when this sort of combat goes on? But if that is the issue alone, then why does me zooming in have any effect on it?

I truly don't get it. :confused:

[mitra]

I see. Thanks.

In my most recent experiences, however, it's really hand-to-hand combat that is the biggest resource hog, for some reason. It really is funny. I just played the first English campaign mission; the battle of Evesham, which I'd say is a medium-sized battle. The FPS was just fine, really - mostly in its 30's and 20's, which is quite acceptable in my opinion, as long as the units were just moving around or standing still. Even ranged combat left no particular FPS drop.

But the second units started closing in and fought in hand-to-hand, the FPS instantly took a hit, and rarely went above 15 for the duration of the fighting, usually being less than that. It would get even worse if I started zooming in, for some reason.

I'm wondering why that is the case, to such an extent. Is it because the computer has to do particularly many calculations when this sort of combat goes on? But if that is the issue alone, then why does me zooming in have any effect on it?

I truly don't get it. :confused:

The hand to hand calculation are very heavy, because the fight is calculated "for each soldier" not for unit like in TW, dynamic factors are constantly refreshing; so I think is hard for the graphic follow this dynamic (from max 20 fighting to calculate in TW to 2000 or more single soldiers fights).