Rome Total War and 6600GT

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-20 10:14pm

Currently using a AMD64 3400+ PC with 512 MB of RAM and an MSI 6600GT 128MB graphics card but I seem to have issues with my frame rate while running RTW (latest version). Regardless of whatever graphical settings I make on RTW, or changes in the overclocking of my GPU my frame rate seems to be stuck at around 32 FPS (avg) on the world map and 20 (avg) on the battle map. I do not have this problem with other games. Does anyone know what might be the issue?

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2005-08-20 10:19pm

I use an overclocked 6600GT, and I get very variable framerates, though for me, it's mostly CPU dependent, as I have a rather low end one (2600+ XP).
But I'd say 25 is average for me.

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-20 10:33pm

The thing which puzzles me is that the frame rate does not really change when I enable the overclocking on my GPU (550/990). I'll maybe get a spike here and there but it will always settle back to the same rate as what it would without the overclocking.

RedWizard · Post by **RedWizard** » 2005-08-20 10:51pm

Do you have vsync on?

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-20 11:08pm

I would suppose desync is the equivalent of vsync?

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2005-08-20 11:24pm

The Jester wrote:I would suppose desync is the equivalent of vsync?

Er no. Vysnc basically locks in your framerate to a portion of your monitor's refresh rate. But check in your video card control panel (right click on an empty space in your desktop, go down to Nvidia display, and check your options.)

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-20 11:33pm

I have vsync switched off under the display settings. I couldn't find it under RTW preferences.txt so thought desync might have been what I was looking for (as most games have vsync listed in their options).

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-08-20 11:35pm

One of my systems is a 6600GT, and I run with vsync and most detail on high in 10x8. I don't get any significant slowdown. What's your paging file situation? My 6600 system is similar to yours, apart from 3400/3600 and 512Mb/2048Mb.

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-20 11:51pm

768-1536MB

The big puzzler for me is that I can't increase the frame rate by changing the resolution, detail or effects. I would suppose that would indicate that there is a bottleneck somewhere, but I'm confused as to whereabouts especially when I have Silent Hunter III running as smooth as silk.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-08-21 01:14am

Very odd, just as an aside, what is your troop scale? For the battlemap, the number of little men on the field makes a huge difference. Also, check for most up to date drivers, patches, etc.

Also, always check the maker's website for support details first. If you haven't already check http://activision.custhelp.com
There's 10 pages of support stuff which I'd rather not poke through, but take a look, you might find what you are looking for there.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-08-21 04:58am

Check your RAM, the CPU looks fine so I'm inclined to look at the RAM.

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-21 07:16am

InnocentBystander wrote:Very odd, just as an aside, what is your troop scale? For the battlemap, the number of little men on the field makes a huge difference. Also, check for most up to date drivers, patches, etc.

Makes no real difference. Scaling back does not improve anything, so far as I've noticed.

Ace Pace wrote:Check your RAM, the CPU looks fine so I'm inclined to look at the RAM.

I will agree that my RAM is a little low and is the next the on my agenda to upgrade, but I still find odd that I have other games running so well and this one seems a little sluggish, though I remember reading that Rome was more intensive on CPU and RAM than the graphics card. Still for a game that lists 256 MB of RAM on the box I would expect that it would be somehow possible to pump the frame rate up to a solid, if not excellent, level by simply scaling back on all the graphical effects and resolution. This is just not the case.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-08-21 11:28am

Thats MINIMUM RAM, which you should allways ignore

The RAM needs go up as number of units goes up, try lowering unit size to small and see if that helps.

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-21 12:01pm

I'm aware that it is minimum. My point being is that I'm not going to go out and buy more RAM unless I'm reasonably certain that it will improve performance. So far this is the only game with which this issue exists.

And yes, I have tried decreasing the unit sizes. I mentioned so earlier.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-08-21 12:05pm

Ah, my bad, I missed that.

What kind of RAM? DDR 3-3-3? Also, is the problem less when you lower resolutions or anything like that?

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-21 01:41pm

512 MB DDR PC3200.

Resolution change has little to no effect.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-08-21 01:42pm

This is puzzling. You have the latest drivers and etc.? Defragged hard drive?

Akaramu Shinja · Post by **Akaramu Shinja** » 2005-08-21 02:13pm

Are you running something that would limit your framerare (stupid question I know) like fraps or some such. Have you tried removing your video drivers and installing latest again to be sure any settings were restored to default? Does this only happen in RTW? Are you running a mod? As for the ram, I run RTW full everything and it still doesn't use up to 512mb, probably peaks around 300.

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-21 03:08pm

Ace Pace wrote: This is puzzling. You have the latest drivers and etc.? Defragged hard drive?

I've tried the 77.77 NVidia driver along with the MSI's 76.45 driver. No difference.

Hard drive is relatively unfragmented.

Akaramu Shinja wrote:Are you running something that would limit your framerare (stupid question I know) like fraps or some such. Have you tried removing your video drivers and installing latest again to be sure any settings were restored to default? Does this only happen in RTW? Are you running a mod? As for the ram, I run RTW full everything and it still doesn't use up to 512mb, probably peaks around 300.

I'm running Fraps to analyse the changes in frame rates, yes.

Haven't tried an actual uninstall but have installed multiple different drivers. Issue is mainly with RTW. KOTOR does strange things (very similar, sometimes it wants to run at about 2 fps regardless of any option) but it's not a big concern of mine.

No mods with RTW.

Akaramu Shinja · Post by **Akaramu Shinja** » 2005-08-21 04:31pm

Well for one, multiple drivers without fully removing the previous ones can fuck things up. As for Fraps, when you don't run it does it seem faster? And is there anything while running fraps that does produce high FPS?

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-22 02:46pm

I have since uninstalled and reinstalled my graphics drivers. There has been no changes that I could describe as not being there before when I reinstalled it.

I have performed a more thorough examination and have a little more to add to my description of the problem.

There are no noticeable changes when running fraps as compared to when it is not running except for the fact that I don't seem to notice so much that the frame rate is a little poor.

There does seem to be a threshold level with the frame rate. I can edge up the effects/detail/resolution/unit sizes one by one without seeing any changes but once it reaches a threshold the whole frame rate drops by about 20 fps. Decreasing the level of detail does produce a surge in frame rate but it levels off to pre-alteration level after a second or so.

Currently my best solution is to turn off Fraps and not think about it.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-08-22 04:41pm

It struck me, how would you even notice low FPS in the world map, there's terribly little going on in the way of movement.

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-22 05:06pm

InnocentBystander wrote:It struck me, how would you even notice low FPS in the world map, there's terribly little going on in the way of movement.

When panning the motion is little choppy, especially when moving in and out across the terrain.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-08-22 08:10pm

Jester, I've been wracking my brain but no luck. I had the exact issue you describe ages ago (before the Rome 1.1 patch), and I can't remember what I did to fix it.

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-08-23 05:37am

Well I have changed video cards after RTW was installed. From a silly FX5200 (whose performance is not that much better than what I'm experiencing now).

Does anybody think that reinstalling might have a chance of improving the issue?

As I said, other games seem to work perfectly appart from KOTOR which is a different kettle of fish almost.