Empire: Total War

[wh3resmycar]

hey, been a long time since i last posted here. been doing a lot of stuffs lately.

anyway. ive seen a review of this game, my most eagerly awaited game of the year, empire:total war. heres the review.

ive been gearing up my rig to hopefully get the perfect experience out of this game. i swapped out my 1 month old 4850 to a brand new 4870 1gb, and bought a 1080p lcd monitor.

so any of you guys have tried this game yet? how good does it perform on your rig?

 

[Captainhero]

Havent tried it yet but bought from amazon just now, hoping it arrives tomorrow. Been checking the reviews etc and it looks cool. Gonna be so good playing multiplayer for real rather than across hamachi network (I usually get d1cked tho when I play so not expecting any changes there).
I got a 22" samsung monitor, a 4870 and lotsa ram, hoping I can play with all the shiny settings turned on....

 

[crusoe74]

It's not out to until Friday here in the UK, but you can download a demo through Steam which has both land and sea battles to try.

 

[klsdivan]

Is out in the UK tomorrow, I have my copy but am waiting for Steam to allow me to install it tomorrow.

 

[sefit]

I downloaded only demo from Steam and the game seems to be GREAT (as predecessors, Medieval 2 still on my HD).
Very good optimization...I still have my old GPU (8800GT, cause GTX 295 is permanently out of stock...waiting 2 weeks now...ergghh) but it moves very well. 22inch monitor at 1650x1080 with 8800GT and 4 GB DDR2...ultra quality, largest units, AA 4x, AF 16x I switched off only SSAO, nothing else (ambient light around shadows, this is really GPU killer) and good to go. In FRAPS something like 25+ fps in ground battles, on water pretty much same and never went under 20. Taking into account that this game is RTS not FPS, that’s good (30 fps is smooth). 4870 1GB congratulation ... turn it on!!! I want my GTX 295 and 26inch Samsung NOW!!!

 

[UNICOMPLEX]

Im not sure if to go out and buy this yet as my girlfriend said something about buying this for me and she tends to order things online instead of going down to a local gaming store, so it could arrive tomorrow or in a few days,
Also user sefit Im not sure where your from but the 295 GTX is in a few stores in the UK last time I looked SCAN computers had some in and theres also some on eBAY, and I was thinking the same as you and upgrading my graphics card but my old 8800GTX seemed to run the demo with no problems.

 

[sefit]

to UNICOMPLEX
I live in Belgium (Bruxelles) but I am not buying anything here...very overpriced. Nice spot for PC components is Aachen (Germany), good prices and nice availability, but not in case of GTX 295. I also checked some local store in Köln or Düsseldorf but GTX 295 is out of stock. Demand is enormous. If you are form London you could tell me please some local store(s) where I can buy it. I will really appreciate it. My friend is going there soon and he can do it for me. I need local „stone“ store (not online). I have chance to buy without VAT but online sale is too complicated in this respect.

I am upgrading because 8800GT is showing its age but for Empire is still OK. I finished both demo battles yesterday and without SSAO on ultra it is really smooth. 8800GTX is even faster so you are good to go. I personally think that this was best card ever…somebody who bought it in summer 2006 can still play games at 1650x1080 on very high…nice.

 

[UNICOMPLEX]

to sefit.
Well Im not from London but I know theres a store called YoYoTech.co.uk on 30 Windmill Street Off Tottenham Court Road LONDON W1T 2JL there you can just walk in and buy straight from there store, I just checked and they have one in, its a Zotac GTX 295 priced at £493.35 but you said you can buy this without the VAT ? so if you did that it would be £429.00, Im not sure if this is cheap compared to what you would pay over there.
Also on there site it says you can pre order and pick up later so thats one thing to consider.
Later I will be able to ask a friend if he know any more places so I will try and get back to you.
But London is a mighty big place and Im 100% sure theres alot of places that will have this card.

 

[sefit]

To UNICOMPLEX
Thanx appreciate it, but quite expensive for Zotac, in Germany I can have the same one for 350£ (390€) but unfortunately out of stock. I tried to google some stores in London but always hit some online shop so it’s much better to turn upon “insiders” who know the ambiance. I really appreciate every help. Friend of mine is going there for Metallica concert in two weeks (I think) and before he will spend most time in downtown …I don’t want to send him somewhere to Sutton or Havering when not inevitable (300£ deal = fairy tale issue))

 

[MxM]

I do not know what is in the demo, but I have 8800GTX and full game, and I had to lower the graphic presets to high and even medium in campaign battles. The battles in skirmish though are much smoother though... I have Core2 Duo clocked at 2.7 and 3GB memory, so this can not be an issue here.

 

[UNICOMPLEX]

OK sefit will see my friend in the morning and ask him for more places in london,

As for the demo of EMPRIES I think the settings were set at medium, because one thing I noticed about the demo was that the unit size would not go to ultra, even if you selected it in the options, so Im not sure of the amount of men you can have in a unit if you select Ultra, if anyone as got the game what is the max on the solders when set to ultra ? 200 ?

 

[Captainhero]

Bah I installed last night and steam started patching, the servers were so overloaded I was still patching this morning (or my $hitty talktalk connection is to blame). I want to Play!!!

 

[sefit]

To UNICOMPLEX
Thanx I appreciate it very much

To mxm
You scared me a bit...I have already bought the game in local store next my office and I can’t wait to launch it this week-end. I am already in upgrade phase, and now running my old PC (Q6600 at stock, 8800GT and DDR2 3GB) but demo was really OK. I suppose that full version should be even better optimize than demo. In demo there is for instance line infantry 100 soldiers in unit as largest, no idea about full version. I have read review on one Czech gamer server (tiscali) and translation is something like “dualcore 5000+ (AMD I assume) with 8800GT and 2 GB Ram at 1650x1080 res acceptable 15-20 fps on ultra, lowered on high details more than 30 fps constantly” If you speak Czech
http://games.tiscali.cz/reviews/empire-total-war-exkluzivni-recenze/index.asp

best to check it personally in vivo

 

[JeanLuc]

I post a lot on TWC.net and the optimisation for quad core CPU's is a bit hit and miss. Apparently on true quad core chips all 4 cores get used but on chips like the Q6600 and Q8200 etc only two of the cores are in use.

Still I've played the demo and the game looks pretty good even if isn't quite the visual leap that RTW was from Medieval 1 Total War was.

 

[amdfangirl]

I'm gonna try the demo later, but I'm hooked on RA3 right now.

 

[Captainhero]

Hmm well I finally installed etc and..... well its kinda buggy.
Multiplayer - forget it, just says host did not respond, I guess they will sort this in a patch or if im the only one then I hate talktalk that little bit more..
SinglePlayer - Well I have a 4870, and 4GB ram, turned everything on shiny and max and laggggg, so I turned it down and can run everything on high ok except during deployment its very flickery.
Main gameplay, its just like rome, obviously with a few new features but the mechanics are the same but oh my god does it look gorgeous! Hopefully with a ptach or two this game will rule, loving it already, now if only they could get multiplayer working well.. (thats prob just me tho )

 

[wh3resmycar]

hey cap'n hero, whats your processor? im still holding back on buying the game. and i cant look @ the total war boards cause it might give me a seizure (the stupid white font on black background is killing me).

 

[klsdivan]

Well there was a patch releaesd on the 10th which seems to reduce most of the lag on the campaign map, but still have the problem that whenever I select a big fleet the game will freeze for about 1-2 minuits or when ever I selected my massive fleet the game would crash. No problem with the rest of the game, I never get lag in the battles.

Using:
Q6600@3.2
4gb RAM
4870

But there is another patch coming early next week so hope that will sort

 

[Captainhero]

@wh3resmycar - im using an e8400 OC'd to 3.6

 

[UNICOMPLEX]

Hmm, think I will wait until all the problems are ironed out in this game before I think of buying it,
also if your having a few problems CaptainHero with a 4870 GPU then my old 8800GTX will be useless it would seem, think its time I upgrade my PC.

 

[wh3resmycar]

seems like its still aint the time for me to get this game then. too many freakin bugs it would seem. i wonder what CA was thinking.

 

[Captainhero]

I checked with some mates and they are not getting as many issues, so Im gonna re-install the game and re-install my gfx drivers. Hopefully I can report back with good news. I tried to get on multiplayer again last nite and still getting host not responding error, grrrr.......

 

[shugs]

I haven't had any problems yet and I'm running the game on everything maxed (ultra does not bump up AA etc) w/no issues at all.

Setup:
PII 940
4gb ram
4870 1GB
OS: XP 32bit

I must say I haven't had any massive sea battles nor extreme battles on land (with multiple loaded reinforcements). But besides that regular game play is fine and normal reasonable sized battles are flawless.

I can only advise to play with the game settings, trial and error, maybe it can help solve the problem.


I hope the co-op multiplayer patch comes out soon!! Anywayz, good luck.