Squeezing Performance

[sandman130]

Hello!

Bought a second copy so I can play with my significant other! Unfortunately, the only other computer I have is a:
Intel Core2duo 1.8ghz
2gig RAM
Integrated Quadro FX360m

So as you can see, I need to squeeze everything I can out of the game. It is already installed, and can run, but i wouldn't call it well. I have turned off trees, but beyond that I have done nothing. I am computer savvy so I am aware of changing resolutions and such, but it's a laptop so I would prefer to keep the resolution at native 1280x800.

My question, what can I do to squeeze every last drop of performance out of the game beyond turning off trees? Any other coding changes that can be made to improve performance?

Thanks for the help!

 

[AndrewT]

At the moment, not really. Most of the other options in settings.txt don't actually do anything yet.

If you have XP then your memory is OK, but if you have Vista or Win7 you could do with more - to 3gb if your OS is 32bit, to 4gb or more if 64bit.

Aside from that just make sure you exit every other program possible before starting the game.

 

[sandman130]

Thanks for the reply!

I do have XP, and I bumped down the resolution to 1024 with good results. Hopefully they will allow further settings to be changed in the future!

 

[unmerged(465989)]

Sandman, I'm more or less in your boat with a similar system. I played the demo and it was slow but playable, so I figured I would go for it. Turns out the full game runs slower... sigh. The one thing I've done with the settings file aside from stickied recommendation (I haven't messed with resolution, yet) is to turn draw_terrain=no. Now, this is kind of a desperate measure, but it has sped the game up somewhat for me and makes it fun. There are several downsides, so I'm not saying you should necessarily do this, but here are my observations:

- having the whole map black (except for borders, flags and characters) is unsightly, but it really improves scrolling and frame rates
- NONE of the map modes work; it doesn't only apply to the physical terrain mode, but to all modes (independent realms, rebellion, direct vassals, etc. etc. )
- HOWEVER, the tool tips still work for each map mode, if you know what mode has which info, so you can quickly scan across your demesne for rebellion risk, for example.
- The three areas where this has been most annoying are (1) technology (can't quickly see the progress of development across demesne, must instead roll over each), (2) direct vassals (can't easily see the extent of a rival duke's holdings) and (3) county occupation - you have to roll over each county [in independent realms mode] where you think a war is going on in order to see if it's occupied, which makes it harder to evaluate your neighbors' wars and so on.
- For me these aren't game breaking, but they are major caveats.
- My recommendation: if CK2 runs too slowly for you to play, give this a try, but only after you start your dynasty and play for a little while to get some familiarity with who is around you, where you might want to expand, the threats and so on. Then reload the game with draw_terrain=no and play. It will probably be worth going back every so often with terrain=yes so you can look around and see how the world has changed.

 

[sandman130]

I've noticed (atleast I believe) that there is a slight water animation, can you turn that off?

Also, The animation from moving units around, and when fighting and such, can those be turned off and just have static troop symbols?

Turning off terrain as you describe seems like a last resort option, but it's good to know it exists when absolutely needed.

During testing, I've only played for about 30mins. or so while my woman completes the tutorials. Should I expect system performance to decrease as playtime goes on?

 

[unmerged(465989)]

You can turn the water off in settings.txt (draw_water=no). I did before I disabled terrain altogether, and I didn't notice an improvement, but our systems aren't the same so it is certainly worth exploring. For what it's worth, my laptop is 2.5 years old, wasn't top of the line at the time, and is, ahem, troubled. Turning water off creates a slightly variegated gray border off each coastline, which then turns black in the middle of the sea zones. Again, unsightly, but no effect on usability of the interface.

Turning terrain off did not disable marching armies, the little counselors swaying around, or the city building/siege animations. I don't know if one of the options does that - the general take from messages on this board is that trees, sky, water, and now terrain are the main options. I assume borders is implemented, but I also assumed it wouldn't make much difference. Of course, we know what they say about assumptions, so it might be worth investigating. That also could have a gameplay impact.

My experience with recent Paradox games on my rig is that performance is somewhat better in the first 5-10 minutes, depending on what happens in game, and then it goes down the pipes. I assume this has to do with memory problems, and it sometimes happens when I use menus or functions that likely access large databases (e.g. looking at the dynasty screen). I had a similar experience with EU3. But usually this is quite quick - if you haven't seen performance degrade after 30 minutes, I don't know if it will further, unless they aren't loading the full database into the tutorial. (No idea how paradox games handle their files in that respect, someone else would have to chime in.)