zerocool84
Lifer
- Nov 11, 2004
- 36,041
- 472
- 126
Crashed a lot on me as well and loading times are unbareably long. I played through the tutorial fairly quickly. Damn I guess CoH really still is one of the best looking RTS's.
StinkyPinky
Diamond Member
- Jul 6, 2002
- 6,990
- 1,283
- 126
ZzZGuy
Golden Member
- Nov 15, 2006
- 1,855
- 0
- 0
So why would you be opposed to using the steam client even for a demo? I see steam as being quiet annoying at times but it offers features that compensate for said annoyances. As far as I know it won't taint your system like securom would.
On a different note, I have DLed the demo and shall try it tonight. Still miffed about the "elite" pack, and will wait till the Special Forces edition (game + elite add on) is the same price and the regular version.
HeXploiT
Diamond Member
- Jun 11, 2004
- 4,359
- 1
- 76
Was forced to play DX9 as my Windows 7 was giving me problems.
Played one battle on 1680x1050 with video set to ultra and everything enabled including vsync w/4xaa.
It plays like a dream. Very smooth framerate.
The gameplay is going to be very different in this game than previous installments. Seems to play slower. Everything looks really fantastic. I'd swear the water was DX10. Can't wait to see this in DX10.
e8400
680i
4gb
GTX260
Played one battle on 1680x1050 with video set to ultra and everything enabled including vsync w/4xaa.
It plays like a dream. Very smooth framerate.
The gameplay is going to be very different in this game than previous installments. Seems to play slower. Everything looks really fantastic. I'd swear the water was DX10. Can't wait to see this in DX10.
e8400
680i
4gb
GTX260
zerocool84
Lifer
- Nov 11, 2004
- 36,041
- 472
- 126
Hmm the game didn't look too good to me. I had everything on Ultra as well. I did only play on ground unit map but it didn't look that good at all. I also had to turn off AA as it killed my system. Probably cus of my processor. I guess this needs more hardware than CoH to run well cus I run that at full settings with AA. I'll go back into it and look at the settings again.
I'll have to check that when I play again. I noticed this with EVE, though. It heats up my card well more than any Valve game, WoW, Crysis, etc.
zerocool84
Lifer
- Nov 11, 2004
- 36,041
- 472
- 126
Ugg this game loads up so slowly. Also it's very slow paced compared to most other rts's. I think I'm ganna pass on this one.
they should have went with a totally different system.... the medieval tactics just don't mesh well with this kind of ranged combat. Troop formations just don't behave anywhere near where you want (although they are beautiful when in motion)
I feel like I am controlling groups of archers and it is very frustrating
I feel like I am controlling groups of archers and it is very frustrating
Ultra everything at 1920x1200 is too much for my 9550 and 260gtx.
High on the other hand, I can handle. Load times are still pretty long. Yea, its a little slower paced somehow, but the cavalry seems to own infantry.
High on the other hand, I can handle. Load times are still pretty long. Yea, its a little slower paced somehow, but the cavalry seems to own infantry.
Zenoth
Diamond Member
- Jan 29, 2005
- 5,202
- 216
- 106
I tried the Demo and I have mixed feelings.
As far as stability and performance goes it never crashed for me, no stutter either, and it runs smoothly on my system at Ultra settings with 4xMSAA and 16xAF, but I really don't like the shadows effects, especially that I could see some shadows through some smoke and even through flags and banners in turn creating what appeared to be artifacts at first glance, but then when I saw a shadow silhouette of a soldier through a flag, and all pixelated at that, then I realized that shadows may have issues in this game... or it's a driver thing (I'm using 182.06). But outside of the shadows being messy the rest of the graphics (textures and all the particle effects, especially water and smoke and even animations) are just superb, they're simply what one could expect for a modern DX9 (is it also DX10?) game.
The load times as mentioned however are indeed very slow, both for going to and from the main menu and also for loading maps in general, although I can understand the increase in loading time if the graphics are better than previous games since there's just more data to load and higher polygonal models as well (at least at High and Ultra settings). It's not a game-breaker for me at all, it's annoying but I can certainly ignore it, once the map is loaded you forget about it fast enough.
The actual game-play... somehow I think they missed something with ground battles, it feels slow-paced, but there's only one battle and tutorials, so it's not going to show everything that we might do in the Campaign or in multi-player. The naval battles on the other hand are good, it's a great addition to the Total War series, it was asked by the community since the days of the original Medieval: Total War and at least we have it, and thankfully they didn't screw it up, I'm glad to see a good execution of it. I like the fact that the ships don't move too fast as to simulate a more realistic approach to speed. For instance the naval battle of course provided in the Demo shows just that very well. At the beginning the ships are slowly but surely moving on a meeting-type column of classical side-by-side confrontations (which as a side note was used often in Star Wars during space battle sequences, especially in Revenge of the Sith at the beginning).
I simply like the "massive" and "imposing" effect of the slow ships firing those cannons at once and the missing projectiles falling in water (which just looks beautiful in my opinion). And seeing the ships crew working around just adds to the ambiance. I really like it. For me that's the best part of the Demo, but I don't know if it will be the best part of the final game, I don't think it will, but generally it's just a great addition and to repeat myself they executed it properly and it shows up in the Demo, it's fun, simply. I'd like to come back on the ground battles however. As I said it feels slow-paced but I'm not quite sure at what to point exactly being the cause of that feel. I think it's simply due to the context of the battles presented in the tutorial and the one ground mission we have, such a context simply asks for things to start slowly. I'm confident that the final version will deliver. I'm especially excited to see how sieges will play like (if there'll be any).
And, finally, something that irks me is the camera. I almost managed to get the TW-style camera (there's an option for that, I know, but it didn't do what it does in the previous TW games). Everything seems fine except when I want to "strafe" left or right, the thing is if I bring the cursor for instance to the left side of the screen then instead of strafing it will actually rotate left, and I tried all I could to make it strafe instead, but I didn't found out how, anyone got any suggestions? And finally, if I double left-click on any location on the map during battle it doesn't bring the camera there (not a zoom, but actually moving the camera there very fast like the previous games), again I didn't found out how to do it, and again I ask for help on that, if it's possible or not.
Overall I think that Empire: Total War will live up to its name and that it won't win the "worst of the bunch" prize. Nope, instead it wins the "best polished for a vanilla version" prize in my book. It looks good, it plays good enough, the addition of naval battles will be great, the formula is all there for yet another successful Total War entry in the franchise, good job Creative Assembly and SEGA, I'm confident that it will succeed. I for one will buy it at its full price and won't wait for any specials.
As far as stability and performance goes it never crashed for me, no stutter either, and it runs smoothly on my system at Ultra settings with 4xMSAA and 16xAF, but I really don't like the shadows effects, especially that I could see some shadows through some smoke and even through flags and banners in turn creating what appeared to be artifacts at first glance, but then when I saw a shadow silhouette of a soldier through a flag, and all pixelated at that, then I realized that shadows may have issues in this game... or it's a driver thing (I'm using 182.06). But outside of the shadows being messy the rest of the graphics (textures and all the particle effects, especially water and smoke and even animations) are just superb, they're simply what one could expect for a modern DX9 (is it also DX10?) game.
The load times as mentioned however are indeed very slow, both for going to and from the main menu and also for loading maps in general, although I can understand the increase in loading time if the graphics are better than previous games since there's just more data to load and higher polygonal models as well (at least at High and Ultra settings). It's not a game-breaker for me at all, it's annoying but I can certainly ignore it, once the map is loaded you forget about it fast enough.
The actual game-play... somehow I think they missed something with ground battles, it feels slow-paced, but there's only one battle and tutorials, so it's not going to show everything that we might do in the Campaign or in multi-player. The naval battles on the other hand are good, it's a great addition to the Total War series, it was asked by the community since the days of the original Medieval: Total War and at least we have it, and thankfully they didn't screw it up, I'm glad to see a good execution of it. I like the fact that the ships don't move too fast as to simulate a more realistic approach to speed. For instance the naval battle of course provided in the Demo shows just that very well. At the beginning the ships are slowly but surely moving on a meeting-type column of classical side-by-side confrontations (which as a side note was used often in Star Wars during space battle sequences, especially in Revenge of the Sith at the beginning).
I simply like the "massive" and "imposing" effect of the slow ships firing those cannons at once and the missing projectiles falling in water (which just looks beautiful in my opinion). And seeing the ships crew working around just adds to the ambiance. I really like it. For me that's the best part of the Demo, but I don't know if it will be the best part of the final game, I don't think it will, but generally it's just a great addition and to repeat myself they executed it properly and it shows up in the Demo, it's fun, simply. I'd like to come back on the ground battles however. As I said it feels slow-paced but I'm not quite sure at what to point exactly being the cause of that feel. I think it's simply due to the context of the battles presented in the tutorial and the one ground mission we have, such a context simply asks for things to start slowly. I'm confident that the final version will deliver. I'm especially excited to see how sieges will play like (if there'll be any).
And, finally, something that irks me is the camera. I almost managed to get the TW-style camera (there's an option for that, I know, but it didn't do what it does in the previous TW games). Everything seems fine except when I want to "strafe" left or right, the thing is if I bring the cursor for instance to the left side of the screen then instead of strafing it will actually rotate left, and I tried all I could to make it strafe instead, but I didn't found out how, anyone got any suggestions? And finally, if I double left-click on any location on the map during battle it doesn't bring the camera there (not a zoom, but actually moving the camera there very fast like the previous games), again I didn't found out how to do it, and again I ask for help on that, if it's possible or not.
Overall I think that Empire: Total War will live up to its name and that it won't win the "worst of the bunch" prize. Nope, instead it wins the "best polished for a vanilla version" prize in my book. It looks good, it plays good enough, the addition of naval battles will be great, the formula is all there for yet another successful Total War entry in the franchise, good job Creative Assembly and SEGA, I'm confident that it will succeed. I for one will buy it at its full price and won't wait for any specials.
I'm running everything on Ultra at 1920x1200 and it runs smooth, but I will get an occasional sound glitch. Load times are long but not terrible, I think the battles take around a minute to load for me on the i7.
Form the demo at least, I much prefer the sea battle even though the attack command is a joke and will pretty much get your ships all jumbled up together.
I enjoyed my second play through of the land map much more, I hated it at first but it's grown on my a little. Basically, most of the us vet TW players are going to have to learn to play again, this is an entirely different animal.
It does have potential and I don't have any regrets about my preorder.
Form the demo at least, I much prefer the sea battle even though the attack command is a joke and will pretty much get your ships all jumbled up together.
I enjoyed my second play through of the land map much more, I hated it at first but it's grown on my a little. Basically, most of the us vet TW players are going to have to learn to play again, this is an entirely different animal.
It does have potential and I don't have any regrets about my preorder.
Modelworks
Lifer
- Feb 22, 2007
- 16,240
- 7
- 76
It might not be locked up. There are really long load times between startup, starting a level, etc. And they don't give you an indicator the game is doing anything while it is loading. So let it sit there for a minute or so, might not be locked up.
ZzZGuy
Golden Member
- Nov 15, 2006
- 1,855
- 0
- 0
The demo runs almost perfectly on my system at ultra settings with everything I can find enabled with only a tiny sound glitch when I use the scroll wheel to zoom up & down. On my friends computer however it is a total mess, lines criss crossing the screen, flickering display, unable to select or deselect units and non default key binding when he started.
-edit- He is using old drivers so that may be the issue.
-edit- He is using old drivers so that may be the issue.
First things first: I need an upgrade.
I'm running it at medium 1680x1050 (1920 native, but system can't keep up), and it feel sluggish. Load times are atrocious, taking 3-5 minutes to get through the load screen.
Control-wise, I don't care for the default camera control with the mouse. I got so use to the Medieval II setup that it feels slow now. Maybe they are trying to integrate the keyboard into the game more; I played 90% of Medieval II with one hand. It's probably something that will take time to get use to.
The units look a bit too small, but that's probably more to do with the camera. Text is smaller since they probably designed the interface with widescreen in mind this time, and everything isn't stretched.
Ok, finally we get to the game play. Infantry combat is much much better than the arquebes/musketeers of the past game. However, it feels way too fast at normal speed, and requires a lot of 'P' mashing. Naval combat is awesome, and a nice addition.
I'm running it at medium 1680x1050 (1920 native, but system can't keep up), and it feel sluggish. Load times are atrocious, taking 3-5 minutes to get through the load screen.
Control-wise, I don't care for the default camera control with the mouse. I got so use to the Medieval II setup that it feels slow now. Maybe they are trying to integrate the keyboard into the game more; I played 90% of Medieval II with one hand. It's probably something that will take time to get use to.
The units look a bit too small, but that's probably more to do with the camera. Text is smaller since they probably designed the interface with widescreen in mind this time, and everything isn't stretched.
Ok, finally we get to the game play. Infantry combat is much much better than the arquebes/musketeers of the past game. However, it feels way too fast at normal speed, and requires a lot of 'P' mashing. Naval combat is awesome, and a nice addition.
StinkyPinky
Diamond Member
- Jul 6, 2002
- 6,990
- 1,283
- 126
i didn't have my hopes up personally, i knew it wouldn't be MadMinute Games or Sid Meier's caliber.
In that sense, it's awful in representing napoleonic warfare
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