Empire: Total War's upcoming patch

[Zenoth]

There's a post at the Total War Center forums with the change log for the upcoming 1.3 patch (to be released on June 22nd, that's next Monday, and supposedly ahead of time), it looks good, I was waiting for that patch before playing E:TW again, either in single or multi-player. It's pleasing to see that CA is seemingly putting more effort at patching that one than they were trying to for Medieval II, at least in my opinion.

 

[datalink7]

Yup I'm hoping that this will make the game what it should have been at release. A good game that requires some normal patches/fixes to polish it a bit instead of the unfinished product that was released.

I look forward to playing it.

 

[brblx]

maybe this will make the game playable.

over three months after release.

 

[Sylvanas]

Link doesn't work for me

I only had minor problems when it first released and when the 1.2 came it fixed that- I've been playing it ever since. The 1.3 patch looks awesome theres tons of new units and multi-threading improvements.

 

[lupi]

fortunately since they tied it to steam I've saved my money

 

[Koudelka]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
It's pleasing to see that CA is seemingly putting more effort at patching that one than they were trying to for Medieval II, at least in my opinion.

That doesnt say much. CA has always sucked absolute ass when it comes to getting out a timely patch. And they still do.

Months and months on end for a desperately needed patch is pathetic. Their games are badass, but they will forever release untested bug-infested games with no patch in the near future.

EDIT: And i say untested because i refuse to believe that they did not come across any of the dozens of bugs they always release a game with previously.

Take Medieval II for example. Units with 2 handed weapons are broken for almost a year. Community says screw it and fixes it in a mod in a matter of days along with other game-saving bug fixes.

I fail to see how they could not have done this themselves if they gave a rats ass about their customers.

 

[Edge1]

Hey that's cool - I imagine I'll actually install the thing soon. Been sitting on it this whole friggin time. I may still wait til I get a quad core CPU though - any benefits for quad owners with E:TW?

 

[brblx]

we'll see when the patch comes out.

right now the bloated turd can hardly even utilize ONE core properly, let along four. the stuttering campaign map literally makes me sick.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: brblx
we'll see when the patch comes out.

right now the bloated turd can hardly even utilize ONE core properly, let along four. the stuttering campaign map literally makes me sick.

I honestly haven't had any problems, and I'm on an overclocked C2D E6400
Granted, I'm only up to the third Chapter, I suspect it ramps up a bit.

 

[TehMac]

Originally posted by: Edge1
Hey that's cool - I imagine I'll actually install the thing soon. Been sitting on it this whole friggin time. I may still wait til I get a quad core CPU though - any benefits for quad owners with E:TW?

Well, hopefully with patch 1.3, yes, there will be some advantages. Right now, the load is on a single core.

 

[Edge1]

Originally posted by: TehMac

Well, hopefully with patch 1.3, yes, there will be some advantages. Right now, the load is on a single core.

Thanks man. I just saw ayabe's post on p.2 here that had patch details and multi core support is listed. Good news if true.

 

[ironforge]

Good timing for the patch too. Steam has a weekend deal for this game at 24.99.

 

[paperfist]

Originally posted by: Edge1

Originally posted by: TehMac

Well, hopefully with patch 1.3, yes, there will be some advantages. Right now, the load is on a single core.

Thanks man. I just saw ayabe's post on p.2 here that had patch details and multi core support is listed. Good news if true.

Very nice, thanks!

Though I can't help but wonder is this a ploy? $25 on Steam this weekend, but no patch till after the weekend...

I loved the last Total War game and I really want to pick this one up, but from what I've heard it's not so hot till it gets a proper patch like all their Total War games.

 

[1LordEmperor1]

Was the shield bug in M2TW ever fixed? (Officially)

 

[Sylvanas]

If you read CA's daily update here you get a glimpse of how much stuff is improving this patch.

The multi-threading gains on naval and land battles are now very noticeable. Large scale naval battles have benefited by almost 50% in some cases and land battles are also seeing significant framerate increases, this is because the way the logic and frame drawing interact has been fundamentally changed to take place in parallel.

We?ve worked on implementing the multi-threading in the game for multi-core processors and made many optimisations that will also help increase performance on single core machines.

Already with my OC'd X4 955 performance is fluid for land battle but not so much Sea battles- I am really looking forward to the multi-threaded gains here. If you are sitting on the fence about this don't be- if you enjoyed previous Total War series, this game is heaps of fun.

 

[Zenoth]

The sea battles on my system are alway slow, I mean the frames-rate, of course depending on the number of ships, but I play on maximum settings, so the water alone is already taxing the whole thing, even without ships I don't think I would get more than 30FPS, it's one of the rare occasions within my games collection when I wish I would have a SLi setup to be honest. I do hope that their multi-threading optimizations will be able to compensate.

 

[TehMac]

Damn Zenoth, I read your post and thought "ah well my computer should be able to do it, then I saw your gpu, and my hopes fell.

<---- has a gtx260

 

[Koudelka]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
The sea battles on my system are alway slow, I mean the frames-rate, of course depending on the number of ships, but I play on maximum settings, so the water alone is already taxing the whole thing, even without ships I don't think I would get more than 30FPS, it's one of the rare occasions within my games collection when I wish I would have a SLi setup to be honest. I do hope that their multi-threading optimizations will be able to compensate.

Odd you mention that though.

I play on max settings with a GTX 260 and I havent looked at the exact fps count but i know its a lot higher than 30fps even during sea battles with 20+ ships.

 

[Kelvrick]

You guys should also wonder if you're running different resolutions.

 

[Skott]

Since patch 1.2 I haven't had stability problems and never did really have the lag problems some people seem to have. I run the game on the rig in the sig below @ 1680x1050 all details set high. This is just my own opinion but I think basically from here on out the quality of the game play is going to come from the modding community and not CA. Its a fun game but it has its limitations like all the TW games before it.

 

[TehMac]

Originally posted by: Koudelka

Originally posted by: Zenoth
The sea battles on my system are alway slow, I mean the frames-rate, of course depending on the number of ships, but I play on maximum settings, so the water alone is already taxing the whole thing, even without ships I don't think I would get more than 30FPS, it's one of the rare occasions within my games collection when I wish I would have a SLi setup to be honest. I do hope that their multi-threading optimizations will be able to compensate.

Odd you mention that though.

I play on max settings with a GTX 260 and I havent looked at the exact fps count but i know its a lot higher than 30fps even during sea battles with 20+ ships.

Maybe his processor is holding him back?

edit: I assume Zenoth is running ~@ 1920x1200

 

[Zenoth]

Originally posted by: TehMac

Originally posted by: Koudelka

Originally posted by: Zenoth
The sea battles on my system are alway slow, I mean the frames-rate, of course depending on the number of ships, but I play on maximum settings, so the water alone is already taxing the whole thing, even without ships I don't think I would get more than 30FPS, it's one of the rare occasions within my games collection when I wish I would have a SLi setup to be honest. I do hope that their multi-threading optimizations will be able to compensate.

Odd you mention that though.

I play on max settings with a GTX 260 and I havent looked at the exact fps count but i know its a lot higher than 30fps even during sea battles with 20+ ships.

Maybe his processor is holding him back?

edit: I assume Zenoth is running ~@ 1920x1200

Well actually I run it at 1680x1050, but I'd presume that it's the 8xMSAA that doesn't help the case, but I refuse to go below that amount of AA, since for some strange reason I don't understand the jagged edges are much more noticeable in Empire than any other recent games I've played without AA applied or even with 2xAA or 4xAA, I really get "rid" of them virtually by applying 8xAA, it's the first game in my collection in which I constantly use 8xAA, the others usually need only 4x and it gets the job done. And when you pay a GPU more than $400 (CAN dollars) you kind of don't want to see jagged edges in your games anymore.

 

[TehMac]

Shit that's even worse, I run my res at 1920x1200

Oh well, I better prepare for some rough times in Empire. Although I think it sounds more like a CPU limitation than anything else.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: TehMac
Shit that's even worse, I run my res at 1920x1200

Oh well, I better prepare for some rough times in Empire. Although I think it sounds more like a CPU limitation than anything else.

It is. A High end CPU will do more for you in this than anything else. I play at Ultra 1920x1200 2xAA and just upgrading to a X4 955 over a previous 9950 I saw a huge jump in FPS, when the patch hit's on Monday I think the importance of a good multicore/thread CPU will indeed stand out.

 

[Koudelka]

I play on max settings 4xAA with gtx260, i7, 6gb ram and no problems. Game seems to be a lot more CPU intensive than you'd think. Any medium-high end card will get the job done.