Rome total war STUTTERING

HI!!!

I have a laptop with a core 2 duo T7700, a 7200rpm HD and a 8400gs (with latest drivers from laptopvideo2go )

However, even at medium-high quality and 1024x768 resolution, without shadows, nor AA nor AF, I get excessive stuttering.

I have tried the following:

-patching the game
-updating drivers of sound, graphics directx
-downloading several hotfixes
-playin around with rivatuner + nvidia control panel
-overclocking GPU
-defragging
-cleanin laptop
-...

any recommendations?

 

Omega video card drivers could be an answer. ( www.omegadrivers.net) Had the same issue with an olderlappy (ati) and those drivers made all the difference in the world.

 

Total war is my fav game. I had this problem b4 with asus g1 (nvidia 7700go) I can only play at low at best. I have try from OC to drivers but no help. In the end I change to a better latop (m15x). I am playing total empire at everything Max out (full AA etc..). Sorry to say but the graphic card just cant cut the mustard.

 

but its a 2004 game and im not playing at max quality either. Also, no AA and no AF... shadows off, units a medium and resolution to 1024x768

8400gs should be alright, shouldnt it ?

 

rexibaby987 is probably correct about your GPU being the issue (unless you have like 512MB or less RAM). On my older desktop, RTW ran fine on max settings. It had a worse CPU and HD than your laptop, but a better GPU.

Try dropping EVERY video setting in the game to low/minimum, if the stuttering stops, it's the GPU's lack of muscle. Then it's just a matter of raising the settings till you get a good balance of performance vs image quality.

 

but the weird thing is that even with intense battles, fps never drop down to 20fps!!! but still, the amount of stuttering is too noticeable!!

 

Semi-smooth frame rate but stuttering? Almost sounds like a lack a video ram....(The "stuttering" could be from data paging from system to video ram)

Did you try dropping all the video options (including resolution) to their minimums/lowest possible? ---Try a small "custom" battle at min settings.

 

The odd part is M2TW runs at all high and I have a 256 mb card.

 

thanks.

here are the results:

1024x768, max quality, grass at med, no AA, no AF: 49 fps average, lots of stutter

800x600, lowest quality, grass at none, no AA no AF: 50 fps (seems to be the maximum in the game), less stutter, but still noticeable.

done defrag, reinstalled the game...... and everything said in the first post.... are there any solutions??

thanks

 

Could this be typical of the infamous stutter issue found in the 8 series mobile nvidia cards? If so, search the forum for a thread on possible solutions for stuttering.

 

thanks

already did all the steps mentioned in the "8600gt stutter solution guide"... but no luck...

 

I love Rome TW. What is the VRAM on your GPU? As posted earlier, it could just be the GPU is not strong enough or doesn't have enough memory for the battles. What unit detail level do you have running? Also, the number of units, etc?

I have the 7600 in my notebook, and it runs Rome TW fairly well at pretty decent settings. But it definitely has its limits. I thought it would run at higher settings than I ended up using on that game as well...

 

I'll try RTW on my ATI soon (if I can find the game) and see what happens.

 

thanks all for your help.

By the way, its a DDR2 256Mb GPU.... would there be much much difference from a intel x3100 to a 8400gs?? cos im planning on buying a new XPSM1330 laptop with that IGP...