Shogun 2 Total War

The 300 were actually with 10.000.

 

Yeah i know i know, but they didn't do much the normal Greek soldiers, they basically ran away when it was lost and the Spartans stood to the last man. Persia just played around with the Greeks when they could but what really got them was the Greek civil war which was just some easy basic divide and conquer or play both sides by selling military arms to both of them, hence Iran Contra!

 

I want Rome 2 Total War!!!

 

I still bust out medieval TW. Great game.

 

I also want Rome total war 2! Imagine those graphics on this game amazing! I still play that game at times its been a while though got to try out the mods. Wow you still play medieval TW wow, yeah it is a great game i just can never get it, disliked the graphics.

 

Ok so I've just seen this battle trailer and I must say, i'm absolutely astonished by the graphics of this game.

YouTube - Shogun 2 Total War Battle Report 1 Trailer [HD]

And as always, every new Total War game gets my current pc/laptop on its knees. Empire total war was very ugly on my 8600m gt, so I switched to an ati hd4670 which made the graphics acceptable.
But I know for sure that I'll need atleast the power equivalent of two mobile Ati hd 5870 gpu's in my next gaming laptop to run the game the way its supposed to be.

Judged on my personal view, it seems like a general rule that when such a new and demanding pc game is released, it takes at least a year (or even two years) before you can buy an affordable laptop (i.e. below the 1300-1500€ price range with 1 gpu) which can run it at decent settings.

I'm not really sure where i'm going with this or wether this is the right topic but...since the total war series are the main reason why I game on a computer, do you think I should just get a powerfull SLI/XFIRE desktop and be safe for atleast 2 total war games?

 

That video just told me that I need a new computer

 

If you don't need the portability, don't need or want to be able to game on the couch, in bed or where ever you want to and don't mind being confined to a desk for all gaming sessions then I would recommend you get an SLI desktop.

You will always have to make sacrifices in the power department to get portability and if maxing out the Total War series is your main reason for gaming then only a Desktop makes the most sense.

However, for me, I am perfectly happy playing the Total War series on high settings with a few reduced configs here and there. Considering the Shogun 2 Total War video clip were pre alpha, I expect by release it will have even higher requirements as well.

 

if i learned something from creative assembly, its never to get their games upon release. in fact, the smartest thing to do is get it at least 6-8 months after release.
by that time ill sure youll find single gpu solutions in your price range, so dont sweat it if you can wait

 

Any of the new high-end Nvidia/AMD cards should play the game quite comfortably, maxing everything outside looks to be the preserve of desktop cards and notebook multi-GPU configurations though.

 

I'm not really sure about my next pruchase, I really like the portability of a laptop, but I don't really need it in a gaming system. And I'm not the type of person who needs to have every graphic setting on its highest, but I do want the visual 'wow...this is awesome!' effect when playing a game. Since I did not have this effect in Empire TW with my ati hd4670, i'm definitly not going to wait another 2 years (as planned) before buying a new system.

Yea 6-8 months, I don't really see that happening. In the beginning of this year the asus g73jh was released with an ati hd5870, and now almost a year later they released the same asus model with a weaker gpu.
It seems to me that all ati and (especially nvidia) are doing is renaming their gpu's without much system performance increase.

In other threads people mentioned the slowdown in gpu increase due to the fact that we (laptop segment) have caught up with the console market and that there's no real push for awesome gpu increase. But we can all see that the Total War series still keep pushing every system to its limit...

 

that is true but there a lot of ati mobile gpu's lined up for next year. nvidia shouldnt be far behind too.
this game will be released march 2011 right? 6-8 months will get you to this time next year. im sure youll be able to get those new cards by then. im sure theyd be able to max it out as long as you dont go for dx11 and aa at 1080p.
my gpu can max out empire total war at 1080p without aa.
sure those new cards may not be in your price range but you will find some fairly good deals on cards of this generation that can still play it maxed with no aa, no dx11 at 900p.

 

Wow I had no idea a single nvidia 280m gtx could max out ETW. I read in another thread where an AW M17x with an SLI set up still couldn't play it on max settings (i.e. with anti anialysing on full hd).

Eventhough I also always use aa, this still gives me some hope to be able to play Shogun 2 on high settings, on an affordable laptop with 1 gpu. (for example: The asus g73jw costs less than 1300€ here in Belgium if you buy it from a webstore, if you buy it in retail it will cost 1800-1900€ .

 

That's why he said without AA, AA is a huge frame rate hog. 5870MR could play on max with slight AA of 2x to 4x as well. 280M is not much weaker so it's very likely to play at max without AA. SLI doesn't mean definitely much faster, in some games, the benefit could even be negligible.

 

just to add to what fzh said in a 15 inch notebook at 1080p you will hardly notice any blockiness especially in a game like total war where there a few angles and lines. i notice a bit of jaggies in my flight sim and games like mirrors edge but dont really see it in a more organic looking game like etw.
i can play 2 vs 2 with 3 ai armies in etw with a modest o/c from 585mhz to 600mhz. with a bit of overvolting im sure i could push the card to 630 or higher and i may be set with shogun 2 (with no aa of course).

 

How could the benefit be negligible? I know a second gpu is only used for up to 40% but I always thought this would still give you quite a big performance boost.

 

I think that whAt he means is the performance gain you get from 2x gpus will vary greatly depending on the game. Sometimes you even have to disable sli/xfire in order for the game to work. Ive seen some posts of guys complaining because of this

 

Hm is there some sort of list with these games? It would be pretty lame if I'd spend 1000€ more on a laptop just to get SLI/XFIRE and then not be able to use it on my most favourite games -__-'

 

im not sure, but i remember joker who had an AW with Xfire complaining and recommending not to get a dual gpu a couple of times. i also remember reading other posters stating the same too. best to check the aw and sager forums for sli/xfire issues/reliability and performance.

 

Its hard to decide when you read al this contradictory info, in one thread you can see people bragging about the fact that they can run everything at max settings with a 3 years old SLI 8800gtx set up, while in another thread people say its not worth it.

Does anybody here have any experience with XFIRE/SLI set ups when playing the Total War games?

 

SLI works just fine with me on Empire Total War and Rome Total War. In fact, I find there's a noticable performance boost for Empire Total War with SLI on. I can run it on Very High instead of just plain Mid-High mix. I do however get the usual slowdowns in sea battles

 

Tell me more about these shutdowns, this is news to me. I always skip those but still...Its nice to be able to play them anyway without hardware malfunctions causing your game to shut down Oo

 

You're misreading slowdowns as shutdowns?

 

Oh sorry, yea I read shutdowns instead of slowdowns lol. Nvm bout my question then rofl

 

Between the 2 id say your better off getting sli rather than xfire as there are more games that run on it across the board and you get better driver support.
However i am just not a fan of dual gpu setups. Look towards the 470m. From what ive seen it benches similar to the 480m and has v good overclocking potential owing to lesser heat generation. The sager 8690 with the 470m run 1800usd now but should be much less in 6 to 10months. That could be the laptop you want to get in your price range for shogun total war 2

 

There is also a problem of wide range of frame rate for dual GPU setups because of how it is done. You might get a good max frame rate compared to single GPU setups, but the minimum frame rate doesn't benefit as much. What is shown in benches are mostly average frame rate, but it's really the minimum frame rate that determines how playable is that game.

 

Hm considering the fact that i'll probably always have to pay 1500-1800€for a laptop with a decent single gpu (or about 2200€for one with 2 gpu's), I think i'l just get a desktop for about 1k € which will give me a decent single gpu (like an nvidia gtx460) which will probably run just as good as two mobile gpu's in a laptop that will cost twice as much. I'll get a cheap ultraportable with the rest of my money. I think that this will be the best way for me, since I need borth portability and the ability to run the Total War games at high settings, though not necessarily in one machine.

Kind of wierd it doesn't benefit the minimum frame rate, since imo thats the most importent thing when it comes to games. I don't notice any difference above 25-30 fps anyway, but I do notice it when fps drop to 10-15. I don't even use an fps counter, I just set the setting suntill the game seems to run smooth (I can perfectly live with 22 fps in AC2 for example since it looks fluid and has many details anyway).

 

Its really your choice antwerp but ill bet that the 5870mr can run this game at max with no aa on stock or a slight overclock.
Of course we will have to wait for the game to be released to be sure.
But if the 5870mr can run in then im sure you can get a g73 at a decent price by march 2011