About the game performance

[Iriasthor]

I have one major complaint and that is the fps

Still this unfortunate fixation on fps. People have been corrupted by the last 10 years obsession with this one game criteria. Forget your fps, it doesn't matter. I know its like switching from a diet of bread and water to a fiery curry but try to do that. Stop looking at fps by which to measure an efficient game.

And please stop comparing SoW to TW, the two are quite different games. Even different genres when you look at what the target audience is and what the game gives the player to do.

Each individual has its own standards as per what a good and what a bad game is. While you feel comfortable with an average of, let's say, 15 FPS, there might be other people who does not with such a low rate. Thus, I think it is a totally valid thing to bring up.

In my opinion, it's not just about a number. Some people do not enjoy playing a game where moving through the map results in clunky/jumpy steps. Instead of focusing in the game, which you achieve quite easily (it seems so), some people might get distracted with the performance issue and, therefore, get bored of the game.

Far from trying to create an argument, I think trying to improve the performance of a game is always a positive thing, just as trying to improve the game mechanics. What @Saddletank is trying to say here is that while the game mechanics have advanced quite far (resulting in an excellent game), game performance has suffered a backwards step.

This would be totally understandable if no improvement margin existed. However (I am speaking from a technically semi-ignorant point of view), I wondeer if there might exist the possibility of multi-threading the game, thus improving the performance considerably in the best machines.

It would be a good thing to hear from the developers regarding the situation with multi-threaded development. Would it be possible to introduce it in the game? Would that increase the performance in exchange for a little development time or would it be expensive to achieve it?

PD: Agreed totally with not comparing SoW and TW,

[Marching Thru Georgia]

The obvious solution for the fps complaint is rather obvious. Norb needs to put a switch in the options page titled Prefer High FPS. That will reduce the AI loops accordingly so that it insures a minimum 60 fps. That way the first person shooter types can have exactly what they like and stop the incessant whining.

[Gunfreak]

I don't think any of the devs have said we don't care about fps. We care about the game being the best we can make it - we are all very very passionate about it. There's room for improvement and we will always work on things like speeding up the game. We are a small part time team and so don't have expertise in all facets of making games but we are committed to improving everything we can.

Thats the feeling I got, They do not agree at all the game should run better, every time it brought up, no one has said anything about improving it, instead giving exucses, I do now know enough coding to know if the excuses are 100% valid or not, but some of them seem iffy.

I total understand this is an indy game, I will always recomend the game(as I did with gettysburg that ran even worse) It is a great game, I just feel this specific complaint is ignored.

I got seriously naucies and got a headache at the stat when playing at 15fps, Luckely I did get used to it, not all people will, and so the game will not be playable for a decent % of the gaming world.

While I love the game and play it and will play it for years, just getting the game to run 25+ STABLE! in the waterloo senario would help alot,

I can then agree that 15fps is something to live with in the bigger standbox battles!

This is just as valid a complaint as balancing of cav and arty, I understand it's a lot harder to fix then some slight balancing of cav. But just getting the feeling that the devs atleast acknowalge it as something to improve would also help.

And any comparising to Total war is not valid, total war is silly and game, and Napoleon total war is unplayable for me, (playing the battle of borodino with an army of 1300 men made my soul cry a little...)

[Gunfreak]

The obvious solution for the fps complaint is rather obvious. Norb needs to put a switch in the options page titled Prefer High FPS. That will reduce the AI loops accordingly so that it insures a minimum 60 fps. That way the first person shooter types can have exactly what they like and stop the incessant whining.

And thats exaclty the problem, instead of acknoweding it, just ingnorng it and making stupid remarks!

[Sirlion]

Okay so basically this game has zero optimization. I think I get it. I can also understand that the team is very small and the effort required might exceed their workload. However, I dont find 2 FPS on Army level excusable. Okay the men are many but still these are 2D sprites. I dont want to compare this game with the TW series either, it was just an example showing many characters on screen doing stuff. I think the game is great in almost everything it does, but seriously, FPS are important. I would love to enjoy the game but I have vision problems and to a certain degree the game splits open my head when I have to watch 30 minutes of 5-10 FPS fights. Dont try to tell me "Then dont play video games" please.
It would be wise then if nothing can be done GPU wise to at the very least ease the workload on the CPU because multi threading is mandatory IMHO

[Xreos1]

Perhaps someone can explain for me the need for high FPS.

For most of the history of film making, and all the movies I have seen in theaters, the standard rate of projection is 24 frames per second. I never heard complaints from movie goers about jumpy picture or headaches. ( I don't know about digitally projected movies.)

With all this back and forth I tried a different game 'Jutland' that has an in game fps counter. With the full OOB at the battle of Jutland the game was running 40-60 FPS.

I then downloaded fraps and tried Waterloo.

Brigade scenarios 25-28 fps with one short dip to 18.

Division scenarios 14-20 no dips.

Army level 6-14 FPS frequent dips to 4 FPS.

I would not object to an improvement in FPS, but I prefer SDK, reinforcements in campaign mode etc. first.

What I want to understand why 24 fps is ok for films but less than 60 is bad for games?

[Gunfreak]

Perhaps someone can explain for me the need for high FPS.

For most of the history of film making, and all the movies I have seen in theaters, the standard rate of projection is 24 frames per second. I never heard complaints from movie goers about jumpy picture or headaches. ( I don't know about digitally projected movies.)

With all this back and forth I tried a different game 'Jutland' that has an in game fps counter. With the full OOB at the battle of Jutland the game was running 40-60 FPS.

I then downloaded fraps and tried Waterloo.

Brigade scenarios 25-28 fps with one short dip to 18.

Division scenarios 14-20 no dips.

Army level 6-14 FPS frequent dips to 4 FPS.

I would not object to an improvement in FPS, but I prefer SDK, reinforcements in campaign mode etc. first.

What I want to understand why 24 fps is ok for films but less than 60 is bad for games?

Film is static, games are not, it's that simple.

The more movment a game has the more need for high fps there is.

Old talsoft turn based games don't need 60fps, need for speed, wolfenstein ect. need 60fps,

You move alot, in Waterloo, yes it's true the sprites have no fluid animations, but the camera is supose to be fluid.

Also as you said, frequent dips to 4!! fps in army battle.

Imagien watcing the movie gettysburg, in the move they are frequent flyovers over the battlefield(much like the camera in scourge of war games) Inamgien suddnely the movie dropping for 24fps to 4...

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Film is static, games are not, it's that simple.

Laughably untrue.

You can change the camera speed to whatever you like. It's in the options menu.

[Gunfreak]

Film is static, games are not, it's that simple.

Laughably untrue.

You can change the camera speed to whatever you like. It's in the options menu.

Camarea speed dosn't help at 5fps. And that has nothing to do with wether film is static and games are not

[Xreos1]

Granted I would like more than 5,

I have fooled around with blender and a game where you create animations, they are basically static frame point A static frame point B and the program fills the frames in between. One in particular has 20 pose points for each second. Since I don't know the inner workings of program like this I don't know how that would translate to FPS.

If I'm comparing apples to oranges I'm sorry.

I guess I'm asking those that know more than myself, what would be an acceptable FPS?

Just because a computer can render 60 FPS, does a game have to?

I once had a car that would do 160 mph, didn't mean I always drove at that speed.