1257 AD Performance thread (+some tips)

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souleater

Veteran
Hello all!

As the title suggests, this will be a thread for people to share their experience with PC performance and FPS management in Warband and this mod specifically. Hopefully this will help those of us, who want to upgrade our machines specifically for this game, in order to be able to play it smoothly on large battle sizes. Getting the right parts is tricky, because often people with better and more expensive machines experience worse performance than those with older/cheaper hardware.

What I would like to ask of the community here is to post your PC specs and FPS of a 400 men custom battle in the following format:

My PC specs:
CPU: AMD Phenom x4 965
GPU: AMD Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 1GB
RAM: 6GB
Windows 7 64bit
(This is the main info I want, but you can post other specs as well, if you wish.)

My FPS:
I can run a 400 men custom battle on rev 101 on average at ~25 FPS (min. 22, max. 40.)
(For this test I tried to keep all the men on the screen at once as much as possible. The version of the revision is important, as different versions seem to have different performance on my rig with difference being as big as 50% drop between revision 101 and latter revisions.)


Some performance/crash prevention tips:


1. Commenting out new_buffer_size.
Some people report that their game stopped crashing or graphical glitches disappeared after commenting out new_buffer_size. To do this, open your Module folder (e.g. Program files\Warband\Modules\dev1257) and edit a file called "game_variables". Put a "#" before each line starting with "new_buffer_size", so that it looks like this:
Code:
#new_buffer_size_regular_ffp_static 		=  32768
#new_buffer_size_regular_ffp_dynamic     =  32768
#new_buffer_size_regular_static          = 131072
#new_buffer_size_regular_dynamic         =  65536
#new_buffer_size_skinning_static         = 131072
#new_buffer_size_skinning_dynamic        =  65536
#new_buffer_size_normal_map_static       = 131072
#new_buffer_size_normal_map_dynamic      =  65536
#new_buffer_size_normal_map_skinning_static  = 131072
#new_buffer_size_normal_map_skinning_dynamic =  65536
2. Increasing render_buffer_size.
Sometimes changing this setting stops stuttering or prevents crashes. Find your rgl_config file in C:\Users\[User Name]\Documents\Mount&Blade Warband and increase the "render_buffer_size" to 256 or 512.
3. Adjusting Virtual memory.
Usually, if you have Windows 7 and at least 4GB of RAM I recommend not to change VM, because Windows 7 (and to a lesser extent Windows XP) is very good at managing the pagefile on its own. If however you have 2GB of RAM or even less and you're experiencing crashes, this might help you. In Win7: Control Panel -> System ->  Advanced system settings -> On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings -> Click the Advanced tab, and then, under Virtual memory, click Change. Click custom size and increase the Initial size value to around 1.5 times the size of your RAM and Maximum size value to around 3 times the size of your RAM. (The values are in Megabytes. 1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes)

I would really recommend trying other fixes before tampering with VM because half of the time it can actually decrease the performance or cause stability issues. Whatever you do, do not disable the pagefile, it will cause weird behaviour within certain software and do not set it to huge values either. It is ideal to keep the pagefile on a separate drive (not just a partition).
4. Configuring launcher options.
Some launcher options will prevent crashes at loading screen or increase performance. When you start Warband, click Configure in the launcher menu.
Use DirectX7 - this will give you a nice FPS boost, but the graphics will look worse.
Load textures on demand - if you're having frequent crashes, checking this option may help. If this option is checked, it loads the textures into your video-RAM whenever the game needs it during the course of battles. If it is unchecked - it loads all the textures at once at the beginning of the game/scene. If you don't have a dated video card, I would suggest keeping this on. Especially if your card is low on v-RAM. Otherwise, if you have over 1GB of v-RAM and/or an older generation video card, you might benefit from having this option off.
Max. Framerate - set this value to 60 - may help with stuttering in some cases. Unless your monitor has a refresh rate higher than 60, having this value anywhere above 60 is a waste of resources.
Enable Sound Variation - this used to cause performance issues and crashes for many people in the past - especially for those who had onboard audio. Might be fixed by know (I'm really not sure), but I have it disabled anyway. This option is supposed to randomly change the frequency of certain sound effects to make them sound more varied. Speaking of onboard audio, you might be surprised to hear this, but having a dedicated audio card in stead of using whatever your motherboard hardware has to offer, may decrease the CPU load, because dedicated audio cards usually have more powerful digital signal processors (DSP). Almost any card above 30$ will do the trick.
Force Single-Threading - for certain processors this option can actually improve performance, because Warband is not very well optimized for multi-core tasking. My old 2-core seems to fare better with this option off, though. If the game for some reason refuses to use all your cores despite having this option off (you can test this in Task Manager - Performance tab: Start Task manager, go back into Warband, play a battle, then switch to Task manager and check the graphs under CPU USage History), you can try this fix: Go to Processes tab in Task manager, find mb_warband.exe in the list, right-click it and click on Set Affinity, untick all cores except the first one (should be called Core 0) and click OK. Then click Set Affinity again and this time tick all cores. Warband should now use all your cores properly.
5. Editing the amount of pre-rendered frames.
This setting controls the number of frames the CPU prepares in advanced of being rendered by the GPU. This setting may give a nice FPS boost and decrease stuttering. The driver default (afaik) is 3, but you can set it to anything from 0 to 8. Experiment with this value. I have had positive effects when increasing this number to maximum value, but others have had better results with setting it to 0. Some people didn't see any difference at all. It's really that random.
For nVidia users: Open nVidia Control Panel, create a profile for Warband in "Manage 3D settings" section and adjust "Maximum pre-rendered frames" value.
For AMD users: Download RadeonPro and create a profile for Warband. On the right side under Advanced tab adjust "Flip Queue Size" value.
6. Using a background FPS booster.
If you have a high-end CPU and you feel it's underperforming, give this little script a try. It will force your CPU to operate at its maximum frequency at all times, possibly increasing and balancing performance. This will probably have little to no effect on low-end CPUs. The original author of this script is YassirX from TWcenter forums, but here's a modified version in Skyrim Nexus: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/5695
7. Disable Core Parking on Win7.
If you have a high-end CPU with 4 cores or more and you're experiencing loss of performance due to core parking, then try this fix. (You can check in Task Manager if Windows is disabling ("parking") any of your cores.)
1. Open Regedit.
2. Press Ctrl+F and paste in: 0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583
3. In this key find a value called "ValueMax" and open it. Change its value to 0.
4. Continue searching for more of these keys and repeat the process (I found 3 such keys in my registry).
5. Restart your PC.

Some people report better overall performance after applying this tweak.


Tips on upgrading hardware.

In my experience this game is extremely CPU-intensive. Overclocking my 7850 (or on the flipsisde - increasing resolution of the game) has 0 impact on the performance of the game. Playing 1000 troop battles with high and low graphics settings also has no FPS difference whatsoever. What this means is that the real bottleneck for me is the CPU.

As for RAM, it is perfectly enough with 4GB. I personally have never seen Warband take up more than ~3GB of RAM.

On the GPU side this game isn't very demanding, you can run this game on max settings with 3 year old video cards. Radeon HD 7750 for AMD fans and GTX 550 Ti for nVidia enthusiasts should be more than enough. If you have the opportunity, go for a card with more vRAM, because Warband can make good use of that extra memory on large battle sizes. 1GB of vRAM for my 7850 seems to be just fine, but 2GB wouldn't hurt.

It gets trickier with CPUs. There are people with high-end CPUs that can barely run this game on 200-300 battlesize, at the same time there are those who can run it with no lag with 3 years old processors. It seems there is no way to know but to test each and every CPU and see how it performs. As we know, Warband is not perfect for multicore CPUs, so 6 core processors are probably a bad choice. Personally, I would go for either an i3 3240 (a powerful 2 core CPU - in theory should be very effective for a game like Warband) or an i5-3570K (a 4 core CPU - after an over clock it gives amazing performance). If you have a motherboard that supports AMD processors and you do not want to switch to Intel, I can suggest AMD Phenom II x4 965 - with an over clock it's an incredible value for money (not perfect for Warband, though).

I have tested:
Stock AMD Athlon II x2 260 with about 800 troops on screen with ~5-10 FPS.
OC Intel i7 920 with about 800 troops on screen with ~25-30 FPS.
Stock AMD Phenom x4 965 with 400 men on screen with ~24 FPS.
 
I have an i7 2600K CPU.  I've been meaning to try the force single-threading option but never have.  Does anyone more tech savvy than me know if there's any point in trying that out?  I mean my game performance is great as it is but I'd like to punch up the battlesizer even more if possible and every little optimization counts right?  It's currently set on 400 with max graphics enabled and I get 8.5/10 performance.  I want that 10/10!!!

My specs:

i7 2600K
8GB ram
Corsair HX 750 PSU
GTX 660 ti


 
@Gaxleep, you're welcome. :smile:
@DerHerbst, the only real way to know is try a custom battle with and without the setting enabled. Try to keep all the troops on screen at once in both tries. If the FPS difference is just 1 or 2 frames, it's probably not worth it.
 
Thanks for making this thread. I'm in need of some help though, I've been having some performance issues with the latest revisions.

I updated to rev217 last week after playing a long campaign on rev191. I had read somewhere that there were new LODs added a few weeks ago for armors to help performance in battles. As of rev191 I was able to play 250 man battles at around 45 fps, with greater framedrops occurring during the more cramped siege battles. I also had minor stuttering in certain locations, specifically when I had just entered a battle, or in the "Mediterranean" maps (the scenes that you get when fighting in places like Italy, Greece, Spain, etc).  When I updated to 217, i noticed that both framerate performance and stuttering had, unfortunately, gotten worse. Now, when I try to run 250 man battles, I'm only getting about 35 fps on average, and stuttering has made the game unplayable unless I lower battlesize to around 200. I tried doing everything that was suggested by the OP, but to no avail. I have a pretty decent system, and recently upgraded my GPU as well:

i7 960

6GB RAM

GTX 680

The one thing I've noticed that reduces the stuttering/fps loss is with the new formations options in the camp menu. Making the AI dumber really did help reduce stuttering and smooth out the battles, but only a little. I got about a 5 fps gain from doing that, stuttering is still occurring consistently. It's at its peak at the start of a battle when the largest amount of npcs are on screen. It decreases when the numbers drop, but spikes back up when reinforcements arrive. I haven't updated drivers recently, so I know that's not an issue. Other Warband modules and different games are still running fine, so I know it's probably not a hardware issue either. Could it be new LODs that are causing stuttering when they "pop-in"? Someone posted in this thread (http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,256486.0.html) that they fixed their stuttering issues by removing LOD textures from certain items. I also read that horse LODs are what causes stuttering in battles with a higher amount of cavalry. I'm really not sure if this problem is being caused by LODs, new AI/formations changes, a combination of both, or something else. I'm still enjoying the mod though, just with smaller battles  :sad: ... oh well. I hope that came out okay, I'd try to give you guys more details, but it's late here and I need ot get some sleep. Hopefully someone might offer some new options that I can try. If not, I'll just revert to an older revision that I didn't have any problems in. So, no worries, and ty in advance.  :smile:
 
That is really strange. You shouldn't worry about your hardware - that GPU should handle over 1000 troops with smooth 60 FPS, the CPU, I think, also should be able to handle more than 250 troops. I can easily get 40 fps with 250 men on screen with my old AMD processor. But then again, I am playing on an older revision (101). In my experience, any revision above that crushes performance by half. In theory LODs should really help with performance. There is no way that I can imagine that they would decrease the performance.
 
Waiting Bannerlord....  :roll:

Imho we are dealing with an old engine that not uses processors, gpu or ram of which we have today.
Optimizations are necessary, but I relate to the decrease in the ragdoll, the number of bodies and the management of the shadows.
 
Thanks for the replies. It doesn't seem like there's much that can be done about it, but I've narrowed stuttering/fps problems down to a few things in-game. I can't believe that I didn't notice this before though.

I get absolutely no stuttering at all in siege battles and custom battles. I even had zero issues when playing a full custom battle with both teams 100% cavalry. I started a new game and decided that I would troubleshoot and test different scenes/regions to see how they have an impact on battle performance (with about 200-250 npc battlesize). I received the highest framerates in areas like England, France, Germany, etc (northern forest areas). In terms of framedrops/stuttering, it started to get worse in snowy areas like Norway, Sweden, Novgorod, etc (probably HDR combined with the bright snow textures). The absolute worst areas were in the southern grassy scenes like Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain, etc. I had already noticed this previously, but this just confirms where the worst performance areas for me are. Noticed the same pattern in older revisions as well, just with less noticeable performance impacts. Seems to be a combination of battle AI/formations and certain scenes that are impacting my fps and causing stuttering. In the latest revisions, I've witnessed the AI using some very odd formations. There was one incident where AI infantry formed up in a square formation, and all of their cavalry, archers, and horse archers crammed together next to it as they advanced down a hill at me. Tried going through the steps in the OP again and played around with other settings in display, formations menu, and mod options. Still no results, save for dumbing down the AI in formations, but as I said before, this only helps minimally. Maybe someone can do some testing themselves to see if they can find any similar issues? I'd like to know if this is just on my end, or if anyone else has noticed this. Thanks!
 
Svn Checkout ->

irs0jsw.png
 
I would get the latest version of the SVN. Only just recently was the Fix applied for mercenary companions to come back on emissary missions (thank you othr!), which has a great impact on the gameplay.
 
Has anyone else had any issues with the map?

I put a ticket in because I recently updated my SVN version, started a new game and now when ever I zoom out to mid-level to all the way zoomed out my game immediately crashes. I've never had any graphics issues with 1257 before so it's kind of unsettling for me...

Everything is set to high, battlesizer is on 400
Win 7 64bit
AMD Phenom II X6 Core 1055T Processor 2.8 GHz
8 Gigs of DDR2 (I think, might be 3)
Radeon HD 7870 2GB GDDR5 (Double Black Diamond)
 
Good thread, definitely necessary. I´ll try your hints, souleater - maybe I can get a thousand soldiers on the battlefield after all.

One problem is the minimap for me - it makes the game significantly decrease in fps.

But even when I have a fps-rate of 30 or higher, I sometimes have the feeling that the game is stuttering. Any suggestions?
 
I've had no problems with the map but I'm playing rev 101.

Just tested an AMD Phenom x4 965... and guess what? :grin: I gain 2 FPS over my previous CPU - Athlon II x2 260. Apparently it is true that having more than 2 cores is USELESS for this game.
 
Hi, i have a old comp, trouble me a lot to play 150 size hehe with min graphics, also my FPS its 60 kind of high isnt it the worst?

amd 64X2 dual core 2.7
2g ram
1g ati HD 5450

idk too much about which piece give best render on a comp! if i had to change 1 piece, wich will be most urgent and why? thx.
 
If you want to have a larger battle size - go for a CPU, if you want to turn up the graphics quality with the same battle size - a GPU would be a better investment.
 
CPU immediately haha... like i say with my CPU i cant even reach 150 battle size and im thinking lower it...

happen when i look all the troops get stuttering and if i look where there inst troops works good, that is the CPU right? sry my english!!! :grin:
 
yes, CPU is very important for this.
Worst thing is that holding a town starts to begin well with minimum of 250, better 300 soldiers on the battlefield. Else the defending troops aren't strong enough and their reinforcements aren't fast enough to hold the wall.
Some of the new 1257AD scenes compensate this a bit with multiple defense positions, but it's better you have a chance to hold the first wall.
(my experience)
 
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