Lag wins the lists and the glory of this tournament

[Mattressi]

This is the kind of message I was expecting after I joined the tournament, started the first round and then shuddered forward at what was likely around 5 FPS, eventually being killed, while my computer had the technological equivalent of a stroke.

Seriously, why is there so much lag in the tournament?? It's not even a constant lag (well, it's constantly lagging, but it keeps increasing and decreasing in how much lag there is). I read other threads where people spoke of a 'slight stutter' because of this new patch, well I'm experiencing the opposite; in a tournament I'm experiencing a 'slight gameplay' amid my frozen game. Whenever I take a swing at someone or run towards them it seems to get especially bad (by that I mean that the FPS goes from the regular 5 or so down to less than 1 - I can actually sit back and wait for quite a while for the game to resume).

Outside battles don't seem so bad (although the biggest battle I've encountered was only 30 vs 30 and that started to really bog my system down), but for some reason tournaments are simply unplayable. Maybe it's that there's more horses?

Anyway, I only just downloaded this demo yesterday morning (I'm in Australia, so I'm not sure when that is for everyone else, but it's past midnight here) and have been playing it all day. At first I really enjoyed it (the game runs flawlessly at the highest settings when in training mode and when walking around), but now that I've got to bigger battles and decided to try tournaments I've seen that it simply isn't playable for me even on the lowest settings. Is this a bug and will it be fixed soon? I'm on a break now so I was hoping to buy this game now and play it while I have some time off (about 3 weeks). Any chance that a patch increasing the performance will be released before 3 weeks are up? I really enjoy this game when it runs well, but I don't want to buy it if I can only play 4 vs 4 battles or less.

Also, I saw some people say that 1.113 is ok, so I'm downloading that now and will see how it goes.

Oh and my system specs are:
GeForce 9800GT
4 Gb of RAM (although XP only registers it as 3.25 Gb)
Intel Core2 Duo 7300 2.66 GHz

Is my computer simply not good enough (graphics-wise it should be, but maybe the large number of AI is doing something funny)?

Thanks in advance for any replies and sorry if this thread is too similar to others (I thought I'd start a thread for people who've had more than a 'slight stutter').

 

[Halcyon]

your system is more than capable of handling M&B. Indeed, it is a flaw in the game and something specific to this patch. reverting to 1.113 might be a good idea if you are only going to play singleplayer. Though it is not guaranteed it will perform that differently, there is a big difference in how 1.113 performed compared to the patch we have now.

 

[Mattressi]

your system is more than capable of handling M&B. Indeed, it is a flaw in the game and something specific to this patch. reverting to 1.113 might be a good idea if you are only going to play singleplayer. Though it is not guaranteed it will perform that differently, there is a big difference in how 1.113 performed compared to the patch we have now.

That's good to know; at least it isn't my computer that's the problem. Version 1.113 just finished downloading, but I'm gonna go to bed now and in the morning I'll see if it's any better. Are there any company reps on here that will be able to tell us when they expect to fix this?

 

[Tiberius]

The netcode is bad.

 

[Stabbing Hobo]

The netcode is bad.

Which is clearly an issue in the singleplayer. Besides, it could be worse, like Source or CryEngine.

 

[Mattressi]

The netcode is bad.

Yeah, Stabbing Hobo is right; I'm talking about singleplayer only (no multiplayer with the demo). Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

Also, I just started up 1.113 but realised my old saves don't work. Is there any way around this or should I start again?

 

[Halcyon]

just start again, you should be able to see a difference no matter what you do.

 

[Tiberius]

The netcode is bad.

Yeah, Stabbing Hobo is right; I'm talking about singleplayer only (no multiplayer with the demo). Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

Also, I just started up 1.113 but realised my old saves don't work. Is there any way around this or should I start again?

The netcode is bad.

Which is clearly an issue in the singleplayer. Besides, it could be worse, like Source or CryEngine.

Right, I thought the OP was talking about MP because "lag" usually refers to the delay that happens in mutliplayer games, not bad performance.

 

[Mattressi]

The netcode is bad.

Yeah, Stabbing Hobo is right; I'm talking about singleplayer only (no multiplayer with the demo). Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

Also, I just started up 1.113 but realised my old saves don't work. Is there any way around this or should I start again?

The netcode is bad.

Which is clearly an issue in the singleplayer. Besides, it could be worse, like Source or CryEngine.

Right, I thought the OP was talking about MP because "lag" usually refers to the delay that happens in mutliplayer games, not bad performance.

I've been using the term 'lag' to describe slow performance well before multiplayer got so big. Maybe because I mostly play SP games I've just never needed a distinction between the two. I guess since most games nowadays are made for 4 year old hardware (Xbox 360) most PC gamers only have internet connectivity issues to complain about rather than graphics performance.

Halcyon, I'll start it up now and play through. I'll post about how it goes when I get to a tournament (I encountered way more lag in a tournament than anywhere else).

 

[Mattressi]

Ok, I've been playing it a lot and with the old version (1.113) I can run the game at the highest settings and encounter absolutely no lag/stutter/slow performance/whatever even when in tournaments or large battle with over 70 people in them.

Thanks for the help Halcyon and everyone else, this game is infinitely more enjoyable now 

 

[Mattressi]

Ok, I've now encountered some lag; when I was playing a 30 vs 30 size battlefield (I started again...again) it started to lag horribly. There were a lot more horses in this battles than normal and when the horses ran off or were killed it became a little better. Is this normal? With my specs (posted above) roughly how big a battle should I be able to have before it starts to lag?

Also, I tried turning my graphics down from absolute maximum to absolute minimum, then replaying the battle and it made NO noticeable difference on the performance at all. This is really confusing me. Any ideas on what's happening and if this is normal would be much appreciated.

Oh, and tournaments still don't lag, even when there's an entire stadium filled with guys on horses. Seriously, I'm completely at a loss to explain this