Rise of Nations running slowly

[tomster2300]

Hey,

I've posted this question before, but I'm still having the same problems. I'm playing a quick battle against the computer--just single player--and I'm getting framerate below 40 fps when I get a bunch of things on screen. It wasn't showing any slow down like this for some reason when I was playing the conquer the world campaign this morning. I have all the latest drivers, and I tried rebooting, but I still get lagginess. When there's not much happening I get in the high 80s, but never beyond 90. I have a geforce 4 ti 4800 se card and I know I should be getting much higher fps. What is wrong? My card comes with a program called nvidia media center which stays in my task bar. I can tweak my card there,

(Antialiasing, which I have set to application controlled, antisotrophic filtering, which I have set to off, and Image Setting, which I have set to High Performance.) Bitmap Detail Level is on Best Quality, vertical sync is on (when I turn it off it makes the screen choppy when i scroll) When I turn it off my fps flies from over 100 to mid 20s. Buffer-flipping mode is on auto-select.

In the menu it also has Custom OpenGL Settings and Custom DirectX Settings, but when I click on them it makes another little menu slide out which says "empty". If anyone can help me I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

[Jeradln82]

Have you tried going HERE (http://www.microsoft.com/games/riseofnations/support.asp)? Or THIS (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;815069&Product=gms) may help.

DO you have programs running in the backround? Maybe Rise Of Nations is a resource hog.

[DragonNOA1]

Is there anything else wrong with the computer, or any other problems? If not it seems like your card should be able to run 32bit color, 1024x768 resolution, and one setting down from max graphics/detail on everything else.

[tomster2300]

Hey, I don't think anything is wrong with my computer. I can play the demo of Call of Duty flawlessly without any lag on 1280x1024 res with max settings. It's just Rise of Nations which seems to have the problems. I didn't think about applying any of the patches :D. Lol, I'll try that. Thanks.

[REdDragon]

Get the latest drivers for your Video card. The patches don't really help. Do you have DirectX-9 installed? As for call of duty, thats a D3D game. Which is in my opinion is faster.

[Bushtree]

umm well i am getting this game tomorrow so when i play it i will let you know if i have the same problem..

how do you like the game?

[tomster2300]

Rise of Nations is a very good game. It's very similar to Age of Empires, taking the best parts of it and improving on them. I finally beat the conquer the world campaign yestersday. The biggest change is that 1) you go through a much broader space of time, and 2) they've incorporated a new boundary system which shows your current territory. You must build new cities, or assimilate your enemies's cities to enlarge your boundaries. Certain troops loose life when outside your territory, so it can change the outcome of a battle if you take a city thus forcing the enemy to either bring reinforcements or to withdrawl due to failing health. Sadly though it's nothing like Civilization, when you enter a battle the only cities you can affect are the ones on the map. You can't look at a larger map unless you play the conquer the world campaign (similar to risk). When you move your army pawn to the country u wish to attack on the world map, it brings you down to the same old battle map, and you must build a small network of cities and another army. This gets tiring, but it's still fun to play. You'll get bored after a day or two, but you will come back. It's kinda addicting.

[tomster2300]

Is there anyway to manually update OpenGl and Direct 3d? Or do the updates come in the big video card update you get off nvidia's website? Yes, I have directx 9.0b installed. Also I do have the latest video card updates. It even says that it fixes known issues with Rise of Nations, but something still is working like it should.

[tomster2300]

I found out what the problem is. After getting all new drivers, the fps count in the game went up, but it was still slow. I realized then that there was a game speed option in the game where you could make things go slower or faster by pressing the - or + buttons. Man do I feel stupid. Thanks for all your advice though.

[Jeradln82]

LoL.... Its always the little things we miss. :D I'm glad you got it fixed.