Any settings to lower for weak CPU?

[Larry]

I'm kind of stuck with a PC that has a weak CPU and can't be upgraded. The game runs just fine in it, but as others with even new/strong PCs have mentioned, the game can start to take a bit of a hit as the population grows.

I'm wondering if there's any specific setting that can help a weak CPU for when that does happen. My video card is good, so it's really just about graphic features that specifically load down the CPU.

I know that Folliage is one possible one. I've always had it off, though. Any others?

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Turn vsync off.

[ВАНГОК]

Developers focus on optimization fix please
unplayable with 500 peoples.
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. TUF Gaming FX705GE
Windows 11 Pro (10.0, Build 22000)
Процессор: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8300H CPU @ 2.30GHz 4/8
ОЗУ: 16 GB
Видеокарта1: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4 GB)
Видеокарта2: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630 (1 GB)

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Suspect more optimisation will come further down the line, but if they're still adding/changing stuff it's not the best time now to do that.

[Larry]

Yup, VSync is also off. Forgot to mention that. It was one of the things mentioned by other users as a thing to switch off.

Oh, for sure... Optimization will probably be the final step of the development before final release. It has been running fine on my side (...My population is in the 200's). I'm just starting to see a hint of strain. Just not as smooth as it normally is.

I'm just anticipating I'll hit the same hit on performance soon, since people with good rigs are feeling it as well. I had no issue keeping Foliage off, as it's a small price to pay for good performance... So, I was just wanting to see if there were any other settings I could start lowering as things get worse with population. Nothing strikes me as obvious, as most things seem like they would be GPU based.

[IFIYGD]

Turn shadows down, turn supersampling down, and turn anti-aliasing down to FXAA. Removing soft particles and soft shadows may or may not help. Dropping to 720p if you are set to 1080p may help a wee bit.
Without knowing your system specs, form factor, and what other background programs you may have running- it's all guesswork. If you have an outside browser open- close it. Some browsers can hog resources. If you're on a laptop, you are always going to have worse perf than a desktop- in pretty much any game. My 4 month old gaming laptop (which has way better specs than my 3+ year old gaming desktop does) struggles with the game much more than the desktop does.
And the game is CPU bound, much more than GPU bound.

[RayOfLite]

My post may help?
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1044720/discussions/0/3315233099220789614/

[ungamer]

no settings to lower that will significantly help you on high population. game needs optimization, devs are working on that. we can only wait.
ps. game is "cpu-bound" as Zantai said, so ... until they will fix it hardware usage and ai problems, make to use gpu etc , it will be unplayable on high pop with roads and all the stuff.
some people said that if you start a new town without roads it might help to have smooth gameplay ... but anyway we can also read time to time that some people have no such problems. hard to believe in that... no one has showed it on video

[ВАНГОК]

I play on a laptop with a monitor connected and the start of the game works at maximum settings with a resolution of 3840 = 2160, but with an increase in the population, I gradually lowered the graphic settings and the game continued to work smoothly until the parameters reached a minimum, and the population reached 500, since then the game works normally only the first 15 minutes after start, at 1/2 speed, you can play

[ВАНГОК]

I believe they will fix this problem in the near future, because even blizzard has recently optimized wc3 menu

[Larry]

Hi, guys. Thanks for all that. Interesting that it is (currently) CPU intensive, rather than handing that off to the GPU (...if that is in fact the case).

Well, ya, it seems even the good rigs are struggling, so I'm sure that they will have to address the optimization... which I'm confident they would be doing, as a last step, with or without that issue.

I do have supersampling at 100% (...should I go lower?) Shadows are at medium, I think (...certainly not high). I'll check the anti-aliasing. I assumed that all would be directly fed to the GPU, so my weak CPU wouldn't benefit from those... but I'll check.

And, ya, my CPU is OLD... Intel Pentium i7 920.... and only 12 gigs of RAM too, unfortunately. It's not a PC I can upgrade, although I replaced the GTX 550(?) GPU with a GTX 1060. Oddly enough, it runs everything I have (including XPlane11, Arma3, DCS, etc) all just fine. FF plays nice, too. But, as I said, I'm just bracing for the inevitable hit as my population goes up.

Thanks again. I'll look into all those things on my next session.