Total War: Rome 1 - Doesn't use GPU, help?

[DonOfAlbion]

So, after getting Rome total war to work at all, I thought I'd play some massive wars. Turns out that is pretty much impossible because it looks like the game doesn't even use my GPU's. The Asus GPU monitor shows no change in VRAM used while playing the game.

This is my PC:
Motherboard: Asus RAMPAGVE IV Extreme
CPU: Intel core-i7 3820k (4.25GHz, 8 core)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
GPU1: Asus GeForce GTX 660-2gbOC
GPU2: Asus GeForce GTX 660-2gbOC

The maximum amount of FPS i can get out of a large battle is about 15 FPS, while my build should definitely allow me to run even larger battles than I am without problems. These battles i'm complaining about is with everything on it's highest settings and unit size on "Huge". There is about 7.000 units on the battlefield total. However on previous version on Windows I could run battles with way more units on the same specs, not anymore. Like I said before, it doesn't even look like ANY of my GPU's are working on this game. For instance the VRAM usages is about 550mb when no visual applications are running, it doesn't even change by more than 100mb when I enter a battle with about 7.000 units. This seems odd to me and restricts my ability to play a nice large battle without it going below 30 fps (minimum). I've tried multiple things, like forcing Rome total war to run in single GPU mode or setting the compatibility settings to Windows XP SP2. Nothing works. Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this? I've scoured the community for a while and seen this problem pop up more but there isn't any thread with a fix in it. Or I missed it. So I'm trying this, anyone, help?

NOTE: Total War: Rome 2 DOES in fact run like a charm with high settings and highest unit size + large armies, practically doubling the amount of units on the field compared to Rome total war 1.

[CHE]

Sorry to hear that....

Back in 2012, I found M2TW and RTW were running slowly on my new gaming laptop.

I tried to solve this by exploring my NVIDIA Control Panel and I discovered that my laptop was running these 2 games using the CPU's integrated graphics processor by default. In the NVIDIA Control Panel, I was able to switch these games from the CPU's integrated graphics processor to my NVIDIA GTX 780M graphics card, and this sped these games up a lot.

Here's how do do this:

If you have an NVIDIA graphics card, you open "NVIDIA Control Panel".
On the left-hand side of the window that opens, you will see the words "Manage 3D Settings". Click that.
Then click on the tab "Program Settings".
You will be presented with the option to "Select a program to customize". Open the menu immediately under those words.
Scroll down to "'Rome Total War" and select it.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153614817353714&set=a.10153614817213714.1073741885.776718713&type=3&theater
You will be presented with the option to "Select the preferred graphics processor for this program". Open the menu immediately under those words.
In that menu, select whichever graphics processor you want your computer to use for the game. I chose my "High Performance NVIDIA processor".

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153614817358714&set=a.10153614817213714.1073741885.776718713&type=3&theater
At the bottom of the window, click "Apply".

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153614966693714&set=a.10153614817213714.1073741885.776718713&type=3&theater
Done

And if that doesn't work, then I'd suggest you try using Steam Support (click "Help" in the top lefthand area of this Steam page, and then when the menu opens, click on "Steam Support").

And I'd also suggest you search the official technical support forum for Total War Eras games (including Rome Total War), and if you don't find your answer there, then I suggest you start a new thread there:
http://forums.totalwar.com/forumdisplay.php/19-Total-War-Eras-Support-Forum

I'd also suggest you search the Total War Center technical help forum for Total War Eras games (including Rome Total War), and if you don't find your answer there, then I suggest you start a new thread there:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?76-Total-War-Eras-Technical-Help

[DonOfAlbion]

Thanks for the fast reply! I think I've seen this comment somewhere before. Problem with my build is that I don't have an integrated graphics adapter in my motherboard/CPU. In the program settings in the Nvidia control pannel I can't choose the specific GPU to use, because there is nothing to choose :C

Any other ideas?

[HazardHawk]

The bad news is you have an INTEL CPU which has its own embedded HD GPU core. There is no work around to escape the stuttering and lag. The only people that can make one would be INTEL writing a new driver that allows the disabling of the HD embedded core in your CPU.

In fact, if you look at the system requirements the game is made to run on a Pentium processor from INTEL and no other from INTEL though it will run on any AMD CPU.

[Boycott microtransactions]

Dear all,

From what I can see, using this particular version of the d3d8.dll file, will allow the game to use your dedicated graphics card (thus increasing performance massively), *without* getting rid of flaming projectiles.

Download the file here: https://github.com/crosire/d3d8to9/releases

I should just add that I've only tested this with the retail version(s) of Rome & Barbarian Invasion (i.e. 1.5 , & 1.6) not the Steam version(s) (1.5.1) of either. So, mileage may vary. But, this is, to this day, the best fix I've found.

Another thing ppl. could try to do is disable their integrated graphics in the BIOS. This might force the game to use your graphics card.

-V

[HazardHawk]

Serious necro post... Also no longer relevant of fully updated.