Ok, I'm no expert here but i've done a lot of reading and testing into settings for Empires. If you are one to love FPS over gfx, then this thread is for you. The command line parameters that can be added to any source game are long and varied, the most critical ones can give you substantial performace gains. Here's what i had in my desktop shortcut to 2.12 (yes all the settings will work in 2.2) These settings actually allow me to run 2.2 without getting 10 FPS. WOOT! D:\Steam\steam.exe -gameidlaunch 9672256695522296023 -game "d:\steam\SteamApps\SourceMods\Empires" -heapsize 524288 -novideo +mat_bumpmap "0" +mat_specular "0" +mat_fastbump "1" +mat_fastspecular "1" -high -dxlevel 80 -w "1024" -h "768" -windowed Explanation(s) : -heapsize (amount of ram on yer pc divided by 2) forces windows to give that much mem to the game (i have 1gb in example) -novideo (faster startup) doesnt play empires.avi +mat_bumpmap "0" (disables bump mapping) FPS gain +mat_specular "0" (see above) +mat_fastbump "1" (see above) +mat_fastspecular "1" (see above) -high (makes game run in high priority mode) XP = works, Vista = ? -dxlevel 80 (sets dxlevel to older versions, lots of #'s avail.) 80 is lowest that worked for me -windowed (runs in a window) can help FPS sometimes mostly useful for testing settings -w "1024" -h "768" (sets resolution of game) required if you use DXLEVEL param There are also plenty of clientside cvars for helping out the 'load' on yer pc when ingame. I'll post those next.
you dont need the fastbump and fastspecular (which should actually be fastnobump and fastnospecular anyway) if you have mat_bumpmap and mat_specular set to 0.
Thx for this. The game was completely unplayable before your tweaks. -heapsize 524288 -novideo +mat_bumpmap "0" +mat_specular "0" -high -dxlevel 80 -w "1024" -h "768" Well i have 3gb of ram so i used: -heapsize 1572864 -novideo +mat_bumpmap "0" +mat_specular "0" -high -dxlevel 80 -w "1024" -h "768" where (3gb -> kilobytes) / 2 = 1572864. O yea i checked and -high works in vista apparently. At least in vista ultimate 64 bit, because hl2.exe appears to be in high priority.
