[Request] Please improve game performance

The functionality of the game is essentially the same as in the 1999 version. There are many quality-of-life improvements that I assume do not impact the performance negatively - unless they are buggy or were poorly implemented.
Many bugs were fixed, many new bugs introduced, but we can all agree that in theory, if you exclude the changes to the graphics, the game should be about as demanding as the original version right?
So, if I have the game on the low-preset, with everything low/off, my computer is clean and isn’t presenting any issue, why does the game perform so much worse than the original version? Do I have others here that agree that something should be done about it?

Some actionable requests regarding the problem, that could be implemented as OPTIONS, not forcing anything into anyone:

  • Graphics (textures, models, animations) exactly as demanding as the original? That should save a lot of resources.
  • FPS cap?
  • Drop frames?
  • Things that were changed like the polling rate and such to make the game more modern, how about an option to select a midpoint between the original and what we have now?
  • Measure what features of the game are consuming how much of each computational resource (CPU, GPU, RAM, Disk, Network) and optimize the implementation of said features.

IF we agree that the game is essentially the original version which QoL improvements that shouldn’t impact performance and a brand new look that could be opt-in, I think it follows that the game should also not be more demanding than the original.

edit: an older thread with some very pertinent suggestions that were not considered: Performance improvement suggestion: add option to only select one zoom level

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Do you realize that original game had a weight of 480mb aok+aoc?

Sounds, textures, music, animations multiplied the angles and size increasing insanely the weight, even the HD version which was only 5gb had terrible performance, imagine this one with 13gb or 26gb with he enhanced graphics pack, the game is not like it was 10 months ago, the resources it uses are pretty low for normal PC standars, 4 gb of ram 2 gb of vram, low cpu usage cause only one core/thread being used.

If you really want to boost performance, then go and mod all the files, change all the audio files, use older textures, the game looks like voobly by just replacing textures, animations are harder, basically they fill up ur vram, so you might need hard work to reduce quality on those, the devs wont be doing that cause you know game was advertised as 4k to 8k resolutions and to be eye candy. All the 3d effects they added do not have a big impact in performance, so going from low to high ultra, doesn’t change a thing.

I have a friend running the game with a (1080p)50$ usd cpu/gpu an Atlon 200ge and he only gets yellow clock in 4x4 lol, if you are getting worse performance than that then you might reconsider to upgrade.

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From a business perspective, I think an option for lowering the graphics in order to reduce computer demand would be a smart move.
In my country not so many people can afford a computer able to run DE, so they stick with HD or voobly. Most people I know who play the game does not play DE because of that reason, so a performance over graphic option would increase sells.
Also, with the exchange rate here, the game cost the equivalent of about 2.50 usd. So the game is really cheap for us, but many can’t play it.

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Aoe1 de has an option to play with original look, don’t know if performance improves but aoe2de doesn’t have such a thing.

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Do you realize the OG graphics were way lower quality than the new ones?

Also, if you want the OG graphics, you can play AOC and UP

It’s like asking Doom Eternal to feature OG Doom models. It just can’t happen.

No, I don’t and no it isn’t.
OG version has lower quality textures, (Way lower quality, mind you)

Why not trying UP? It’s probably what you would want.

Because there are several versions of AOE2 that are still easily found.
AOE1 didn’t have many versions.

I’m in the same situation, the game was quite cheap but I’m thinking of going to voobly since I can’t micro properly on DE on big battles, and it feels off when I need to scroll too much as well…

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Because of the increased graphical requirements, and the design decisions the devs made in implementing them - I’m afraid that most people are out of luck with the DE version if they do not have a modern PC that can handle the higher PC requirements.

That being said, I think that this is the perfect use case for the HD version of the game (using the WololoKingdoms mod on Voobly of course) on older machines that still want to play a very stable and fun version of the game.

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They wanted to make some shallow advertisement by announcing 4k, upping the directions and frames, putting in gigs of collapse animation nonsense, ugly gfx… Look what we have now, a mess. The unfortunate case of having totally wrong priorities within an already too small budget. Meanwhile no option to select classic graphics.

I spent 1 hour queueing for a single TG today… getting unfair opponents such as John Slow or Dracken, disconnects, having to play unfavorable maps such as megarandom, game crashes…

@ArshiaAghaei

Do you realize the OG graphics were way lower quality than the new ones?

Also, if you want the OG graphics, you can play AOC and UP

Someone brings up a suggestion originating from a valid concern and you tell them to go to a secondary platform… Keep your disrespectfull nonsense to yourself.

It’s like asking Doom Eternal to feature OG Doom models. It just can’t happen.

Ofcourse it can, stop the BS. You can cut so much out of DE, only the units aren’t evident to replace.

Why not trying UP? It’s probably what you would want.

… Clearly he wants to play together with all the rest, on a smooth working game as we all were promised and payed for…

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Yeah, I avoid replying to people being dismissive and agressive like the guy you are quoting.

Devs, I’m asking here for options. Not everyone in the community lives somewhere where computers are cheap, and not everyone can afford a powerful machine. I first played Age of Kings in 2002, and started playing online in 2003, played on and off for a few years as my possibilities allowed.

I know I could play AOC with UP and I am considering going in that direction, but I would like to play the game where the majority of the community currently plays…

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It seems, but consider the fact that the game isn’t using 3D models, so decreasing quality can’t be too accurate.

Where exactly did I sound aggressive?

Firstly, I didn’t tell them to go to a secondary platform, I told them they can try that if they are in favor of old graphics.

Secondly, where exactly does that sound disrespectful? Not like I started mocking him or anything.

Pretty sure old graphics include old unit models. So, actually your point isn’t too strong

I still don’t understand how can you simply include yourself in the group of the game owners when you yourself confirmed you don’t own the game…

My whole point is, if you want to sacrifice the quality over performance (which isn’t a bad thing, mind you), you cannot do it in this game that much simply because the units in this game are 16 rotations of an image. You can’t decrease their quality that much.

I’m just stating a fact. Not that I have an issue with you wanting to play with the rest

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Yeah, I avoid replying to people being dismissive and agressive like the guy you are quoting.

I do the same most of the times, but sometimes it’s hard.

@ArshiaAghaei

I still don’t understand how can you simply include yourself in the group of the game owners when you yourself confirmed you don’t own the game…

I have been playing DE for months now. Around 800 games. Published 3 mods so far.

Units are only one part of what DE has expanded on, and even within those units you could still lower the frames. Now how much of an effect this all has I’m not sure of, but we can see that a lot has been added while the performance is worse. So a correlation is likely.

For the rest of your comment… i’ll just let it sit. Don’t forget to flag my post by the way.

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I would like to see a classic mode whose actual purpose is to improve performance. It could consist of no destruction animations, locked zoom level, less detailed graphics (but keeping the 16 directions movement, since it’s part of how the game works), and if possible less frames per unit modelo (idle, attack, etc). This last one may be tricky since I’ve read that cavalry archer higher frame delay in DE is related to the increased amount of frames.

I do not 100% understand how the game works, but I have some experience with modding and I think this is totally plausible. I don’t see why models couldn’t be rendered again in less resolution and a single zoom level like it was in AoC userpatch.

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Of course the performance can get lower, it’s the same engine but is using 4K sprites.

Not like I started the discussion anyways…

Not like you are the most passive user around…

But anyways, let us get on with our jobs and not clash each other…

Do you really need to act this way? Can you just not pinch? Our discussions can be passive if you start thinking about how you reply.

It would require the game to switch from 16 sprite format to 8 sprite format
I understand you said it should keep the 16 sprite format, but since the original models are seemingly gone (the 3D models that were used for the sprites) they can’t extend them to 16 sprite format.

Also, consider the possibility of a glitch where the old and new sprites might switch, it can get super messy.

Overall, the chances of a functioning system that can convert both sprites are low

I know. I was thinking about a re-render of the new models in all the 16 directions, but in a lower resolution so they have the same quality and size than it was in AoC. The wouldn’t look exactly the same, so maybe “classic mode” is not the best name for what I’m talking about.

I agree the chances of achieving a working system are low. These are just hopes. I can’t imagine the amount of bugs and glitches that could appear in this classic mode.

Reduce Graphics Quality
There is an option “Scaled up to screen” that lowers the quality of game and improves performance.

SSD VS DE
an SSD harddrive tripled… actually quadrupled the performance of DE. Not long ago I was running de at 25 fps but once I bought an SSD drive my FPS jumped all the way to 120. I wrote an entire post about this
This is How I fixed Crashes and Improved Performance For Age of Empires 2

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It restricts the zoom level to a closer one. So not only it looks really bad (it’s not low quality models, it’s a low quality image, like a video in 144p), but you’re also not able to zoom out the enough.

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Correct.

Which still would prove difficult.
The models themselves are 3D, but as I said earlier, they would need to replace the existing ones.
That would still cause glitches…

But hey, I hope they can improve performance. Mine is fine. But the others probably still suffer a little bit

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I don’t think anyone should zoom ingame. I personally set zoom 75% then remove the hotkey binds to it. I understand it’s lower quality but the first one is not that bad for users that do not own an ssd drive.

It’s a preference, really

Not important, but sometimes could be useful