Empire: Total War Message Board  

I've been looking around and so far have not found much info with a particular problem that I have with game settings. Before I start, my basic specs (it's a laptop):

2.4Ghz Core2 Duo
4gb RAM
Vista
Nvidia 8600M GS 256Mb

Now, dont get me wrong but so far my game has been running fine (hopefully it stays that way). My problem, though, is under game settings, for the video part, my max allowed setting is medium. All high and ultra settings are disabled, and not even selectable (except for unit size). Yes, I have selected Shader 3 (high). Another weird thing is that when I select Shader 3 (high), I get some options enabled, like HDR, hardware shadows etc. but high and ultra settings still disabled. Fine. I turn on some of them. Then when I leave the settings menu, and go back to settings again, all those options become disabled but Shader 3 (high) is still selected. I hope that someone can help me understand the problem.

My guess is it's the mobile GPU. Not nearly as powerful as it's desktop counterpart. The game must not want your laptop to start on fire.

First, that reply made me LOL
Second, on a more serious note, I have tried running more demanding games on my PC that works fine on high settings, albeit a little slow. GTA4, brothers in arms, witcher all run rather well on high settings. Oh well. Looks like i'm stuck with subpar graphics

On the topic of graphics SLI is still a no go for empire. Its recommanded spec is single via forceware 182.06 and attempt to force sli ends in crash.

system spec:

Nvidia gtx 285 SLI
Core 2 quad overclock 3.3 ghz
4gb 1066 timing (5 4 4 12) DDR 2